the one who has the instinctive power to create, and then becomes conscious of the means which he has used. In dramatic literature Shakespeare was such a genius. He had the creative mind of the unconscious artist; then he became consciously aware of the means which were needed to produce a given effect of the minute details of the technic of dramatic poetry and stage craft — and so he is reckoned the greatest dramatic poet of the world. The honor of producing the genius who first became conscious of the technic of the Short Story is perhaps · due to America. In a measure Hawthorne (1804-1864) was conscious of the means he used. In a greater measure this consciousness of means was Poe's (1809-1849). Short Stories were produced before the time of these men, but when a writer succeeded in producing such a story, it seemed by chance that he did so, for he did not follow up his success by writing other stories in which he employed the elements of artistic technic seized by chance in the successful Short Story. If we reduce the technical requirements of the real story to the very lowest terms say the necessity of producing a single narrative effect we shall find a number of tales before Hawthorne's and Poe's which meet this single technical specification: Defoe's The Apparition of Mrs. Veal (1706), Addison's The Vision of Mirza (1711), Hogg's The Mysterious Bride (1820), Scott's Wandering Willie's Tale (1824), Austin's Peter Rugg, The Missing Man (1824), Irving's Rip Van Winkle (1819), and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1819) - each of these succeeds in producing a single narrative effect. But when we add to this singleness of impression. other elements which we now consider essential, such as the greatest economy of means, the embodiment of a theme, unity of tone, the use of fitting background, truth in the portrayal of characters, etc., we find that most of them, perhaps all, fall short in one or more of these particular requirements. Admitting that there were many delightful tales before the time of Poe and Hawthorne, even some true short stories, we must reassert that it was these men who became conscious of the art of story writing and made use of their knowledge time after time in writing their stories. The Modern Short Story. Since Poe pointed out the way, there have been thousands of writers of Short Stories the world over, and hundreds of these - first, second, and maybe tenth-rate writers have understood the art better than either Poe or Hawthorne. Among these hundreds there have been a few men and women of genius with great stories to tell and a thorough mastery of the mechanics of their art who have, as a consequence, surpassed even the greatest geniuses, men who had the materials without the conscious knowledge of technic. The Short Story in recent years has become so effective a means of representing life that no one today needs to feel that the serious novel is the only form of fiction worthy of study and consideration. Compared with the more extensive novel, the Short Story is what the sonnet is to the longer lyric poem an artistic vessel of a definite form into which an author may pour his plastic material and fix some great and worthy idea as in a mould of beauty. The technic once established, masters of the art of Short Story writing have sprung up in nearly every civilized country; but America and France have led, with England, Russia, and Germany closely following. In all these countries the writers have recognized the essentials of Short Story technic, but mechanical perfection has been approached most nearly in France and America. The present treatise does not assert that every piece of fiction worthy of the name of Short Story will conform to every technical detail of the typical Short Story, but it does set up certain standards to which the Short Story as a type of fiction must conform, making due allowances for individuality in authors and in pieces of work. To make clear what those technical elements of the Short Story are will be the business of the following chapters. The Chronological Development of the Short Story.Those who are interested in the development of the Short Story from its beginnings in English until the present time may find a scholarly and illuminating treatment of this phase of the subject in Dr. Henry Seidel Canby's The Short Story in English. This book is an exhaustive account, a "documented investigation," of the evolution of this phase of fiction in English. A briefer treatment of the same subject may be seen in his A Study of the Short Story, pp. 1-77. For a series of stories arranged chronologically to illustrate the historical development of the Short Story the reader is referred to the same volume, pp. 79-273, or to Brander Matthews' The Short Story, or to Jessup and Canby's The Book of the Short Story. It is not the purpose of the present volume to enlarge upon this phase of the subject. That has been so well taken care of in these other books that there is no justification for going over it again. What follows will be a study of the form and meaning of the Short Story as it is written by the masters of today. REFERENCES Canby, Henry S. A Study of the Short Story, and The Dawson, W. J., and Coningsby Wm. The Great English Harper & Hamilton, Clayton. Materials and Methods of Fiction. Introduction. Doubleday, Page & Company. Horne, Charles F. The Technique of the Novel. Pp. 8-11. Harper & Brothers. Esenwein, J. Berg. Writing the Short Story. Chap. 1. Hinds, Noble & Eldredge. Jessup and Canby. The Book of the Short Story. Introduction and Introductions to Chapters. D. Appleton & Co. Matthews, Brander. The Short Story. The Short Story. Introduction. American Book Company. Mabie, Hamilton W. Stories New and Old. Introduction. The Macmillan Company. CHAPTER II THE MATERIALS FROM WHICH STORIES ARE MADE A CARPENTER who starts to construct as simple and common a thing as a rack for drying clothes needs to have a plan in mind before beginning. If he has no plan, he may not come provided with all the tools and materials needed for his work. He would also run the risk of spoiling some of his material by cutting inaccurately too long or too short. A contractor who agrees to build a house a more complex structure than a clotheshorse cannot proceed with nothing more definite than a mental picture of the finished building as his only guide. He must have an architect's drawings -floor plans, elevations, perspective, and detail sheets, and also a set of specifications describing the quality, the kind, and the quantity of the material to be used. In like manner the writer who is to make a definite impression, artistic, firm, and convincing of reality, would risk the waste of good material and the stability and beauty of the finished work if he did not have in mind, if not actually on paper, the plans and specifications of his novel or story. An architect's plans and specifications correspond pretty closely to the materials the writer of fiction has to use and the methods he may adopt for the economical and effective use of the material. |