The short story: The Reality of Artifice (Genres in Context) - Softcover

May, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 041593883X ISBN 13: 9780415938839

Publisher: Routledge, 2002

Synopsis

Charles May begins by reaching back to Boccaccio and Cervantes to find the short story's roots, then turns his focus to the 19th century, when the short story in what we recognize as its modern form began. He then moves on to the 20th century, during which it grew into maturity as a literary form with full integrity. Along the way, May not only discusses important writers but identifies important trends and movements.

About this title

Review

"Good critical guides to the short story are few and far between, and this one is excellent."
-"Booklist
"Arguing that short fiction secularizes mythic perception, May provides both an account of generic change and incisive readings of canonical authors and specific stories. One of the book's greatest merits is its concluding bibliographic essay, which will be indispensable to students new to the short story as well as scholars familiar with the field.
--Michael Trussler."
-Ihe Private Voice

From the Back Cover

With The Short Story: The Reality of Artifice, Charles E. May, a foremost authority on the genre, contributes a major effort to examine the history and characteristics of the short story from a critical perspective. Drawing on twenty-five years' experience studying the form, May argues that the development of the short story has always reflected "a tension between the traditional mythic origins of the form and the increasing pressures of modernism to depict 'real life.'" The book commences with an incisive overview, tracing how the conventions of the short story have evolved over time, from the form's origins in myth and folktale through its immersions into romanticism, realism, formalism, and, in the contemporary renaissance, the twin streams of magical realism and hyperrealism. In four core chapters May charts the major periods in the genre's development, along the way delving into the stories of a host of representative writers - among them Hawthorne, Poe, Conrad, Chekhov, Hemingway, Porter, Barthelme, and Carver - and offering close readings that entertain as they inform. An in-depth bibliographic essay surveys the principal criticism devoted to the form, while an annotated list of recommended titles furnishes readers with a useful guide to the primary English, American, and European stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; a detailed chronology sets forth key publication and birth/death dates from the 1340s to the 1990s. A masterfully written yet eminently accessible study, The Short Story: The Reality of Artifice constitutes an important new resource for students, scholars, writers, and the reading public at large.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 041593883X
• ISBN 13: 9780415938839
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182