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The American Short Story

A presentation by Henrik Karrie Justus Liebig Universität Gießen Wintersemester 2011/12 07 December 2011. The American Short Story. predecessors.

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The American Short Story

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  1. A presentation by Henrik Karrie Justus Liebig Universität Gießen Wintersemester 2011/12 07 December 2011 The American Short Story

  2. predecessors • oral story-telling traditions produced epics (Homer´s Iliad and Odyssey - Troyan War - King Agamemnon vs. Achilles) 800 BC in form of rhyming or rhythmic verse • fables by Aesop (Greek slave 600 BC) stories with a moral to criticize the system • anecdotes in the Roman Empire (44 BC to 1453 AD) functioned as a parable, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. These anecdotes were collected in the 13th or 14th century as the Gesta Romanorum. • in Europe oral story-telling began in the 14th century (Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron). • mid 17th century France saw the development of a refined short novel, called “nouvelle“

  3. Definition I • work of fiction • written in prose • often narrative format • length can differ immensely (1000 - 20000 words) • reason: author´s preference • “One should be able to read it in one sitting“ (E. A. Poe) • stories with less than 1000 words are called “flash fiction“

  4. definition II • short stories can be seen as a small suitcase – only the most important things should be put in • the place it takes place it not so important for the plot • a short story has only one plot – a novel can have more (for example a love and a crime story) • story time (time of plot) should be about a short period • setting shouldn´t change often • only a few persons should act • names are often unknown • character should act in a way that the narrator doesn´t need to describe their emotions • 1st person narrators are more interesting because they don´t know everything

  5. Definition III • the illusion of being part of the situation on the reader´s behalf is stronger if the narrator and the reader don´t know what´s going on • non-heroes are – in contrast to a novel - in the focus of the plot • short stories “like“ losing people who have failed • these protagonists are shown in a snapshot • everything that happened before and that will happen afterward has to be constructed by the reader • flashbacks (retrospectives) are rare • short stories and photographs are similar • a good short story causes visualisations and konfigurations on the reader´s behalf • as a result the reader constructs his own frames and verifies them with his own experiences

  6. How to write a short story • How to write a short story

  7. How to create a short story • Read a book about writing short stories (Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight) • Create an open beginning, a middle, and the open ending • You need a person (alien, rabbit, human being etc.) • The person has a problem and tries to solve it - success is not necessary • The protagonist may fail but learns something • The protagonist doesn´t have to be satisfied, the reader must be satisfied • The protagonist should be changed because that´s what readers like: change • Ideally what you have is at least two ideas going on at the same time. • Intersection (Überschneidung) of 2 ideas and see how they will both affect your story

  8. 1790 - 1850 • Early examples of short stories between 1790-1810: 1789: beginnings of short fiction in American magazines: Azakia: A Canadian Story (1st publ.1767), The Story of the Captain's Wife and an Aged Woman (1st publ. 1789, author anonymous) • 1805: Charles Brockden Brown's Somnambulism • 1815: Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • 1822: Irving´s Bracebridge Hall: or The Humorists (publ. in England) • 1824: Irving´s Tales of a Traveller (publ. in England)

  9. 1830 – 1865 (Romantic Period) • l830-2 -- Nathaniel Hawthorne's earliest tales Provincial Tales and Seven Tales of My Native Land • l832 -- Edgar Allan Poe's first tale Metzengerstein • l833 -- William Gilmore Simms' The Book of My Lady • l833-5 -- Hawthorne's The Story Teller • l836-8 -- Poe edits Southern Literary Messenger, reviews short fiction (inc. Longstreet). • l837 -- Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales • l840 -- Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque • l842 -- 2nd edition of Twice-Told Tales • l842-7 -- Early anthologies of American literature published, including The Prose Writers of America. • l843 -- Poe's The Prose Romances of Edgar Allan Poe

  10. Herman Melville • l845 -- William T. Porter's The Big Bear of Arkansas, and Other Sketches • l846 -- Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse • l847 -- Porter's A Quarter Race in Kentucky, and Other Sketches • l850 -- Herman Melville's review/essay, Hawthorne and his Mosses • l856 -- Melville's The Piazza Tales (inc. Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno and The Encantadas) • l857 -- Atlantic Monthly established. • Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. • Moby Dick, Billy Bud • Successful in the late 1840s, almost forgotten in 1891 1819 - 1891

  11. Bartleby The Scrivener (1853) • narrator is about 60 years old, he´s a lawyer • 3 workers in his office: • Turkey: also about 60, good in the mornings, deteriorating in the afternoon (makes mistakes and gets an ill temper), doesn´t avoid arguments. • Nippers: about 25 years old, different from Turkey, problems (stomach problems) when working in the morning, calmer and steadier working in the afternoons. • Ginger Nut: 12 years old errand-boy, Turkey and Nippers often send him to get ginger nut cakes for them.

  12. Bartleby He´s the new scrivener, described as “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!“ At the beginning he´s a real asset but soon he declines everything (“I would prefer not to“). The narrator firstly tries to help him and shows compassion but later he fires him – but in vain. Bartleby is back in the office and the narrator is not able to cope with the situation. The latter moves to a new office. Bartleby is left back in the empty office and is a nuisance for the others in that building.

  13. Bartleby´s end Bartleby dies at the end. The narrator gives the reader some hints: Bartleby had been, following rumours, a clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington before he came to the lawyer. “Dead letters! Does it not sound like dead men?“, the narrator asks. The narrator obviously realizes that Bartleby got sick by copying all those texts/contracts about money and materialism.

  14. So what is your interpretation?

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