CURSO : SHORT STORY
SIGLA : LET 1757
CRÉDITOS : 10
MÓDULOS : 02
REQUISITOS : --
CARÁCTER : MINIMUM
I. DESCRIPTION
The focus of this course will be the analysis and discussion of short stories representative of the Literature of
English speaking countries. The approach to the texts will consider literary theory, literary criticism, and
personal interpretation.
II. OBJECTIVES
General
1. To become acquainted with the short fiction of important writers of the English speaking world.
2. To become acquainted with short story literary theory.
Specific
1. To analyze and discuss a selection of short stories of English speaking countries.
2. To understand the evolution of the short story and its different trends.
3. Identify and analyze the texts' points of contact with literary theory and criticism.
III. CONTENTS
1. The short story, genre theory and the corresponding problems that arise.
2. Overview of the origins of the short story in the English speaking world and its evolution from the
nineteenth century to the contemporary manifestations of the genre.
3. Romanticism: stories by Edgar Allan Poe (horror stories: doppelganger, unheimlich; detective stories)
and Nathaniel Hawthorne (romance).
4. Realism: stories by Mark Twain (regionalism; humor; language), Stephen Crane, Charles Dickens,
Henry James (psychological realism, point of view method).
5. Modernism: stories by D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner. (Stream of
consciousness, Bergsonian time and memory).
6. The Lost Generation: stories by Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
7. Contemporary and Postmodernist stories: Doris Lessing , Saul Bellow, I. B. Singer, Bernard Malamud,
Donald Barthelme, Jamaica Kincaid, Susan Sontag, Antonia S. Byatt, , Sandra Cisneros, Alice
Walker, B.S. Johnson, Adam Mars Jones, Julian Barnes.
IV. METHODOLOGY
- Lectures.
- Class discussions.
- Workshops.
- Individual work.
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PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE CHILE
FACULTAD DE LETRAS / Enero 2008
V. EVALUATION
- Reading controls.
- Oral presentation.
- Short essays.
- Final exam (cumulative).
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Short stories (selection of short stories from the following texts)
Abrahams, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 2 vols. New York:
W. W. Norton, 2000.
Bradbury, Malcolm, ed. The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories. London:
Penguin, 1998.
Byatt, A. S. The Matisse Stories. London: Vintage, 1994.
Cisneros, Sandra Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. New York: Vintage,
1992.
Gates, Henry Louis, ed. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York:
W. W. Norton, 1996.
Joyce, James Dubliners. London: Grafton, 1986.
Lauter, Bruce- Novoa et al, eds. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 2 vols. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998.
Singer, Isaac Bashevis The Spinoza of Market Street and Other Stories. London: Penguin,
1961.
Williford, Lex and Michael Martone, eds.
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction. New
York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1999.
Woolf, Virginia A Haunted House and Other Stories. Middlesex: Penguin, 1985.
Theoretical and critical texts
Bergson, Henri Matter and Memory. New York: Zone Books, 1991.
Freud, Sigmund "The Uncanny." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin &
Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
James, Henry "The Art of Fiction". Henry James: The Future of the Novel.
Essays on the Art of Fiction. Ed. Leon Edel. New York: Vintage,
1956. 3-27.
Johnson, Barbara "The Frame of Reference: Poe, Lacan, Derrida" Untying the Text.
Robert Young. Boston: Routledge & Kegan, 1981. 225-43.
Lohafer, Susan and Jo Ellyn Clarey, eds.
Short Story at a Crossroads. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP,
1989.
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PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE CHILE
FACULTAD DE LETRAS / Enero 2008
Michael J. Hoffman and Patrick D. Murphy.
Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. London: Leicester UP, 1996.
Rabkin, R. S. "The Fantastic and Fantasy". The Fantastic by Rabkin. New York:
Cornell UP, 1980.
Todorov, Svetan "Definition of the Fantastic" and "The Uncanny and the
Marvelous". The Fantastic in Literature by Todorov. New Jersey:
Princeton UP, nd. 25-57.
Woolf, Virginia "Modern Fiction". The Common Reader by Woolf. London: The
Hogarth Press, 1951. 185-95.
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PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATOLICA DE CHILE
FACULTAD DE LETRAS / Enero 2008
