Short Story + Novel + Literary Criticism

SHORT STORY
A short story is a short work of fiction. Fiction, as you know, is prose writing about
imagined events and characters. Prose writing differs from poetry in that it does not
depend on verses, meters or rhymes for its organization and presentation.
Novels are another example of fictional prose and are much longer than short
stories. Some short stories, however, can be quite long. If a short story is a long
one, say fifty to one hundred pages, we call it a novella.
Types of short stories:
Anecdote:
An anecdote is a type of storytelling about a real person and/or incident. Often,
anecdotes are used to illustrate or support a point in an essay, article, or chapter.
They are very short, but have no specific limits.
Drabble:
The purpose of this type of storytelling is briefness. Exceptionally short, they
comprise 100 words. Here an author’s writing skill is out to test, as he has to
express himself meaningfully in a very confined space.
Fable:
It features anthropomorphic creatures (usually animals, but also mythical creatures,
plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature) telling a story with a moral. Most
popular among children stories, often the moral is revealed at the end.
Flash Fiction:
This is an extremely short piece of literature. It has no widely accepted length, but
has a debated cap of between 300 and 1000 words.
Mini-saga
If you can manage to tell a story in exactly 50 words you can call it a mini saga. It
is about saying a lot with a little.
Vignette
Vignette, which started this whole post in the first place! A vignette is a short piece
that focuses on a single scene, character, idea, setting, or object. It can be a stand-
alone piece or part of a larger work
Sketch Story
If you come across a description of a character or a location it can be referred to as
sketch story. The story is a shorter than average piece containing little or no plot.
Novel:

E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel cites the definition "a fiction in prose of a
certain extent" and adds that he defines "extent" as over 50,000 words.

The Beginning
 English Novels
 Novels in the 19th Century
 Victorian Novels
 Realism and Naturalism
 Modern Novels
 Post Modern Novels
The ancestors of the novel were Elizabethan prose fiction and French heroic
romances, which were long narratives about contemporary characters who behaved
nobly. The novel got popular towards the end of the 1700s, due to a growing
middle class. Public interest in the human character led to the popularity of
autobiographies, biographies, journals, diaries.
"Pamela," a series of fictional letters written in 1741 by Samuel Richardson,
is considered the first real English novel. Other early novelists include Daniel
Defoe, who wrote "Robinson Crusoe" 1719.
The first half of the 19th century was influenced by the romanticism of the
previous era. The focus was now on nature and imagination rather than intellect
and emotion.
The rise of industrialization in the 19th century precipitated a trend toward
writing that depicted realism. Novels began to depict characters who were not
entirely good or bad, rejecting the idealism and romanticism of the previous
genre. Realism evolved quickly into naturalism which portrayed harsher
circumstances and pessimistic characters rendered powerless by the forces of their
environment.
The Victorian novel became established as the dominant literary form during the
reign of Queen Victoria I. Victorian novelists portrayed middle-class, virtuous
heroes responding to society and learning wrong from right through a series
of human errors. Victorian authors include Charles Dickens, considered the best
English Victorian novelist, who wrote "A Christmas Carol" 1843.
The 20th century is divided into two phases of literature--modern literature
(1900-1945) and contemporary literature (1945 to the present), also referred to
as postmodern. The characters in modern and contemporary novels questioned the
existence of God, the supremacy of the human reason, and the nature of reality.
Novels from this era reflected great events such as The Great Depression, World
War II, Hiroshima, the cold war and communism.
The postmodern novel includes magical realism, metafiction, and the graphic
novel. It asserts that man is ruled by a higher power and that the universe cannot be
explained by reason alone.
Literary Devices of Novel:
Epigraph
In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning
of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary,
as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite
comparison or to enlist a conventional context.
In a book, it is part of the front matter.
Magical realism
Also known as “marvellous realism,” or “fantastic realism,” magical realism is not
a style or a genre so much as a way of questioning the nature of reality. In books,
stories, poetry, plays, and film, factual narrative, and far-flung fantasies combine to
reveal insights about society and human nature. The term "magic realism" is also
associated with realistic and figurative artworks — paintings, drawings, and
sculpture — that suggest hidden meanings. Lifelike images etc.
Meta fiction
Metafiction is a form of literature that emphasizes its own contractedness in a way
that continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are reading or viewing a
fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form,
storytelling, and directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts.
Euphemism
The term euphemism refers to polite, indirect expressions that replace words and
phrases considered harsh and impolite, or which suggest something unpleasant. ...
For example, “kick the bucket” is a euphemism that describes the death of a
person.
Parallelism
It is a literary device in which parts of the sentence are grammatically the same, or
are similar in construction. It can be a word, a phrase, or an entire sentence
repeated. King's famous 'I have a dream' repetition makes the speech compelling
and rhythmic, as well as memorable.

Literary Criticism:
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of
literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is
the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Though the two
activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always
been, theorists.
Examples of some types of literary criticism are:
Biographical
Historical
Comparative
Ethical
Expressive
Feminist
1. New Criticism:
Involves a close reading of the text. All information essential to the
interpretation of a work must be found within the work itself. Focuses on
analyzing irony, paradox, imagery, and metaphor. Also interested in the
work's setting, characters, symbols, and point of view.
No need to bring in outside information about the history, politics, or
society of the time, or about the author's life.
2. Psychological Criticism:
Psychological Criticism views works through the lens of psychology.
Looks either at the psychological motivations of the characters or of the
authors themselves.
3. Mythological Criticism:
Assumes that there is a collection of symbols, images, characters, and
motifs (i.e. archetypes) that evokes basically the same response in all
people. Identifies these patterns and discusses how they function in the
works.
Asserts that these archetypes are the source of much of literature's power.
4. Feminist/Gender Criticism:
The ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or
undermine the economic, political, social, and psychocogical oppression
of women. Role of women in the literary work; representations of
women. Power structures between men and women.
The female/feminine experience.
5. Marxist Criticism:
Karl Marx perceived human history to have consisted of a series of
struggles between classes--between the oppressed and the oppressing
(“the haves” and “the have-nots”).
Marx thought that materialism was the ultimate driving force in history.
6. Postcolonial Theory:
Focuses on the reading and writing of literature written in previously or
currently colonized countries. The literature is composed of colonizing
countries that deals with colonization or colonized peoples.
Greatly interested in the cultures of the colonizer and the colonized,
postcolonial theory seeks to critically investigate what happens when two
cultures clash and one of them ideologically fashions itself as superior
and assumes dominance and control over the other.
Depends on historical understanding of time and place.
 7. Reader Response Criticism:
Analyzes the reader's role in the production of meaning. Lies at the
opposite end of the spectrum from formalism. The text itself has no
meaning until it is read by a reader. The reader creates the meaning.
Can take into account the strategies employed by the author to elicit a
certain response from readers. Denies the possibility that works are
universal (i.e. that they will always mean more or less the same thing to
readers everywhere).
The 19th century in Western literature—one of the most vital and interesting
periods of all—has special interest as the formative era from which many modern
literary conditions and tendencies derived. Influences that had their origins or were
in development in this period—Romanticism, Symbolism, Realism—are reflected
in the current of modern literature, and many social and economic characteristics
of the 20th century were determined in the 19th.
Romanticism:
• It was the predominant literary movement of the early part of the 19th century.
• The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic
experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and
terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the new
aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature.
• During the 18th century the catchphrase of literature and art was reason.
• But, the 19th century was heralded by major shift in the conception and
emphasis of literary art and specifically poetry.
Subject Matter:
• The most important characteristic of his literary text, he used supernatural
elements, visionary elements in his poems. • Supernatural elements, extraordinary
and mysterious that can be found in human nature.
• Nature is not the only subject matter, he also talk about psychology of character.