Tanja Säily
Summary, Veg120
Department of English
University of Helsinki
Autumn 1998
Oral tradition, such as the creation myths told by ancient tribes, can perhaps be considered the earliest form of the fictional short story. Next, around 600 BC, comes the beast fable, which anthropomorphises animals in order to state a moral. The religious parable, although not meant to be fiction originally, is also one phase in the development of the short story.
Greek, Roman and Oriental literature written during the first centuries AD was for a long time the main source of themes for European authors. In the Middle Ages, short fiction consisted of heroic or comical tales written in verse, later also in prose. Although the stories were worldlier than before, they always strove for teaching a lesson. The underestimation of purely entertaining tales persisted through the unoriginal Renaissance until the eighteenth century.
In the 1700s, attitudes changed, and prose was finally allowed to evolve freely. This produced many new trends, including Romanticism. The recently formed middle class enjoyed the imaginative and unusual stories published in popular periodicals, which were essential in the development of short fiction.
However, what we nowadays call the short story was not born until the nineteenth century. Writers in Germany, America and England created a compact, coherent narrative, every aspect of which had an exact purpose. The romantic tales published in magazines depicted people as archetypes, whereas the characters in stories were more realistic.
Realism began to gain ground in the middle of the nineteenth century. In the realist novel, the psychology of characters lay in how they acted as well as in their social environment. During the Civil War, American writers invented the local-colour story; by the end of the 1800s, a number of other types of short stories had emerged. Europeans reshaped the short story by concentrating on the present moment rather than on ideologies.
In our century, the writers of short stories all over the world have experimented with different techniques, such as the interiorised plot culminating in inner revelation rather than action. Some write traditional stories with a closed plot; others prefer modern stories with no definite conclusion. The adaptable short story is said to reflect human life better than any other form of literature.
Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writers. 3rd edition. Boston: Bedford Books, 1991. Appendix 1: "A Brief History of the Short Story." 1545-1553.