The scientific and industrial revolutions and the debate over idealism and realism helped to stimulate an explosion of creativity and artistic experimentation that transformed the novel, drama, and the fine arts.
The gap between “genteel” writing and the cruder and more vigorous forms was widening because so much important work was produced and encouraged by men and women in conscious revolt against the tastes of the politically and economically dominant class of their time—that is, the middle class.
