The origins of social realism

In the article Social Realism: How the Black Death Changed Art and Literature Conrad Clough argues that the plague caused seminal changes to European story telling:

The plague forced Europeans to readjust their views however, spawning a number of different social movements. The movement this article will be examining really seemed to begin in the 14th century, and is an ability to objectively look at society in a way that might be called “Social Realism”, this social realism examined the ways that all people were alike, cast light on to the lives of people of social classes that had never really been looked at before, and for the first time showed women as persons in their own right, a concept that would later reach fruition in renaissance humanism.

Conrad Clough