Paola Trimarco, ‘Short Short: Exploring Relevance and Filling in Narratives’ in Ailsa

Cox, ed., Teaching the Short Story, 13–27

pp. 13-14
‘As noted by Pratt (1994: 95) when writing about all short stories, ‘The problem with
shortness, of course, arises from a sense that literary genres ought to be characterised by
aesthetic properties, and shortness seems altogether too quantitative, too material a
feature to be given top billing.’ In the case of short shorts, narratives and other stylistic
features, such as intertextual referencing, emerge in ways somewhat (14) distinctive to the
form.’

Linden Peach, ‘Women Writers’, 60–75

p. 66
'The problem with postmodernist theories is that they tend to dismiss "presence" as a
kind of metaphysical conceit and valorise "absence", "aporia" and "kenosis'" (David
Dabydeen, ‘Teaching West Indian literature in Britain’, in Studying British Cultures: An
Introduction 1997: 135-51)’

p. 67
‘Thus, at one level, a postmodern, a historical approach to james's work is useful because
it deconstructs many of the grand narratives-such as History, Nation, Woman, Family-
but at another level it seems inappropriate because it would deny the 'materiality' at the
heart of her stories. Poststructuralist deconstruction, which questions the taken-for-
granted connections between 'language' and 'material world' appears much more relevant,
if we are cautious about dispensing entirely with 'referentiality'. For the emphasis upon
'separateness' in james's stories allows her to reposition the gendered, female body in
culture, language and society and to explore in her writing not so much 'language' and
'difference' as a 'language of difference'. For James, this language of difference (68) is
anchored in material, socio-economic contexts, which no doubt led her publisher to
speak of 'real' women.’

Charles E. May, Why Teaching the Short Story Today is a Thankless Task’, 147–160
Because of its formal characteristics and its generic history, studying the short story may
be more apt to place one in such a politically incorrect position than studying the more
socially responsible novel. It is unfortunate for the short story that an understanding of
its form has been inextricably linked to that old interpretative manoeuvre called the New
Criticism, also known as close reading, which has come under fire for being at best naive
and non-theoretical and at worst, downright fascist. The problem I have faced is: how to
rescue a highly formal genre from critics who find the very notion of form a
dehumanised, tight-fisted, politically incorrect brand of right wing fundamentalism. It is
no accident that many of the contemporary writers that Prose cites for the excellence of
their fiction -Raymond Carver, Stuart Dybek, Deborah Eisenberg, Mavis Gallant, Alice
Munro, Flannery O'Connor, William Trevor and joy Williams -have specialised in the
short story.

I agree with the old-fashioned convictions of Jose Ortega, who once said, 'The material
never saves a work of art, the gold it is made of does not hallow a statue. A work of art
lives on its form, not on its material; the essential grace it emanates springs from its
structure which forms the properly artistic part of the work' (Ortega, 1956: 23). This
seems so obvious it is difficult to see how anyone could deny it. But of course the idea
that the excellence of the short story depends not on its content but its form is denied in
classrooms around the world every day. In fact, the very idea of artistic form and
excellence is often challenged in those classrooms.’

p. 149
‘In the early twenty-first century, as multicultural studies and postcolonial theories
privilege the socially conscious novel, teaching the short story -a poetic form that has
never been amenable to sociological or political criticism-becomes a difficult and
thankless task. After briefly surveying the history of the short story as an asocial artwork,
I will outline some of the generic characteristics that account for its current secondary
status.’

p. 150
‘Frederic Jameson has noted that because the novel is a way of deal- ing with temporal
experience that cannot be defined in advance or dealt with any other way, no pre-existing
laws govern its elaboration. Short stories, myths and tales, on the other hand, are
characterised by a specific and determinate type of content; consequently, their laws can
be the objects of investigation. Jameson reminds us that short stories or folk tales have a
kind of object-like unity in the way they convert existence into a sudden coincidence
between two systems: a resolution of multiplicity into unity, or a fulfilment of a single
wish. Jameson says the short story is a way of 'surmounting time, of translating a
formless temporal succession into a simultaneity which we can grasp and possess'
Jameson, 1972: 74).’

Ailsa Cox, ‘Postgraduate Research’, 161-173

‘As Paul March-Russell has said, incidentally adding to my storehouse of short story
metaphors, 'the short story can be likened to ‘a black hole’ (March-Russell, 2009: ix). It is
apprehended through its effects, not through its essence.’