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MAIN PART
1. The development of short story genre in American literature.
The history of the American short story begins in 1819 by Washington Irving. Following Irving, Edgar Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville are rightfully considered the founders of the genre, which, according to Bret Garth, has become "the national genre of American literature."
The term short story, now so widespread, appeared much later than the works of the above-mentioned writers. Like Irving, who in 1824 called his book "tales of a traveler", Hawthorne, Melville Poe and used the word "fairy tale": "twice-told stories" (1837) by Hawthorne; "tales grotesque and Arabesque" (1840) by Edgar Poe; "the square of fairy tales" (1856) by Melville.
The term history was first introduced by Henry James, who titled his book Daisy Miller: A Study of Other Stories in 1883).The short story was a fairly well-known form in America in the first half of the 19th century; apparently the proverbial impetuosity of American life in some way forced it to be brief. He was precisely the means by which some of the most characteristic works of the best American writers received the approval of the public. It was used by E. Poe, a master of this genre, still unsurpassed; Longfellow and Hawthorne gave it the charm of the English classics2.
The honor of discovering the compositional principles of the American short story belongs to Edgar Poe. He was the creator of the theory of genre, the first to put forward the requirements that an artist should be guided by when creating short stories. In a review of Hawthorne's collection of short stories "Twice Told Stories", Edgar Poe succinctly and clearly formulated these requirements:
- the story should strive for one specific impression (effect);
- it must strictly exclude everything that does not contribute to this effect, and thus have a complete unity.
- it should be short, but not so short that a predetermined plan cannot be understood.
And although many critics expressed dissatisfaction with E. Poe's theory, seeing its limitations in the requirement to subordinate everything to the unity of impressions, it played a positive role in the history of the novel. The modern American novella owes Edgar Poe many things: his theory turned out to be so flexible and far-sighted that it naturally led not only to O. Henry (who, as it were, brought the action-packed direction started by Edgar Poe to a "logical" conclusion, but also further - to Sherwood Anderson, to the power of composition over the plot, to something Chekhov. Poe shrewdly remarked that the characteristic features of an artfully written story should be compositional and artistic completeness. The fact that he was able to formulate the principles of short story composition means that the genre of short story has reached a certain maturity. And the fact that the American short story reached this maturity already in the first half of the last century testifies to the specific features inherent in American literature.
While in Europe of the XIX century the novel dominated, reflecting the deep contradictions of European life, in the USA, as a result of specific social and cultural conditions, the novel became the main form of literary development.
What is the reason for this phenomenon? "America is the brainchild of two continents, and its main features cannot be revealed in isolation from any of them." The first settlers brought with them the traditions of the Old World, They tried to preserve them, but new living conditions gave birth to new people who were children of America and for whom traditions were no longer of great importance. The development of the continent, specific historical and economic conditions contributed to the transformation of the English Puritan into an American, the birth of a new nation in the middle of the XVIII century, the creation of a new spiritual warehouse. What was revered and respected in Europe was discarded in America.
American reality gave birth to the psychology of individualism, put forward the principle: "everyone does as he pleases." This principle was not new, since it was first proclaimed back in England by Locke and Smith: "leave everyone to himself." American social and political thought developed under the direct influence of English bourgeois liberalism and French Enlightenment philosophy.
The war between the North and the South led to profound changes in the economic and political life of the United States. The reality that is changing before our eyes, the reality characterized by immature economic relations, presents great difficulties for the artist. It takes time to understand and capture this reality. In addition, the lack of historical experience is a serious obstacle to creating a great social novel, and in a short story, in a short story, you can capture a moment, an incident, an episode, take a snapshot of reality. Many critics who study American literature of the 19th century come to such conclusions. This is confirmed by the work of Stephen Crane. From the literary criticism of Smirnov B.A. about one of the best American works about the Civil War in the United States by Stephen Crane "The Scarlet Badge of Valor" - "The genre of the novella is historically associated with the birth of democracy by its origin... That's why the novel accompanied the development of the bourgeois system, that's why it flourished in the USA, where there was no stability and traditions.Bret Garth's indication of one of the reasons for the spread of the novella in the USA is interesting: "In America, the novella was a well-known form already in the first half of the century; perhaps the well-known haste of American life stimulated its brevity 10, p. 240." Bret Garth talks about the role of the English tradition in American literature, about the distinctive features of the novella of the second half of the century, which turned to the depiction of American life and American character. "The secret of the American novel lies in its appeal to typical American life."
The writer emphasizes that humor was the true creator of the American short story: "It was Humor - a factor as peculiar and original as the country and civilization in which it developed... He was the source of the American short story."3
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