The Short Story (Summer 2017)

                                                                The groves were God's first temples.  ~William Cullen Bryant, "A Forest Hymn" G ood  day.  I hope that you are all well, feeling good.  Today I will return all graded work and talk more about the story assignment, and how we will workshop the composition next week in class.  It will thus be due week 6, rather than 5, as indicated on the syllabus. In pairs or small groups today, too,  we will examine more closely the elements of narrative point of view (POV), setting, plot, and character as met in the stories we've thus far read.  I include here brief descriptions of these elements: POV refers to the voice or voices we hear in the course of a story.  The narrator, the storyteller, is a creation o...

Irving Penn, Metropolitan Museum of Art     T hinking about the short stories we read last week and several to come, "Rip Van  Winkle," an American foundation story that shows how quickly situations may change socially and politically, and "Simon's Papa," which highlights the vulnerability of the individual before a hostile crowd or mob.   Many stories focus on the struggles of people everywhere to  gain social and political legitimacy, equality and their fair share at the table, greater independence and freedom, with race gender and sex in the fray. Rip wanted relief from his termagant wife, and the colonists of early America relief from England's overbearing rule.  Simon wants a protector, legitimacy, as his mother apparently bore him out of wedlock and the women of the village have spoken of her  disapprovingly. The children's taunts and bullying of Simon reflect the low shame La Blanchotte is made to feel regarding her reputation. ...

                                                          A 19th Century                                                    The Hudson River Valley, 19th Century      W elcome back.  Hope you have been well since last we met.   I post the picture above to reference the importance of the Hudson River and surrounding valleys and mountains on into New England to the sensibilities of artists during the 1800s. Click on the captioned title for an article about the work of preservationists in this area and some talk of the romantic sense of the divine in nature that is so much a part of the American experience, then and now.  Rip Van Winkle's humble farmstead is situated somewhat like ...

 Girl Reading, by  Edward Vuillard W elcome to the "Short Story" course blog.  We begin our study of the short fiction genre with a brief historical overview.  Stories are everywhere, obviously, and we can't go a day without rehearsing them in our heads or tuning into them.  It's how we make sense of things, and each other.  Humans have been telling stories for millennia, around the world and as far back as records exist.  Not necessarily as art forms, of course, though the artful storyteller existed, we must surmise, long before writing was invented, just as ancient cave paintings attest to the conceptual capacities and artistry of early humans. The first crafted stories might have been told around the communal fire of prehistoric peoples and for the same reason we attend to good stories today (though not so often fireside). They entertain and teach us, involve us in an experience of sound and rhythm, word play, imagination, and community that ma...