IT 309 ITALIAN AND ENGLISH SHORT FICTION
You are required to write an essay of no less than 3,000 words on one of the topics
listed below. This is an assessed essay, which contributes 25% to the total mark
awarded for this module. (NB: Erasmus students produce an essay of 2500 words.)
Two word-processed copies of your essay must be handed in to Harpal Singh, the
Italian Departmental Secretary (H405), by 4pm on
Monday 28th April 2014 (term 3, week 2)
See your Third/Fourth Year Handbook and the Department’s Guide to Essay Writing
for full details of how to produce and submit an assessed essay. You are reminded of
the penalty for late submission of assessed course work:
5% of the total mark attainable (100%) per day of late submission will be deducted
from the mark awarded for the work, up to the maximum of 20% deducted from work
submitted on the Friday of the week of the deadline. Work submitted after the Friday
will be awarded a mark of zero.
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Remember that you must not duplicate material used in your first assessed
essay for this module.
You are free to devise a topic of your own choice on which to write your
essay, but if you choose this option, you must seek your tutor’s approval of the
topic in advance.
In any case, your discussion must refer substantially to at least three stories.
Questions:
1. ‘The tension between the exigencies of closure and those of possibility is one
of the principal sustaining forces of this remarkably complex textual edifice’
(Forni, on the Decameron). Discuss, with reference to any short stories you
have studied in term 2, the importance of and relationship between closure and
possibility.
2. Examine the importance of dreams in the short story.
3. Discuss the importance of alternative modes of communication in the short
story, and in particular, the use of the body.
4. ‘Everything is unheimlich (uncanny) that ought to have remained secret and
hidden but has come to light’ (Freud). Discuss the importance of secrets,
revelation and ‘the uncanny’ in the short story.
5. ‘The novelist’s strength lies precisely in the fact that he invents, that he is
absolutely free to invent, without a model. One remarkable thing about the
modern narrative is that it deliberately affirms this quality, even to the point
where invention and imagination may finally become the subject of the book’
(Robbe-Grillet). Discuss, with reference to short fiction.
6. Discuss the narrative function of dialogue, and the presence of contemporary
vernacular in the short story. What is the relationship between spoken dialogue
and the language of the narration in these texts?
7. ‘Most great art relies more heavily on suspense than on surprise. One can
rarely reread works depending on surprise; the surprise gone, the interest is
gone’ (Sylvan Barnet). Is this true of the short stories you have studied?
8. ‘Characterisation’ differs to an extraordinary extent from one mode of short
fiction to another. Discuss the narrative and thematic function of such
variations.
9. Is there room for ‘salvation’ in the modern short story?
10. Discuss the process of literary evolution in the short story. How have these
texts expressed changing approaches to narrative, form and function?
11. Discuss the role played by the senses and by sensory perception in short
fiction.
12. Discuss the narrative and thematic function in short fiction of one of the
following:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
voyeurism
free indirect discourse
shifts in linguistic register
psychological disturbance
allegory and/or symbolism
violence
the experience of movement in space
stereotypes