{"id":72,"date":"2017-09-04T06:16:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T06:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/?page_id=72"},"modified":"2017-09-19T15:00:03","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:00:03","slug":"historical-development-of-the-short-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/historical-development-of-the-short-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Development of the Short Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"twelve columns\" style=\"margin-top: 10%;\">\n<div class=\"advance\"><a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/historical-development-of-the-novel\">\u2b05 Previous Lesson<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/interpretation-of-literary-text\">Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/characteristics-of-modes-of-writing\">Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- CONTENT BEGINS HERE --><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"title\">Historical Development of the Short Story<\/h1>\n<h4>Objective<\/h4>\n<p>In the following section, the historical development of the short story will be discussed.<\/p>\n<h4>What is a Short Story?<\/h4>\n<p>Before addressing how the short story developed, it is important to establish what constitutes a short story. Short stories generally exhibit the following characteristics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>brief narrative prose fiction<\/li>\n<li>shorter than a novel, it can be read in one sitting<\/li>\n<li>fewer characters than a novel<\/li>\n<li>focus on a particular moment in a character\u2019s life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although the establishment of the short story as a literary genre did not occur until the nineteenth century, short narratives in both verse and prose date back many years and contributed to the development of the short story.<\/p>\n<p>The short story emerged as its own genre during the nineteenth century, aided in part by the rise of a literate middle class and the expansion of printing. The popularity of satirical essays published in literary magazines during the eighteenth century helped point the way, but the form finally took hold and flowered during the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n<h4>A New Genre<\/h4>\n<p>Given the numerous contributions made to the development of the short story, it is difficult to pinpoint one specific creator of the form. In this case, it took a group effort.<\/p>\n<p>Of the group, Irving was the earliest to use the form, but Hawthorne and Poe stand out as exceptional writers in the short story genre.<\/p>\n<p>Washington Irving\u2019s best-known book, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., contained his most famous short stories, \u201cThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow\u201d and \u201cRip Van Winkle.\u201d The publication of the book in 1820 marked the beginning of the American short story.<\/p>\n<p>Irving popularized short fiction by making it purely entertaining. Americans and Europeans enjoyed his work, and Irving became an international success. Irving\u2019s combination of folklore, humor, sympathetic characters, and detailed setting descriptions made his work popular.<\/p>\n<p>Famed writer Nathaniel Hawthorne took the short story genre to a new level by exploring sin, morality, guilt, and their effects on the human heart and conscience. Hawthorne set many of his stories in Puritan New England, which provided him with ample opportunities for weaving moral principles into his work.<\/p>\n<p>Edgar Allan Poe highly regarded the literature of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and, in turn, such notable writers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ray Bradbury, and H. G. Wells credited Poe for influencing their own work.<\/p>\n<p>Poe\u2019s short stories, such as \u201cThe Tell-Tale Heart\u201d and \u201cThe Cask of Amontillado,\u201d illustrate his fascination with death, insanity, revenge, and the human conscience. Poe\u2019s immense talent reached in a number of directions. In addition to his numerous horror and suspense tales, Poe wrote poetry and is credited for inventing the detective story.<\/p>\n<h4>A New Generation<\/h4>\n<p>Demand for short fiction grew toward the end of the nineteenth century due in part to inexpensive printing and the creation of more literary magazines and journals. The trend continued for the first half of the twentieth century as magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly and the Saturday Evening Post published short stories in every issue. This move increased the demand for short stories and the money that was paid for them.<\/p>\n<p>In 1906, American short story writer O. Henry published The Four Million, a collection of short stories that includes his best-known story, \u201cThe Gift of the Magi.\u201d A popular and prolific writer, O. Henry wrote sentimental stories about the lives of ordinary people trying to make it in the world. Many of his stories take place in New York, whose population was four million at the time of his collection\u2019s publication.<\/p>\n<p>O. Henry\u2019s stories are known for their surprise endings. In \u201cThe Gift of the Magi,\u201d a struggling couple wants to buy each other Christmas gifts. The wife sells her long hair to buy her husband a watch fob, while the husband sells his watch to buy his wife a pretty comb for her hair.<\/p>\n<p>American authors Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner lived during the same time period. Both made a great impact on the literary world, and both earned Nobel Prizes.\u00a0Although short stories are not published in commercial magazines as widely as they once were, the short story genre remains a popular form of prose writing.<\/p>\n<section class=\"question\">\n<h4>Question<\/h4>\n<p>What aspect of Washington Irving\u2019s writing made it innovative and popular?<\/p>\n<ol type=\"A\">\n<li>Futuristic tales<\/li>\n<li>Realistic dialogue<\/li>\n<li>Entertaining stories<\/li>\n<li>Frightening themes<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><a class=\"button button-primary q-answer\"> Reveal Answer <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"q-reveal\" style=\"display: none;\">The answer is C. Irving\u2019s stories were popular because they were meant to be purely entertaining, unlike most of the reading material available at the time.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- CONTENT ENDS HERE --><\/p>\n<div class=\"advance\"><a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/historical-development-of-the-novel\">\u2b05 Previous Lesson<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/interpretation-of-literary-text\">Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/characteristics-of-modes-of-writing\">Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"backtotop\" href=\"#title\">Back to Top<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2b05 Previous Lesson\u00a0Workshop Index\u00a0Next Lesson \u27a1 Historical Development of the Short Story Objective In the following section, the historical development of the short story will be discussed. What is a Short Story? Before addressing how the short story developed, it is important to establish what constitutes a short story. Short stories generally exhibit the following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-72","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}