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The short story, as a form in English writing, can best be defined in this manner: |
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The short story, as a form in English writing, can best be defined in this manner: |
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Perhaps the first short story written in the English Language, the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 755 AD gives us a good idea of what the core purpose of a short story might be. |
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Perhaps the first short story written in the English Language, the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year [755 AD]? gives us a good idea of what the core purpose of a short story might be. |
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Essentially, what we have here is the evolution of a new form that seems to rise spontaneously to meet a need. Because the Chronicle as we have it now was compiled by King Alfred the Great near the turn of the last millenium, we might assume that this piece long post-dates earlier English prose writing like Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. But actually the chronicle is a compilation of numerous older sources and we can safely say that the older entries especially are much nearer to their stated dates than the compilation as a whole. But I digress. What is important here is that the Chronicle is almost entirely composed of brief entries like the following: |
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Essentially, what we have here is the evolution of a new form that seems to rise spontaneously to meet a need. Because the Chronicle as we have it now was compiled by King Alfred the Great near the turn of the last millennium, we might assume that this piece long post-dates earlier English prose writing like Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. But the chronicle is actually a compilation of numerous older sources and we can safely say that the older entries especially are much nearer to their stated dates than the compilation as a whole. The Chronicle is almost entirely composed of brief entries like the following: |
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That is the eternal conundrum of the short story, and its longer prose? brethren. |
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That is the eternal conundrum of the short story, and its longer prose? brethren. |
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Since the chronicle was printed, short stories have had spurts of popularity and long periods of absence. [Geofrey Chaucer]?, in his book [Canterbury Tales]? wrote a collection of something close to short stories. And folk tradition from the beginning of time has contained something narrative that wasn't precisely poetry that we might imagine to be a short story ([Little Red Riding Hood]?, anyone?) But the short story as we know it today didn't really come about until the end of the eighteenth century. |
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Since the chronicle was printed, short stories have had spurts of popularity and long periods of absence. Geoffrey Chaucer, in his book [Canterbury Tales]? wrote a collection of something close to short stories. And folk tradition from the beginning of time has contained something narrative that wasn't precisely poetry that we might imagine to be a short story ([Little Red Riding Hood]?, anyone?) But the short story as we know it today didn't emerge as a popular form until the end of the eighteenth century. |
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Magazines are the venue of the modern short story. [St. Nicholas]? was an early venue for the tales of Washington Irving for example. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, [Herman Mellville]?, and all of the rest created these brief tales because they fit nicely amongst the advertisements and the recipes. The desire to tell a short tale in prose may stem from its resemblance to the writing of history, the sense of authority and verisimiltude that is lent to it by its Non-Poeticness. Certainly our old chronicler decided that what he had was good enough for a chronicle, but not worth the time for a poem. And he may even have preferred his stodgy, literate prose form to the florid oral poetry of his day. It is a form that forces you into a one on one connection with the author in a private setting. It demands a kind of attention and committment that oral poetry typically can't match. And for that reason, prose can command a kind of weight and import that links more to the dry and austere world of history. But certainly into modern times, those aesthetic concerns were bolstered substantially by the fact that magazines didn't have room for whole novels. Nor did they have as much use for poetry which seems to waste all of that perfectly could paper with a lot of white space. |
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Magazines are the venue of the modern short story. [St. Nicholas]? was an early venue for the tales of Washington Irving for example. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, [Herman Mellville]?, and others like them created these brief tales because they fit nicely amongst the advertisements and the recipes. The desire to tell a short tale in prose may stem from its resemblance to the writing of history, the sense of authority and verisimiltude that prose uniquely confers. Due to its origins in historical writing, prose can command weight and import . It is a form that forces you into a one-on-one connection with the author in a private setting. It demands a kind of attention and committment that oral poetry typically can't match. Certainly our old chronicler decided that what he had was good enough for a chronicle, but not worth the time for a poem. He may even have preferred his stodgy, literate prose form to the florid oral poetry of his day. But certainly into modern times, those aesthetic concerns were bolstered substantially by the fact that magazines didn't have room for whole novels. Nor did they have as much use for poetry which seems to waste all of that perfectly could paper with a lot of white space. |
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And so the modern short story was born. A combination of aesthetics and economics. |
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Thus the modern short story was born from a combination of aesthetics and economics. |
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And its concerns remain very much the same now as they were 1000 years ago. There is a kind of austerity to the prose short story. It's no mistake that it was in this form that the Edgar Allan Poe invented th detective story. There is no better form to mimic the cold, clear style of a police report or a newspaper account. And its no wonder that newspaper man Ernest Hemingway picked up the form one hundred years after Poe. There is nothing so earthy, nothing so two-fisted, as the prose short story written in English. |
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Its concerns remain very much the same now as they were 1000 years ago. There is a kind of austerity to the prose short story. It's no accident that Edgar Allan Poe used this form to invent the detective story. There is no better form to mimic the cold, clear style of a police report or a newspaper account. And its no wonder that newspaper man Ernest Hemingway picked up the form one hundred years after Poe. |
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Certainly the form has many practioners and many styles. These days especially, it traipses about the range of possible styles and genres, flirting with all sorts of poetic abstractions and excesses. And that is healthy and good and beautiful. But what was true 1000 years ago is still true today: The short story is a quick form set for quick action. It is a form rich with knives, casual murders, and sudden explosions. One night stands rule over long affairs, and ephemerality dominates over substances and longevity. There is no space, nor desire, for the weighty and lengthy examinations of the novel or epic poem. Only quick truthes need apply: epiphanies, suprises, twist endings and suicides. Novels are divine because they, like God, go one forever. But short stories are the perfect miorror of man, quick and mortal, never to last long on the world. |
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Certainly the form has many practioners and many styles. These days especially, it traipses about the range of possible styles and genres, flirting with all sorts of poetic abstractions and excesses. Nonetheless, what was true 1000 years ago is still true today: The short story is a quick form set for quick action. Ephemerality dominates over longevity. There is no space, nor desire, for the weighty and lengthy examinations of the novel or epic poem. Only quick truths need apply: epiphanies, suprises, twist endings and suicides. Novels are divine because they, like gods, go on forever. But short stories are the perfect mirror of mortal man. |
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Short Story Authors: * Edgar Allan Poe * H. P. Lovecraft * Ernest Hemingway * Nathaniel Hawthorne * Washington Irving * [Herman Mellville]? * [F. Scott Fitzegerald]? * J. D. Salinger * [Raymond Carver]? * [T. C. Boyle]? * Charles Baxter |
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See: Short story authors |
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