Modernizing the American Short Story

Kursbeschreibung / -kommentar

Even though the short story is still a fairly young genre that became popular in the United States only in the early nineteenth century, it has left its mark on the literary and cultural identity of the thriving nation like few other genres. Washington Irving, in praising the merits of the short story, claims that its production requires “a constant activity of thought and a nicety of execution“; Edgar Allan Poe expresses similar notions in his "Philosophy of Composition" wherein he proclaims the short story “unblemished because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel“; this line of thinking continues well into twentieth century modernity and modernism (when the short story rose to unprecedented popularity), with Jack London describing it as “a rounded fragment of life, a single mood, situation, or action.“ It is no coincidence, then, that some of the US's most prolific writers – be it Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, or even Stephen King – have dabbled extensively in the genre.

In this seminar, we will take a closer look at a number of short stories written by these and other American authors. We will pay particular attention to how the genre has developed from its beginnings in early nineteenth century Romanticism to the more modern stylings it assumes in the 20th century, and consider how writers have adapted the peculiarities and specificities of the short story genre to fit an increasingly modern and modernist America.

Students will be required to...

... participate actively and regularly.
... hold presentations and/or work on assignments on a weekly basis.
... write a final paper (4000-5000 words).

Texts will be made available before class starts. I will inform you about additional purchases you have to make ahead of time.