Modernist literature and art have been dominated by a disinterest in mere empirical and social reality and a discontent with habitualized perception and the world-view of convention, reason, and pragmatism. This anti-realistic attitude originated in the epistemological scepticism of the early 20th century which was even radicalized by the advent of the »linguistic turn«, constructivism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. Yet it would be a gross simplification to describe the 20th century flatly and globally as an age of anti-realism.