A Companion to the American Short Story

Alfred Bendixen, James Nagel

John Wiley & Sons, Aug 24, 2020 - Literary Criticism - 536 pages

A COMPANION TO THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY

A Companion to the American Short Story traces the development of this versatile literary genre over the past two centuries. Written by leading critics in the field, and edited by two major scholars, it explores a wide range of writers, from Edgar Allen Poe and Edith Wharton, at the end of the nineteenth century to important modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Richard Wright. Contributions with a broader focus address groups of multiethnic, Asian, and Jewish writers. Each chapter places the short story into context, focusing on the interaction of cultural forces and aesthetic principles.

The Companion takes account of cutting edge approaches to literary studies and contributes to the ongoing redefinition of the American canon, embracing genres such as ghost and detective fiction, cycles of interrelated short fiction, and comic, social and political stories. The volume also reflects the diverse communities that have adopted this literary form and made it their own, featuring entries on a variety of feminist and multicultural traditions. This volume presents an important new consideration of the role of the short story in the literary history of American literature.

Contents

• Poe and the American Short Story: 20
• A Guide to Melvilles Bartleby the Scrivener: 35
• Hawthorne and the American: 50
• Charles W Chesnutt and the Fictions of a New America: 68
• A Colonial Formation: 91
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Feminist Tradition: 105
• The Short Stories of Edith Wharton: 118
• The Transition into the New Century: 133
• Kate Chopin: 152
• Frank Norris and Jack London: 171
• Nineteenth: 187
• A Period of Innovation and Continuity: 217
• William Faulkners Short Stories: 244
• Theory and Practice: 277
• Structure Narrative: 295
• Richard Wright on Perspective: 316
• John Updike: 345
• Raymond Carver in the TwentyFirst Century: 366
• MultiEthnic Female Identity and Denise Chávezs The Last: 380
• Landscape as Haven in American Womens Short Stories: 391
• The American Ghost Story: 408
• The Detective Story: 425
• The Jewish American Story: 450
• The Multiethnic American Short Story: 466
• Should I Stay or Should I Go? American Restlessness: 482
• Index: 502

About the author

Alfred Bendixen has taught at Princeton University, Texas A&M University, California State University – Los Angeles, and Barnard College. He is best known as the founder and Executive Director of the American Literature Association. His recent work focuses on the development of genre in a democratic society and includes The Cambridge Companion to American Travel Writing, co-edited with Judith Hamera (2009); A Companion to the American Novel (Blackwell 2012); The Cambridge History of American Poetry, co-edited with Stephen Burt (2015); and The Centrality of Crime Fiction in American Literary Culture, co-edited with Olivia Carr Edenfield (Routledge 2017).

James Nagel is the Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature Emeritus at the University of Georgia. From 2012 to 2018 he served as Resident Scholar at Dartmouth College. Early in his career he founded the scholarly journal Studies in American Fiction and the widely influential series Critical Essays on American Literature. Among his 24 books are Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism, Hemingway in Love and War (which was made into a Hollywood film directed by Lord Richard Attenborough), The Contemporary American Short-Story Cycle, and Race and Culture in New Orleans Stories. He has published some 80 articles in the field, and he has lectured on American literature in 17 countries.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Companion to the American Short Story; Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture
• Authors: Alfred Bendixen, James Nagel
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2020
• ISBN: 1119685648, 9781119685647
• Length: 536 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General; Literary Criticism / American / General