The Influence of the Past
The short story is actually rooted in the oral tradition
of the distant past before the existence of written language.
The earliest narratives evolved out of the need to share the
experience of life with one another.
In addition to the purely entertaining aspects of storytelling,
oral cultures used it for a number of purposes:
1. To explain how things came to be (myths and legends)
2. To record episodes of history as well as preserve
useful information (epics, ballads, and sagas)
3. Didacticism: (fables and parables)
Once writing had been invented, the written word allowed
writers to explore specific and individual complexities of life.
Short Story: Historical Perspective
Time Frame:
(circa) 3500 BC Egyptians: songs to regale Pharaohs, in narrative form
Old testament stories, e.g. Creation story in Genesis, stories of Moses, Ruth,
and Jonah and the whale
Greeks and Romans: episodes and anecdotes in classical narratives,
Aesop's fables
Life of Christ: Christ uses parables to teach his disciples
Middle ages: fables and epics about beasts
13th century: Gesta Romanurum, collection of tales
14th century: Decameron and Canterbury Tales
15th century: Le Morte Darthur, collection of tales about Knighthood
(circa 1450: Invention of movable type (Guttenberg); printing of bible)
Guttenberg Bible: Library of Congress
Embellished Page from the Guttenberg Bible
Kennedy and Gioia: Discussion of
Related Varieties of Fiction
Traditional forms of story telling
Fable: A brief story that sets forth some pointed
statement of truth (moral/didactic)
Textbook selections:
“The Appointment In Samarra,”
“The North Wind and the Sun,”
“The Camel and His friends”
Common Characteristics:
Content: often incidents that relate to the unusual, sometimes
supernatural; many of which have their origin in folklore sources.
Characters: often anthropomorphized animals, (beast fable) but
people and/or supernatural figures may appear
Structure: ‘skin and bones,” sketched, lacks decoration--depth of
character and setting; everything leads to the usually explicit moral,
hence pedagogic in its purpose
Traditional forms of story telling, cont.
Parable: A brief story that also sets forth some pointed
statement of truth, but it is more realistic and often allegorical
Textbook selection: “Independence”; Also mentioned: one of the most
famous of Christ’s parables, “The Prodigal Son.” (chp 6), pp. 164-65
Common Characteristics:
Content: often incidents that relate to the mysterious or suggestive in
tone
Characters: often humans, rather than anthropomorphized animals,
or natural forces.
Structure: Although also didactic in its purpose, the parable’s moral is
often implicit, and the meaning may have various interpretations;
The arrangement of events is often more plausible.
A parable by Tuli Kupferberg:
Once there was an atomic bomb who
longed desperately to be a bullet. “Why,” said his
fellow atomic bombs, “when you can be the most
powerfully destructive weapon in the world would
you want to be a bullet?” The atomic bomb
sighed and said, “I miss the personal touch.”
Please write what you think is the meaning of this parable?
Traditional forms of story telling, cont.
Tale: A brief story that sets forth strange and wonderful
events without detail of character. Sometimes short story and tale
were used interchangebly.
Textbook selection: “Godfather Death,” Brothers Grimm
Types: Tall Tale, Fairy Tale
Common Characteristics:
Content: often incidents that relate to the fantastic or supernatural
Characters: often humans, but they are not delineated
Structure: May be complicated or not, but lacks the conscious
structure of a short story; it is usually used to denote any short
narrative, true or fictitious.
More recent “relatives” of the short story
16th century: the picaresque novel
18th century: the novel (roman is the European term)
Roman/ce
Both are continuing tributes to the human love of narrative
and important factors in the development of a “formal” kind
of storytelling
19th century, the short story flowered; there was
a conscious formulation of this type of narrative
as an art form.
Notable among the founders of the modern short story:
In America:
Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Edgar Allen Poe Herman Melville
In France: Guy de Maupassant
and Prosper Mérimée
In Germany: E. T. A. Hoffman
In Russia: Anton Chekhov
Edgar Allan Poe
1809- 1849
The Short Story
Definition: It is a relatively brief narrative in prose
Length: It may may range in length from 500 words
up to 12,000 to 20,000 words (“long-short story”)
Extensive diminution: Flash Fiction, Nano Fiction, Twitterfic
Characteristics: definite formal development; a firmness
in construction; unity is found in overall effect, plot,
theme, character, mood, point of view, tone and style.
Purpose: It tends to reveal character through a
series of actions or under stress, the effect being
accomplished when the reader comes to know what
the true nature of the character is (whereas the novel
shows character developing under the impact of events).
James Joyce’s description: epiphany-- because of its
quality of “revelation”
Commercial Fiction
Written for entertainment
Takes us away from reality
Objective is pleasure
Literary Fiction
Written to broaden, deepen,
and sharpen our awareness
of life
Takes us deeper into reality
Objective is understanding
World of Fiction
fictio =“shaping,
counterfeiting”
Presents an
insight--large
or small-- into
the nature of
our existence
Characters: Sympathetic hero or
heroine often stock figures
Structure: A plot which
emphasizes action and suspense
“Fixed expectations” of readers
of Commercial Fiction
Ending: A happy one that doesn't
move the reader beyond one plane
of reality
Theme: (if there is one) usually a
message that is rooted in predictability
Literary fiction
Any fiction that illuminates some aspect of human
life or behavior with genuine originality and power
may be called literary. Such a story presents an
insight--whether large or small--into the nature and
condition of our existence. It gives us a keener
awareness of our humanity within a universe that
is sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile. It helps
us to understand our world, our neighbors, ourselves.
As you begin your excursion into literary fiction,
please include in your mental backpack
The semblance of reality in dramatic or nondramatic fiction.
The concept implies that either the action represented must be
acceptable or convincing according to the audience’s own
experience or knowledge or, as in the presentation of science
fiction or tales of the supernatural, the audience must be enticed into
willingly suspending disbelief and accepting improbable
actions as true within the framework of the narrative.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Cell Phone, c. 1970
Cell Phone, c. 2011
IBM Selectric typeball,
1961
Malling Hansen Writing Ball, 1870
Replica of Gutenberg’s Printer, c. 1455
The print brush: one of the world’s smallest printers
Model of the first transistor
World’s smallest transistor
Ancient design for a garden
ENIAC 1946 One of the first computers
The space cube: one of the world’s smallest computers
Book Repository
Modern Book Repository
Modern Book Repository
So, what has not gone through a
miniaturization evolution?
1950’s TV
Panasonic 152 inch 3D Plasma