 Hello and welcome back. We are in the national program on technology enhanced learning and PTF. This lecture series are meant for engineering students and we are in the lecture series on literature and language. I am Krishna Barua. I have been giving lectures on the module on genres. This is the fifth lecture of the module and today we are going to do on the genre of the short story. Before proceeding to the lecture concerned, let us have a recap of what we had done in the last few days. As we have seen genre is a specific type of classification used for works of art, literature, music or any other creative pursuits. And this is the common definition of literature is that it covers the major genres of poetry, drama and novel and fiction. And in short we can see that there are about seven genres novel, poetry, drama, autobiography, biography, short story and the essay. In lecture one if you remember it was about the essentials of storytelling specially we started with the novel which was also a form of narrative art and how you tell a story, factual or fictional and the different techniques which are involved in it. Well, when we went to the next lecture which was on poetry, we have found that there are as many poetic devices, as many techniques, as much of exploration of this genre and where you use a lot of figures of speech and arrangement of words, rhythm, music in exploring it. And when we came to drama, we found that it was a performative art altogether and it was a art form together with a form which could be said to be collective at the same time collaborative because there were so many people involved in it. There was a director, author, actor, technicians, not only of the person who writes the scripts, the dramatist. So, we have to see that it is how the life is enacted. Well, last time we did the essay which is a more prose form of a genre at the same time, we find that it deals with criticism, it deals with literary criticism, it deals with documentary or satiric playful humorous or bitter and has definite views on history, on philosophy, literature, etcetera. So, we are today in lecture 5 of the module on literary genres which is the short story. I do believe each one of you have read a lot of short stories and if you have liked a short story, you must have it may have stayed in your mind. Yes, so let us see what makes a short story. A short story is definitely a brief fictional prose narrative usually written in prose, but I have concentrated on this usually written in prose. Now, we have the poetic short story when we go into Borges again, when we go into different writers who have experimented with the form, the short story can be in a different form altogether. Well, so this makes us come to the concepts of fact and fiction. Well, when we look into the etymological meaning of fact, it comes from the Latin focure to make or do. So, you make it, you manipulate it. Fiction comes from Latin finger to make or shape. So, both these are closely interrelated. This explains that the short story or a novel if you want to talk about it as a fictional narrative, it can be fiction or it can be fictional in any medium, but this is the mood point about it. It is about the essentials of storytelling, about narrating a tale or a story. So, when we are talking about a tale, we are going back into the ages, because human history shows that does not it that every region, every place has a tale to say. So, when we talk about the short story, is it about the story, is it about the plot that emphasizes the relationship between character, incident or is it mostly about the pattern and the rhythm that goes beyond the storytelling. Well, as you have seen in all these lectures that we have done in this module, that there are two things that we have to realize when we are doing a module on literature and language. One is the manner and one is the matter of the text. The manner is the technique and the matter is the content, the thematic content. Well, so when we talk of stories of fact, stories of fancy, how is it being told, the telling and the form. In the telling of a tale, what is not fact is fancy, is it not. After short stories have been grouped as stories of fact or stories of fancy, if we want to group them together, another classification suggests itself based upon the way in which the stories are told. A story can be told historically, all the historical situation can be told about the documentary of the facts which were presented in the story or it can be told dramatically with a lot of things going to a climax like in a drama or it can be deductive when it gives a lesson at the end of it. As a matter of fact, even the briefest consideration of the history of literature, just now I had told you about that, did not I, that the history of literature should be sufficient to convince us that the short story far from being a distinctive product of the 19th century. Many people say that the term came into existence only in the 19th century, but we have reason to doubt about that because it is the oldest form of literature. Just now I told you it goes back to, you do not know which age when people used to tell tales to one another, from which all other literary types with the exception of the lyric and the critical essay have developed in the course of time. So, we go back to the oral tradition, is not it? In every culture you find that the oral traditions are very, very strong and people used to tell stories to while away their time or in the evenings while by the fire. Oral tradition begins with the first human family and it is to this first oral tradition that we look for the genesis of the short story. I think we will end with this, let us see how we end this lecture and we will see that anthropologists assure us that primitive man was endowed with substantially the same imagination, pride in achievement, curiosity and love of excitement and novelty which characterized the average man today. This I have taken from Cooper's essay on the short story and where he has said that there is no new thing that is not old and ambiguous statement, is not it? Well, so when we go back to the meaning of the short story as a form or as a genre as such, we find that it is not only the 19th century terminology of the term which came into effect, but it was from the great epics, the Sasso, the Rola, B. Olf in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the Odyssey and the Iliad developing from ballot cycles and this epics themselves again developed from the ballot cycles where merely short stories in rhythmical form, they were told in the form of verse or in the form of repetitions rested ultimately upon a basis of prose narrative oral short stories and that again gave place to the stories or the oral short stories. So, in all these histories, we find that the art of telling stories had reached the point where the existence of fully developed cycles of spoken stories is taken as a matter of course. So, this becomes cycles of telling and retelling and again being transmitted to another one again going to another region. So, when we come to the 19th century or to the modern short story form, it emerged from the oral storytelling traditions, definitely yes. And the brief moralistic narratives of parables which are have no author as you can say which have been going on from generation to generation, fables which are associated with the land, with the river, with beliefs and the prose anecdotes when we try to sometimes talk about a story which has some sort of a moral connotation. All of this being forms of a swiftly sketched situation that quickly comes to the point well. So, when we looked at fables like the ash of fables, many of you must be familiar with them. They do have explicit moral in the 6th century BC by Greek slave named Ashop. This ancient fables are today known as the ash of fables all right. More or less they talk about the connection between the way we conduct our lives with the animal world and things we learn from the natural sciences. The other ancient form of short story the anecdote was popular under the Roman Empire. Anecdotes functioned as a sort of parable, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a poem. Well, so we are looking into the background of this genre right. Whether it is a modern genre or is it something which was there with its historical roots. So, let us see what we have here. The genre has historical roots both in the field of the medieval and early modern romance of Pocasio's Decameron. Decameron has been said to be almost in the 14th century as to be the precursor of the modern short story. They are, they were a collection of tales of love in Heptameron and in the tradition of the novella. We had already done the novella in the novel module. Created as a form for preservation of oral stories of various cultures, it grew to include epics and romances and adventures like Arthurian religion and knighthood. So, you see that is almost the landmark of the Decameron in which Pocasio had written his tales and it led to so many influences which came after it. Well, we come to England, 14th century geofrit sources, the Canterbury Tales, especially the introduction. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories. The descriptions of his characters were to paint portraits of English society, society particularly of the search, how they were going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and each of the pilgrims were being given a description. Structurally, when we look at sources polluted to the Canterbury Tales, we find that it resembles the Decameron a lot and this may have been because of sources creeped to Italy in 1372. He may have had access to the Decameron. So, when we see the novel side by side the short story, with the rise of the novel, the short story evolved in a parallel tradition. That was as we have done in the past lectures that it had become more or less in the 17th century, in the 18th century and again in the 19th century that the novel took on its base. The character of the form developed particularly with authors known for the short fiction, which acknowledged the focus and craft required in the short form. Let us go to Radier Kipling. When he published his short story collection in 1888, Plain Tales from the Hills, the Jungle Book for Children mostly in 1894, then we had the detective stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Charles Combs, H. J. Wells wrote his first science fiction stories in the 1880s. So, that was in the 19th century and this genre of short story actually the name was being given by Brenda Matthews in 1884 in the philosophy of the short story named the emerging genre of short fiction as for the first time the short story. When we do the short story, we cannot ignore the Russian angle. The Russian literature is famous for its short stories not only for its novels. We have great giants icons in this short fiction genre, especially in the short story. In 1876, you find Targinov started writing the short stories, collection of short stories which completely amazed the world. Of course, people read it more in the translations. There was immense popularity of the translated stories. Then we have Dostoevsky with his dark narratives of passion as well as of redemption. Then we have supposed to be one of the greatest writers of this genre, Leo Tolstoy especially his short story how much land does a man need which every schoolboy I think has to read in his school syllabus. So, all this was in the end of the 19th century, but the greatest specialist in the Russian scenario was Anton Shakov and people who when they specialized in this craft are always being compared to Shakov of Ireland or Shakov of America. So, it is as if he is the forerunner of the short story as if he is the master craftsman of the, he was the master craftsman of the short story. I hope you will read some of his stories especially the bet and the lady with the dog in 1899. All of these were written almost around the end of the 19th century. We have at the same time Maxime Gorky all right who was writing his novels at the same time his short stories and all these writers that we have mentioned here whether we have mentioned Tolstoy or Chekov or Maxime Gorky had equally excelled in the novel form genre and Maxime Gorky's best known short story is 26 Men and a Girl. Well when we talk of the Russian angle at the same time we find equally prolific is that of the French short story right. So, this is the continental angle right and the most prolific French author of short stories I have almost not mentioned the other other writers of the short story, but it was Gadi Mopasa who had you know dominated the entire scene of the French short story not only of the French short story, but of the entire you can say of the domain of the short story especially the examples of French realism in the necklace. This is supposed to be the necklace is supposed to be the perfect short story ever written and if you read that short story you will find that it tells about all the elements which should be there in a short story and the beginning the end the twist in the end which comes as a surprise the poignancy the pathos which is there about a small family how they worked hard for something which they had not known and this is how the story begins about Matilda she was one of those pretty and charming girls born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees very middle class very poverty taken she had no dowry no expectation no means of being known understood loved married by a man rich or distinguished and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in a department of education this is how the story begins and a lot happens in the story where she goes to a party borrows a necklace from her rich friend and the necklace gets lost and how she works for 10 years for that lost necklace because the question of pride integrity everything is there and she comes to return it and at the end when she comes to return it her rich friend much more she could not recognize her because the toll of the suffering years had made her look old and haggard and she was surprised and she said that was a diamond necklace took her by both hands oh my poor Matilda but mine were false the necklace that you had worked for so long it was a false necklace it was an artificial necklace at most they were worth 500 francs so this ending it is something which amazes people surprises people with its poignancy of effect when in the same line if we look into in the United Kingdom how the short story genre had flourished we see that the periodicals which we had mentioned in the last lecture about essay Harper's magazine and the storyteller and many others were really contributed to the popularity of the short story the reading public had leisure to read and at the same time they were not they did not have that enough leisure to read a full novel and it was the short story which was circulated in the magazines and we find that a lot of people started writing so we find Hector Hugh Monroe also known by his pen name of Saki became one of the most famous writers we will discuss take an example of a short story towards the end of this lecture we have during this time P. G. Woodhouse I think many of you have read his short stories the famous character of Jeeves in 1917 which became almost an iconic figure then Agatha Christie with her short stories of the detective series Graham Greene which is adventure as well as of his representation of things which were exotic from 1929 and 1954 and romance took a different form with Daphne de Moria who had written novels like Rebecca and so who wrote suspense stories like the birds I think many of you may have seen the film which Alfred Hitchcock probably had directed in the beginning of I think in the 60s the film was made out of this short story. So, this way some of those who had taken different ways to write the short story well we cannot but gave full attention when we go to the United Kingdom to the short stories of William Somerset mom and specially his collected short stories which are based on the South Sea experiences in Samoa in Hawaii in the Far East Tahiti and there was one short story which even I can recollect even now which was rain based on his own real life experience as mom put it in his own distinctive way such a writer seeks to prove nothing. So, he had his own way of saying what a short story writer should be he says we do not have to prove anything he paints a picture and sets it before you it is something like a visual art he will give a graphic detail or he will show the picture before you you can take it or leave it most take it. So, very succinctly put well. So, we cross over to Ireland again at the main of the short story the famous short story the happy prince by Oscar Wilde it begins like this it is almost on the fairy tale you know the fairy tales of Grimm in Germany we I had not mentioned it here those are also tales those are also short stories which were written before I mean the tales which came before the short story as a genre came in in the 19th century. So, this happy prince is almost a retailing of a fairy tale and where it begins with about a sculpture high above the city on a tall column stood the statue of the happy prince he was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold for eyes he had two bright sapphires and a large red ruby glowed on his sword hill. So, this is a proverbial short story which tells about the meaning of happiness the meaning of fantasy the meaning of reality closely follow after that is James Joyce who published his short story collection Dubliners in 1914. Well, James Joyce is known for his great modern novel Elyseus, but you find that here in this collection of tales which comes from the childhood to adolescence to youth to maturity it is a different sort of the stream of consciousness method that he had employed and of the epiphany of the moment of the meaning of the moment or of the mood that he wants to show in the protagonist of his stories mostly it is about Irish middle class in the early years of the 20th century. So, you find this is the connection between sources for look to contemporary tales which was the portrayed of the 14th century England and the search and the society here in James Joyce Dubliners the tales one by one they are telling you about the the vineyards of of societal life maybe about individual life psychological life whatever when we have Frank O'Connor again in Ireland and it is said an Irish poet he said O'Connor was doing for Ireland what Jacob did for Russia remember Chekhov and I had told you Chekhov goes on coming as comparison whenever the short story form is being explored and Frank O'Connor said that a good short story must be news the story should ring with the tone of a man's voice speaking he should have that the connection with reality with life it should not be something which is too far removed from reality and therefore, he concentrated on the conversational ease that there should be a sort of a dialogue between the man what is being said and what is being told and a effortless flow which is not necessary the medium or the manner in which the novel takes on and the intimacy and familiarity of the oral tradition with the Chekhovian objectivity very beautifully put he said that there has to be that intimacy and that is sort of familiarity in the short story form which comes with a sort of objective way of looking at life and this is what Frank O'Connor had said I write my stories as though they were lyrics I like to get the essence the spirit of a story down in about four hours in any old ring role I have got to catch it like a poem and then I polish it endlessly. So, this lets us question what is a poem a short story is a poem which also carries the epiphany moment and it also has that the way that we like to see the poem well when we come to India we know that apart from all the other short stories which are written originally those of the Vindunath Tagore in Bengali were known for its classic endings almost like Mopasa's the necklace and many others of the Irish short story writers. So, let us go into across the ocean all right and we go into the American scene in the first half of the 20th century we find that who dominates the scene Ernest Hemingway noble laureate not so much for the way that he had written his novels the old man and the sea and you may have known all his novels which were known for his narrative style. The same way he was known for his short stories the collection a clean well lighted place 1926 snows of Kilimanjaro the most well known short story or short novel you can call it of Hemingway and John Standbeck's the chrysanthemums and J. D. Salinger's the nine stories. So, all these were the giants in their fields Ernest Hemingway we find that most of his short stories not most some of them Africa would be the setting for two of Hemingway's most famous short stories their short happy life of Francis Maccobar and the snows of Kilimanjaro. The snows of Kilimanjaro has been made into a firm I believe too centers on the memories of a writer named Harry who is on a safari in Africa and he has used the the the theory of implication the entire the style of the short narrative which short sentences short words to full form in this short story and where he tells about the the story of this writer Harry who has an infected wound from a torn fracture and this law laws of physical capability causes him to look inside him. So, there is an introspection about what he had done as a writer and his memories of the past years and how little he has actually accomplished in his writing. So, what is important in this story in the snows of Kilimanjaro is the dominant metaphors of snow and of the hyena and the the the sense of infection the metaphor that has been shown over here. So, it is almost like a biological trap the way that the biological natural world traps you into a sort of a fatigue or into a sort of decay well one of the most well known like we had done the necklace of Mopasa and the snows of Kilimanjaro of Hamidway we have the chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck another noble laureate. Here this is the chrysanthemums which is more the naturalistic bent of the narration. The story opens with a panoramic view of the Salinas valley in the west in California in winter shrouded in fog the focus narrows and finally settles in a housewife Elisa Allen cutting down the spanned stalks of chrysanthemums in the garden on her husband's runs. So, there is a lot of contrast over here it is almost the the the meaning of the American dream being questioned over here. The meaning of the the determinism determinism as well as materialism against naturalism against essence meaning of essence and it opens with a beautiful description of the fog of winter closed up to Salinas valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world on every side it set like a lid on the mountains and made of a great valley a closed spot. It was a time of quiet and of waiting the air was cold and tender just note the way the descriptions are given. A light wind blew off from the southwest so that the farmers were mainly hopeful of a good rain before long but fog and rain did not go together so these two contrasting symbols fog and rain will be developed again in the later half of the story. Well I am skipping over to different different ways that this genre was was being used in Canada we have the great Alice Monroe whose nickname again the Canadian shake off started publishing in the same year we we could see that she was known how she could handle difficult subjects like in in her story infinity. I think we had come across Bohel we Bohels even in our bus lectures most famous writer of short stories in the Spanish language especially the short stories that he wrote took on a distinctive form of magic realism like his collection the library of Babel in 1941 the LF in 1945 the garden of forking pots in 1948 we can call them poems we call call them the novel we can call them the short story and it is a different form altogether that he had experimented. Therefore when we had examined the short story we have seen that plot character dialogue and structure is not it can be romantic and sentimental it can be ironic it can be astringent or humorous it can be lyrical or objective it is this variety that makes it so impossible to define well as one writer said it is an imaginative narration consisting of a few incidents drawn from a single situation and having a unity of effect. So, as in drama there has to be a unity it should not be all loose ends going together, but there has to be a unity of effect. So, let us come and see what are the elements of the short story there is the sense of wonder this sense of romance has to be there in a matter of vision the romance of presence not so much of its impression of the world as its ideas about it. So, this perspective which is there about the way that you look at the ordinary world is seen at a greater distance like Borges has done ordinary events took on a magic by his own a library took on a different avenues of introspection and its shape and color deliberately altered by the lenses and filters of philosophy and fantasy. In the world of romance the ideas are allowed to play less encumbered and encumbered by data well. So, when we talk of this realism and romance which are tenets which we have to examine when we are doing the narrative form whether in the prose fiction whether it is in the short story whether it is in the epic form it is obvious that we express a complex mood in its rise and fall with all its concomitance of incidents and characters fused into a compact unity demands the highest literary skill when you want to constrain it when you want to put it into one small unit it is not the mirror of life, but it becomes the mirror of the moment. So, it needs lot of skill and a lot of craftsmanship to make all this mood to come to a highest literary skill into compact unity. Therefore, as many have said that mood and atmosphere of the short story that that the wonder the wonder who should be there I think this is also a element which you have to examine in the poem when you read a poem why does a poem touch you or how do you appreciate the poem sometimes you may like a poem another may not like it may reject it same thing is about the short story either you take it or you live it. So, that question of the reception the reader response as you say about short story is that it has to have that atmosphere or it has to have the mood which is the coloring of the environment to harmonize with the mood and the short story writer therefore, cannot for the purpose of elucidation as a novelist expand its diversity as the novelist can hence the short story focuses attention on a significant moment expresses it to relevant incident and makes the incident operative through the action of that character first Jane Joyce was a master in doing this I had told you about epiphanic moment didn't I and there where he could talk about the magic of the moment of something which was special attention which comes and goes then through a symbolical atmosphere it holds the entire structure in a unified form at Galen Poe who is also one of the great craftsmen of the short story said that the short story should. So, this were debatable points with at Galen Poe American short story writer as well as a novelist he laid down some rules he said that the short story should be able to be read in one sitting one even if that one sitting as five minutes impossible is it that strive for unity of effect he says it should have a unity of effect just now who and I have said that there should not be loose strands that talks almost of all the genres of literature we do not have loose strands just running around there is always a unity of effect in whatever genre you are saying the effect Poe himself often sought to create was terror or horror his terror stories horror stories always had that mood or the effect begin with the first sentence the beginnings of short story that is why I had read out some of the beginnings of the short story as I had read out in the novel form the first time sentences strikes the handle aim for truth and stress imagination invention and originality. Now, it is impossible to formulate a set pattern for such an elastic literary type as the short story is variation are as numerous as human moods there is abrupt and dramatic opening situation just like in a drama remember we had done the triad of development here too we do have sometimes the opening situation of the beginning is so important the unexpected complications the tension leading to a climax sometimes sometimes the resolution of the climate leading to the reversal of the action, but both the complication and the resolution must involve suspense or surprise as we have seen in Mopasa's necklace did not we that the surprise and the climax came towards the end not in the middle as in a drama. So, you find it is almost like in a drama exposition the rising action climax falling action then the denouement not so in the short story sometimes the denouement may come in the climax or the climax may come in the denouement this line of rising action along which the story climbs to the turning point whose story descends to its logical solution, but we have seen the question of the surprise ending where Tagore's stories also have that we have also in Mopasa we have in chrysanthemums I mean in Steinberg. So, admirably used by Owen Henry the reader in this sense admits the writer has a played fair throughout. So, you cannot just say that this was because the way that it has been laid out you have to follow the linear form of development well let us now look into some of the stories which are so well known that they have become classics in the old the open window by Saki pen name of H. S. Munro towards the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century he had written. So, this is the famous short story the open window how it begins it talks about a visitor Anna niece of the household who plays the host to the visitor this is how the story begins my aunt will be down presently Mr. Nuttle Mr. Nuttle has come visiting to the household said a very self-possessed young lady of 15 in the meantime you must try and put up with me this is how it begins the story it is a run down story it is a conversation between Mr. Nuttle and the young lady of 15 and the last line cleanses the story romance a short note is was her specialty you read the story then you will know what the impression it has what an impact it has on the reader this is one of the best known short stories of Saki then many of you must have read the secret life of Walter Mitty by James G. Thurber who is known as a humorist and cartoonist and famous for insightful comedic explorations of everyday life the secret life of Walter Mitty it was published in 1939 is one of Thurber's most well known and beloved stories it is about a protagonist who is all the time daydreaming and Mitty's imaginary adventures over a two day period as the fable daydreamer it begins like this he is thinking of adventure and everything else where actually his life is very plebeian it is very very rational it is something which is down to ordinary so he thinks that he is the commander's voice was like thin ice breaking he is taking part in an adventure he wore his full dress uniform I am not asking you left in an Berg said the commander it goes on and all of a sudden a voice comes in that is Mrs. Mitty not so fast you are driving too fast said Mrs. Mitty what are you driving so fast for so you find humorous account of this story now we had mentioned the gift of the Magi by Ohanry and here this is a story which is so well known with the rest with the necklace with the chrysanthemums with all the rest that we have mentioned it also stand on its own Ohanry really wrote about ordinary people going about daily adventures of living not infrequently his stories involve coincidences or unexpected twists that result in surprise endings like in the story it also begins like this about how Della and her husband they are counting they are not very well off so it is Christmas each one loves the husband loves his wife and the wife loves her husband so much they want to give a surprise gift and how they plan about it and what comes to us then this is a beautiful story very poignant and very beautifully crafted well so when we have seen all this I hope you have come to understand what a short story is and we have seen that on this point Robert Louis Stevenson does speaks there are so far as I know three ways and three only of writing a story you may take a plot and pick characters to it right or you may take a character and choose incidents and situations to develop it or lastly you may take a certain atmosphere and get actions and persons to express and realize it right so he says that you can do it in three ways when to this clear conception of his limitation and privileges the author as an imagination to all this you add an imagination and the wonder and the creativity and originality that clearly visualizes events and the verbal magic by which good style is secured he produces the short story that is a masterpiece so ultimately it rests with that magic it rests with the imagination as it is with the poem as it is in the drama not so much in the essay but in the short story also you have to have that something that elusive something that magic that originality whether in technique whether in the end the way the story closes the way the characters are told the way it has been brought together that adds to be it to be a master the question naturally arises how do we see the short story isn't it in order to produce a short story an author must not only make a stale shot and to the point but must also fashion it with deliberate care so that it will produce a single effect so this is the most difficult thing Hemingway had said that this is the most difficult thing to write simply to write a simple short sentence the same thing with a short fiction or with so the short story Brenda Matthews had declared that the short story is the single effect so you have to have that single unity effect somewhere which will carry it along therefore if the modern short story has a technique if at all if it is here it is if it is an invention poor must have invented it so in the discussion as we have discussed it parallely we have to see the short story against the novel a novel cannot be abbreviated into a short story nor can a short story be expanded into a novel the novel deals with incidents progressing with cause and effect and we have seen in the short story the mood is what is important isn't it it is the modern counterpart of the epic its object is the grand totality of life not so in the short story because a short story exposes a situation representing a mood as if in a flash and its motive is essentially to express any mood the selection is influenced by the writer's way of looking at life after all the incidents are not the end of his art it is an adaptable mode which can be used so behind the vision therefore is the writer's mood the originating point of his perception ultimately it looks into the perspective of the way you look the point of view which is so important in the novel we find that this is the perspective the way the writer the author the short story writer looks at his world at his characters at the moment hence the short story must express a dominant mood through which a particular incident may reveal itself to him short story is concentrated economy of setting and concise narration is nearest as most allied literary type is the one at play when you compare the one at play with the full length drama I think you can make a parallel comparison with the novel and that of the short story the short story therefore in the last analysis when we conclude this lecture proves to be the base of all our literature accepting only the lyric and the critical essay isn't it is distinctly an individual contribution each writer has his own mould of presenting a short story we have seen oh Henry Saki Mopasa Hemingway Steinbeck Tagore every one of them have their own way we cannot say that his story check off or Dostoevsky they have their own way of writing a short story which makes the short story a poem primary unit does not press entirely upon conjecture oral literature is to be found today when we talk of oral literature right we cannot just go to the Middle Ages and think that oral literature existed at that time we think that oral literature is to be found today wherever there is more or less primitive state of race culture in Howard there is an example where at one time even an alphabet was almost unknown it is much easier to produce evidence to support a theory of the antiquity of the short story you will find instances where you go into some places like inner tribal villages of in the northeast of India you will find that there are oral tales which are told which captivate you by its authenticity and by its style of narration and by its metaphors that are used if the search back in concluding we had started with this didn't we that it goes back to the oral type of storytelling if the search back to the beginning of things through the cycles of medieval tales to the violence which have been preserved as the oldest fragments of the great body of prehistoric oral literature reveals not merely one method of telling stories or two but every type of the short story we have reason to believe that every type of the short story was to be found even in the earliest tales of all the prose narrative from which the ballad develops there can be no question therefore as to the antiquity of historical and deductive methods of storytelling and examples of effect stories in the most primitive literatures and we find to earn the conclusion that such tales have almost if not quite as ancient a lineage as the other forms of the short story so we end with this quotation from James Cooper Lawrence the instinct for storytelling exist in substantially the same form in every race all men recognize and insist upon the simple limitations of brevity and coherence and hence in this field of literature in this genre of literature more than in any other it is possible for an artist to produce masterpieces whose appeal in spite of national lines and of racial characteristic is truly universal the best stories are not essentially French English Italian or American but because they are part of the world's anthology so the key source text in this lecture where elements of literature grocery of literary terms theory of the short story by James Cooper Lawrence literature and introduction to fiction poetry drama and the concise Oxford companion to English literature I hope you enjoyed this lecture thank you