Shorthouse
JOSEPH HENRY, an English novelist; born in Birmingham, England, Sept. 9, 1834. His best-known novel is "John Inglesant" (1881). His other works include: "The Little Schoolother works include: "The Little School- master, Mark" (1883-1884) "Sir Percival" (1886) ; "A Teacher of the Violin" (1888); "Blanche, Lady Fal "The Humorous in Literature"; etc. He (1888) ; "Blanche, Lady Falaise" (1891) died in 1903.
Falaise" (1891); died in 1903. short story, which passes from tongue to SHORT STORY, THE. The anecdotal tongue, and has done so since the earliest times, is no more a literary form than it may pass into literature. The literary short story is of course a much later it may pass into literature. The literary tered through the ancient literature of the Orient, of Greece, and of Rome.
Notable examples of early short stories of a more or less literary character are to be found in famous collections, such as in the so-called "Arabian Nights," East, and in some obscurely distant period, worked their way through many languages and centuries and came into Europe in the Middle Ages.
So far as modern literature is concerned, the importance of the literary short story really begins with the later Middle Ages in western Europe. Here, in two literatures, it became a recognized form of literary art, and was widely translated and imitated elsewhere in Europe. in two literatures, it became a recognized form of literary art, and was widely translated and imitated elsewhere in Eutury, humorous, often indecent, told or sung by the minstrels as an offset to romances and love lyrics. They represent the unromantic and often the seamy side stories, originating in about the 12th cen- tury, humorous, often indecent, told or Sens" of Jean le Galois d'Aubepierre is an example. Many fabliau plots are still mances and love lyrics. They represent the unromantic and often the seamy side ries.
More important were the novelle, brief prose stories, usually u but not always real- SHORT STORY form. They were written from the late lized trading communities of Florence, though their plots are often old, they are given a local time and place, and are impregnated with the customs, the ideals, Venice, and elsewhere in Italy, and though their plots are often old, they are impregnated with the customs, the ideals, given a local time and place, and are im tragic, the romantic, as well as the husance.
The range of the novella was wider than that of the fabliau. The morous and the anecdotal, were admitted tragic, the romantic, as well as the huof great writers like Boccaccio, and lesser into its compact brevity; and the novelle men, like Bandello and Straparola, have become sources for some of our exempla, brief, didactic narratives told Mention only may be made here of the Juliet" are examples. best Mention only may be made here of the a saint and ending in a moral, collections, usually in Latin, throughout the Middle Ages. The fable, a special form of the didactic short story, was still exempla, brief, didactic narratives told ble, a special usually of a sa the Middle Ages. The fable , form of the didactic short story, was still collections, usually in Latin, throughout another popular variety and likewise drifted in great collections across Europe and into all the important vernaculars.
In English these various types of short stories had a sudden flowering in the cer, at the end of the 14th century, took works of one great author. Geoffrey Chau- cer, at the end of the 14th century, took the fabliau, the novella, the exemplum, the fable (which came to him through the so-called beast epic of "Reynard the Fox"), and filling old plots with his own humor and shrewd observation made "The Canterbury Tales," which remain for the English-speaking reader the best summary of the earlier periods of the literary short story.
The short story of the period of the turies, is relatively unimportant. It is in all the greater European literatures turies, is relatively unimportant. It is a kind of expanded novella, usually florid In English, the stories in phrasing, and adorned with a rather empty romance. of Greene and Lodge, which Shakespeare read, are favorable examples. respect for concision in writing, were riods of a new didacticism and a renewed Here belongs the simple and direct short better seeding grounds for the short story. conclusion upon some aspect of life or narrative which usually reflects in its human nature, though often no moral is attached. The French called this the conte, and it was written in such perfect his "Fables"), in prose by Voltaire, Marhas remained constant ever since in montel, and Diderot, that the tradition French literature. In England, the pehas remained constant ever since in French literature. In England, the pe- SHORT STORY Johnson, developed a briefer, more highly moral form of short story, which was appended usually to their essays.
The modern short story, as we have it in English today, is a product of the Romantic movement at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. In French, concision and unity have always been characteristic of the short story, and the change in form has been less great.
Books and magazines in the early nineteenth century are full of short narratives which deal with the horrible, the mysterious, the pitiful. Many of these were written by, or imitated from, the stories of the so-called German romantic school, J. L. Tieck, de la Motte Fouqué, A. Hoffman, etc. Occasionally these stories, as with Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" (1819), or Sir Walter Scott's "Wandering Willie's Tale" (1824), are clear and beautiful in form, but usually they are rambling, turgid, and often pointless. The taste for didactic stories had disappeared. The growth of the magazine had created a real need for short stories that were effective. The problem was first worked out in America.
Edgar Allan Poe, already a poet of ability in the romantic manner, applied, in the attempt to write stories of horror and mystery that would grip the imagination, the principle of narrative suspense. In "Ligeia" (1838), "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839), "The Mosque of the Red Death" (1842), he made a single vivid impression the result of the reading of his story; accomplishing this in part by a carefully toned style, but more particularly by consciously directing the interest of the reader from the very first sentence toward the climax of his story. The result was a kind of short story that in spite of its brevity did make an effect on the imagination. In other words, Poe achieved a higher unity for the short story.
The story of weird romanticism has gone out of fashion, but the method Poe used has remained a prime factor in writing short stories. In America Hawthorne, with his "Twice-Told Tales" (1837, 1842) was little influenced by it, because his moral tales were based upon situations which themselves gave unity to the story. But Bret Harte (see "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," 1869), T. B.
Aldrich (see "Marjorie Daw," 1873), F; R. Stockton (see "The Lady or the Tiger," 1882); the writers of local color short stories, such as Sarah Orne Jewett (see "A Native of Winby," 1893), and Hamlin Garland (see "Main Traveled Roads," 1891); O. Henry (see "The Four Million," 1906), Edith Wharton (see "Crucial Instances," 1901, and "Ethan Frome," 1911), SHOSHONE FALLS and the magazine writers of today, are all deeply indebted to Poe for this artificial but very effective method of giving high specific gravity to a short story. Henry James, however (see, for example, "The Madonna of the Future," 1873, or "The Real Thing," 1893), trusted to a single subtle situation as the factor of unity in his stories.
In England, the really important shortstory writers have been less numerous. Rudyard Kipling (see for example, "Soldiers Three," 1888, and "They," 1904), learned his art from Bret Harte and Henry James, but chose his material from fresh fields. R. L. Stevenson (see "Markheim," 1885) is, in short narrative, Hawthorne's most evident disciple. In France, the tradition of the simple conte has been carried on by Prosper Mérimée (see "Mateo Falcone," 1829), Alphonse Daudet (see "Contes du Lundi," 1873), Guy de Maupassant (see "Contes du Jour et de la Nuit," 1885), Anatole France (see "Les Sept Femmes de la Barbe-Bleue," 1909), and many others.
In Russia with Ivan Turgenev (see "A Lear of the Steppes," 1870), Maxime Gorky (see "Chelkosh," 1895) and Anton Pavlovitch Chekhov (see "The Kiss and Other Stories," in English, 1908), a freer, less artificial form of short narrative, casual and impressionistic in effect, but highly unified in theme, has become familiar to western readers. Good in itself, it is valuable as a protest against the increasing artificiality of the American form. In a sense, the vivid verse narratives of Robert Frost, Edgar Lee Masters, Amy Lowell, and other realist American poets may also be regarded as American short stories written in a new and fresher fashion.
For a selective list of representative short stories from the earliest times to 1903, see Jessup & Canby, "The Book of the Short Story." A good bibliography is included in the "Cambridge History of American Literature." See also Brander Matthews' "The Philosophy of the Short Story," H. S. Canby, "The Short Story in English"; Walter B. Pitken, "The Art and Business of the Short Story."