Recommended background reading:
Charters, Appendix 1: "Storytelling Before the Emergence of the Short Story"  pp. 983-994
Charters, Appendix 2: "A Brief History of the Short Story"  pp. 995-1001

1. Development of Literature

nEpic of Gilgamesh Mesopotamia, 3rd c. BCE
nHistories of Herodotus, Thucydides Greece, 5th c. BCE
nAesop’s Fables Greek slave 6th c. BCE & Panchatantra India CE 3rd c. - Beast & human stories with morals
nSatyricon - Petronius CE 1st c.: told series of fictional “realistic” tales told at banquet about Nero’s Rome
nA Thousand & One Nights Persian fairy tales collected CE 1000
nGesta Romanorum ca. CE 1300 medieval& Rom-an legends, fables, tales

2. “beware secular eloquence!” --St. Thomas Aquinas, 13th c.

nThe Decameron of Boccaccio: series of traveler’s tales in country refuge from the Plague
nCanterbury Tales of Chaucer: pilgrims’ religious & secular tales -vernacular verse
n“Realistic” portraits of contemporary life, often bawdy
nDisclaimers: offer “good” instruction, not just entertainment
nMedieval distrust of fictions, imaginative lit. for pleasure

3. Printing Press - 1455; Development of Prose Fiction

nSpread of literacy in vernacular (vs. Latin)
nStandardizes “texts”
nStimulates dev. of new genres: journalism, mass periodicals, personal “essai” (= attempt), novel (=new)
nGenre Theory: genres evolve w/ changing values, spirit of age, culture, artist
nDon Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes, 1605: “picaresque” novel
nLa Princesse de Cleves - Mme. de Lafayette, end 17th c.: society & manners
nRobinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe, 1719: presented as “true” memoir

 

4. Rise of the Novel & Literary Realism: 18th-19th c.

nIndustrial Revolution
nRise of “leisured” Middle Class & spread of literacy education to lower classes
nNew book markets for professional writers open; Periodical press & lending libraries
nFamily & Street Corner entertainment: “serial” novels, essays, fictional “sketches”
n“Epistolary” novels of Richardson & Fielding
nCharacter (Pamela, 1740) vs. Plot (Tom Jones, 1748)

5.  European Romanticism (fr. Mid-18th c.)

nFolklore & Popular Arts of “uncultivated” “spontaneous” volk [Grimms’ fairy tales, folk song & ballad], oral traditions of peasants, noble “primitives”
nShakespeare: myth of popular, untutored, rule-breaking, original “genius”
nMedievalism & Gothic Romance: Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1765), medieval legend
nLit.of “Sensibility”= virtue: Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
nvs. Jane Austen: Sense & Sensibility (wr. 1787 – pub. 1811)

6. Romantic Revolution in Literature: late 18th-early 19th c.

nValues:  Originality, imagination, artistic freedom, individual feelings, personal vision, emotion of author/poet-seer
nPoetry =“spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions”; intuitive, inspired original genius
>Wm. Wordsworth
nPoet-Seers turn inward
nLyric Revival: personal expression of mind, emotion, thought process of poet-speaker “I”
nIndividual authority, subjective experience, emotion & intuition, visionary imagination
n“natural” genius, common language, simplicity of the common folk, children

7. Literary Romanticism, cont.

nInnovation, experimentation in subject, form, style
nMix genres, break “rules; “Organicism”
nPopular genres: auto/ biography, gothic romance, horror & criminal stories
nFascinations: super-natural & magical;  psychology of eccentric, outcast, wanderer, criminal
nFaust-ian Solitary quests & dangerous self-exploration = reward: higher wisdom & “invisible” truths
nSatan, Prometheus, Cain: outlaws,rebels, outcasts, non-conformists, exiles
nJourneys into hell & human nature’s dark side, confront “warring contraries”

 

     8.  Poe’s precursors

nGrimm’s Fairy Tales fascinate German Romantics like E.T.A. Hoffman (1766-1822)
nNachstuche (trans. “Strange Stories”), 1817: original prose works - mixtures of fantasy & horror
nInfluence American Romanticism: e.g., Washington Irving, Sketchbook (1819-1820): “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle” use native US legend, folklore traditions

  9.  (“Dark”) Romanticism

nThe “Romance”: colorful, adventurous, heroic, fantastic: idealized / sensational-ized views of life
n “strange” stories of the  non-normative, original, imaginative, extra-ordinary
nSettings: exotic, remote, subterranean times & places
nWorlds of fantasy, myth, dream, magic
nExplorations of  the dark side of the self & unconscious, the hidden, “subterranean”

 10. Poe’s Characters & Plots

nIntense, obsessive, violent characters;  emotional excess of  unlawful passions, anti-social desires
nMontresor hates intensely, plots & pursues his revenge obsessively
nBut his “madness” pursued with deadly shrewd &  “logical” method
nPlots highly patterned but “believable”: organized by logic of cause-effect out of criminal’s motivation

11. Poe’s Aesthetics of the “Prose Tale”

nUnify all elements to create “single effect or impression”
nIntense “effect” possible because prose tale is short--can be read uninterrupted in single sitting  - like the best poetry
nSo “…the soul of the reader is at the writer’s control”
nEvery word, detail must count/help create the dominant “effect”
n“Truth” is “the aim of the tale” & its field is vast & various

 12. 19th c. Literary Realism

n“Realistic” novel becomes dominant in 19th c. >Industrial Revolution, rise of middle class, literacy
nSubject: everyday events, lives, relation-ships of middle/lower class people
n“mirror” held up to (human) nature - (Shakespeare, but...
n“slice of  life” as ordinary people of contemporary times live it in society, caught up by social, economic forces

13. Literary Realism, cont.

nMore objective, ironic “disillusioned” view of life -expose/exploit gaps betw. ideal/real, appearance/actuality
nControversial frankness about social problems, questions of the times
nArt’s Critical Function
nMixed characters (good + bad, strong + weak), not idealized
nProtagonist (not “hero”) vs. antagonist (not “villain”) = conflict

14. “Illusionists” of “reality”:  Hide the Art(ifice)

nPlots: deterministic logic, plausible dramas of social causes & their consequences
nParticularized settings & circumstances (of time, place, speech, customs, socio-economic situation)
nSensory “physical” descriptions (pre-TV)
nDisappearing author/ narrator: distanced, “objective”, “disem-bodied” voice
n “Show” (vs. “tell”) in dialogue, action, carefully selected detail

      15. Realistic elements

nClass lines are drawn: haves vs. have nots
nRealistic detail accumulates
nRegionalism: rooted in time & place
nPlausible plot – ironic coincidences, surprise ending carefully worked out
n“Authenticating” structures to make this “strange story” believable

nPretense reader is not there – author-reader contract: “suspend disbelief”

16. Mid & Later 19th c. Artistic Currents

nImpressionism
nPhotography
nCapture intense but fleeting “impressions” of present moment of experience
n“Snapshots of reality”: suggestive (visual) fragments of life
nNovels [“Baggy monsters”--Henry James’s term] become shorter, tighter - fewer events, characters
nShort fiction gains ground: innovations of Maupassant & Chekhov

17.  Short Story: a “poetics of immediacy” --Sarah Hardy, 1993

n Brevity & density define this genre
n Beginnings are key: quick immersion in fictional world; create common frame of understanding (community); get audience to agree to “play” seriously
n Short stories may not begin “gently…”, nor their endings resolve…
n “Open” form: Readers are to engage imaginatively: co-create meaning, fill the gaps, complete & validate the teller’s story

18.  The “Contract” [again]

n Audience must agree to “play” the imaginative game (“suspend disbelief”)
n Atwood: “...your life as the writer of each particular story is only as long, and as good, as the story itself.”
n “the speaking voice” mediates reader-listener’s access to the story, but it is a…
n …“double-voiced” dialogue (Bakhtin) between teller & listener each with active roles in making meaning.

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