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Realism is one of the terms in Literature and Literary Criticism which entails multiple meanings. It can be applied both to a certain Nineteenth-Century literary movement and to a style in storytelling which endeavors to, as far as possible, depict life as it really is. This article tries to investigate the features of Realism after briefly going through different interpretations of the term and various approaches to analyzing Realistic works. So firstly, Realism has been explored as a historical concept as opposed to Romanticism and then its features have been presented. Following that, the social essence of the author’s weltanschauung reflected in Realistic works, and the radical ideological approach of Social Realism have been expounded. Based upon scholar’s opinions, verisimilitude in Realism has been evaluated in two sections: verisimilitude in relation to society and verisimilitude related to literary texts. And finally the views of the opponents and critics of Realism have been briefly held out.  

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This study intends to investigate verisimilitude techniques and provisions in early Persian novels. In order to do this, various techniques of verisimilitude deployed in novels written from 1300 to 1320 (1920-1940) are extracted and categorized. Then the rationale behind this usage and their relation to the conventions and presuppositions of the novel on one hand, and the social context of that period on the other hand, are analyzed. The authors of that period have vouched for the reality of the events of the stories from authentification narrative strategies and at time, quite directly, presented some viewpoints concerning the relation of the novels’ content to reality, asserting those events as the reiteration of objective realities. Insistence on rendering the events of the novel as reality has its roots in the embryonic nature of this medium, belief in pedagogical function of the novel, prejudices against this new medium, and the intellectuals’ belligerent stance on it.