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As a literary genre, the short story is still often associated with American writers such as W. Irving, N. Hawthorne and E. A. Poe and “[i]t is a commonplace of short story criticism to assert that English writers were slow taking to the from in the nineteenth century” (Hunter, 2007, 6). This seminar aims to track the history of the British short story from about the 1880s onwards, a time which arguably saw “the birth of a new kind of short story” (Head, 1992, 1). We will consider the historical and social contexts that influenced the development of this literary genre in Britain and explore how far it might indeed be said to “encapsulate the essence of literary modernism” (Head, 1992, 1). Alongside this traditional, ‘English’ narrative, the course aims to bring to the fore the importance of Black British, especially Caribbean, writing for the development of the genre. Hence besides stories by authors such as Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Katherine Mansfield, or Virginia Woolf, we will also consider work by, among others, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, V.S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, or Samuel Selvon. The course will offer the chance to tailor some sections according to preferences of participants and to explore thematic focus areas in smaller groups.
The stories range from traditional realist to radically experimental and raise questions concerning form and language as well as various thematic aspects such as the representation of the experiences of marginalised groups, exile, the intersection of class, race, and gender. |
