the Short Story

SHORT STORY, THE. It is possible to distinguish between three forms of fiction—the novel (roman), the novelette (nou velle) and the short story (conte). The difference between the first and second form is a matter of quantity rather than quality : as may be deduced from a comparison of, say, Kim, which is a novel, and The Light That Failed, which is a novelette. The mod ern tendency among writers of fiction is to shorten the novel to a novelette, and a stricter sense of art is here at work; a more intensive method of narration, not a less extensive view of men and matters being the compelling motive. The necessity for condensation and the exclusion of passages which have no direct bearing on the plot and characterization, if the attention of a modern reader is to be gripped, has been emphasized by writers as different, nay divergent, in their matter and manner as Merimee, Turgeniev, Stevenson and Kipling, the last-named of whom de clared that "the three volume novel is extinct," in the motto prefixed to the literary requiem entitled "The Three-Decker." But the tendency has not proceeded so far that the novelette must be considered a different species from the novel. Moreover there are signs of a reaction in favour of the long, discursive novel in the popularity of William de Morgan's leisurely ram bling stories, in the success of Dorothy Richardson's long, ana lytical studies of motive, and James Joyce's Ulysses, which might be described as a three-decker with the Freudian philosophy for ballast.

Totality.

The short story, however, differs from the novel and the novelette, not only in length and size of canvas, but also in its aim and nature. In his famous review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales (1842) Poe, the first great master of the modern short story, outlined his theory of the tale that has the force of "totality," which a long novel, not to be read at one sitting, cannot possibly possess :—``In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. . . . The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem; but undue length is yet more to be avoided." The influence of Poe's short stories was immense, particularly in France, but his critical theory was not generally received until 40 years later when Brander Matthews published his well-known essay on "The Philosophy of the Short-Story." In the second

part of his essay he summarizes his argument as follows :—"A true short-story is something other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true short-story differs from the novel chiefly in its essential unity of impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word, a short-story has unity as a novel cannot have it. Often, it may be noted by the way, the short-story fulfils the three unities of the French classic drama; it shows one action, in one place, on one day. A short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation." It may be added that, to achieve "totality" or unity of im pression in the highest degree, the short story must be an organic whole. This point is emphasized in a letter written by Stevenson to Sir Sidney Colvin, who had suggested that he should change the end of one of his tales :—"Make another end to it? Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write ; the tale is implied ; I never use an effect when I can help it, unless it proposes the effects that are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another end, that is to make the beginning all wrong. The denouement of a long story is nothing, it is just a 'full close,' which you may approach and accomplish as you please—it is a coda, not an essential member in the rhythm; but the body and end of a short story is bone of the bone and blood of the blood of the beginning." Brevity.—Brevity, which comes of the artistic desire for the greatest possible economy of means, is not an essential charac teristic of the short story. There are many long short stories, of which the most famous are The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James (which runs to something like 40,00o words). Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale. One of Dorothy Richardson's full length novels was once added to the list of long short stories by a facetious critic on the score that it was "about a quarter of an hour !" On the other hand a very brief tale may not possess that organic unity which would justify us in calling it a true short story.