History:

• as a form dates back to the oral tradition of the tale

• written tales emerge in poetic forms - Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

• Boccaccio's Decameron (1351-1353) often cited as the precursor of the short story form, as is the French translation of The Thousand and One Nights (1704)

• short story really begins to emerge as a form in the 19^th century

• Grimm's Fairy Tales (1824-1826) an early collection of folk stories that paved the way for the development of the genre of short stories

• early and mid 19^th century saw the rise of the short story in America for example: Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales (1842) and Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1836) set a standard for one branch of short fiction - the gothic

• mid and late 19^th century saw the blossoming of the short story in Britain - Hardy's Wessex Tales (1888) first major success of a volume of short stories

• the proliferation of literary magazines and journals in the latter 25 years of the 19^th century created a market demand for short fiction - stories between 3,000 - 15,000 words

• short story peaks as a form in the mid 20^th century and while still respected, it has become less marketable than its prose cousin, the novel

• Poe (on Hawthorne): he finds "a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out" and "he then invents such incidents - he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect ... In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to one preestablished design."

• Poe on plot: "A short story in which nothing at all happens is an absolute impossibility."

• Thomas Hardy: "A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling ... Therein lies the problem - to reconcile the average with that uncommonness which alone makes it natural that a tale of experience would dwell in the memory and induce repetition"

Characteristics of Modern Short Fiction:

• challenges the 19^th century conventions in terms of plot, narration, character, and language

• plot - in the sense of a telling of a story with a beginning, middle and end - ceases to be dominant - the essence of short story is to portray the individual moment, scene, or person in isolation from the outside stream of life -

• narration - the authority of the narrator is questioned

• character - focuses on the inward, personal and subjective experience of individuals

• language - presents a unity or totality of impression - patterning of symbols, multiplicity of voices, indirect language, stream of consciousness are all techniques employed by modern writers

• presents life as fragmented - a slice of life

• a highly self conscious form that tends to be about the nature of story writing itself