Short story

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The short story is a modern literary form or genre of prose , the main characteristic of which is its brevity. This is often achieved by heavily compressing the content . The term is a loan translation of the English term short story .

history

Emergence

The emergence of the short story is closely related to the development of the journalism industry in the 19th century : "Magazines offered American authors better sales opportunities than the book market." The short story emerged as a short story in English-language, especially American, literature , according to Edgar Allan Poe who also addressed the short story in his aesthetic writings, O. Henry , Sherwood Anderson , Sinclair Lewis , F. Scott Fitzgerald , William Faulkner , Ernest Hemingway , Henry Slesar . Rip Van Winkle (1819) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) by Washington Irving are considered the first short stories in world literature . The short story was first taken up in the German-speaking countries around 1900. Here it first had to assert itself against other established short forms (above all novella , also anecdote and calendar story ). Subsequently, the form was also used by authors of expressionism (such as Alfred Döblin or Robert Musil ).

In Germany

The “German short story” is primarily the product of “clear-cut” or “rubble literature” after 1945. In the debates of the time, this term denoted the attempt to set a new literary beginning, to proclaim a literary “ zero hour ” ( Alfred Andersch ) . By resorting to the form of the short story, the authors of this time not only referred to American models - Hemingway is considered to be particularly influential - but consciously set themselves apart from the extensive, pathetic and ideologically charged works with short texts in simple and factual language of literature under National Socialism . The new style corresponded to the program of Group 47 , whose authors made significant contributions to the development of the genre.

“The men of the deforestation […] know, or at least […] suspect it, that the new beginning of prose in our country only the method and the intention of the pioneer are appropriate. The method of inventory. The intention of the truth. Both at the price of poetry. Where there is the beginning of existence, there is also the beginning of literature. "

- Wolfgang Weyrauch : A thousand grams . Collection of new German stories. Hamburg 1949, pp. 194-219, here p. 217.

Up until the 1950s , many short stories deal critically with the post-war period. Wolfgang Borchert in particular directly addresses the problems of those returning from the war , the poverty of the late 1940s (for example in Das Brot ), and the soldiers' difficulties in finding their way in peace. The core of his short prose is the fundamental rejection of war and the search for “humanity in the ruins” (that's how rats sleep at night ). Other authors also do not focus on big politics, rather they go into simply outlined situations general human phenomena such as lack of communication, status thinking, denouncing (e.g. Ilse Aichinger in Das Fenster-Theater ) and incomprehension between the generations (e.g. Peter Bichsel in The Daughter or Walter Helmut Fritz in Moments ).

Well-known short story authors of the post-war period (with their first works in the genre) are Ilse Aichinger ( Das vierte Tor , 1945), Wolfdietrich Schnurre ( The Burial , 1946), Wolfgang Borchert ( The Hundeblume Collection , 1947), Elisabeth Langgässer ( The Torso Collection , 1947 ), Heinrich Böll ( The Man with the Knives , 1948), Wolfgang Weyrauch ( thousand grams collection , 1949), Siegfried Lenz ( Suleyken was so tender collection , 1955), Alfred Andersch ( Geister und Menschen collection , 1958), Gabriele Wohmann ( Stories With a Knife , 1958), Marie Luise Kaschnitz ( Lange Schatten Collection , 1960), Hans Bender ( Fondue or Der Freitisch , 1961), Heinz Piontek ( Chestnut Collection from Fire , 1963) and Erwin Strittmatter ( A Tuesday in December , 1971).

From the mid- 1960s , the short story lost some of its importance. With the upswing of the economic miracle , the social framework changed. The short story, which according to Ruth J. Kilchenmann is "aggressive, provocative, anti-bourgeois, arousing" by its nature, not only lost the subject of the shocks of the immediate post-war period, but also fit less and less into a bourgeois society. Both the now established authors of the post-war period and the young generation of writers turned to other literary forms.

Further compression and reduction led to the shortest story , whose authors include Peter Bichsel , Kurt Marti , Helga M. Novak , Thomas Bernhard and Ror Wolf .

developments

The award of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature to Alice Munro , whose work consists exclusively of short stories, has attracted a great deal of attention to the genre. In the times of the Internet , it is also experiencing a revival in numerous portals.

features

The generic principle of the short story is its "qualitatively applied reduction and compression, which includes all design elements and accordingly has an effect on the suggestive power of the short story." There are no uniform characteristics that apply to all works that are classified as "short story" or "short story" are designated. Nevertheless, some features can be found that are particularly characteristic of the German short story from 1945–1955. The overarching aesthetic qualities appear:

  • The story should be read in one act.
  • The message of the text is not obvious at first glance and much has to be understood by the reader by reading between the lines and linking actions ( iceberg model ).

In addition, narrative technique and language as well as topics, action and people can be characterized as follows.

Narrative technique and language

  • Usually a personal narrator reports from a distance, but in some texts also a first-person narrator (e.g. in Wolfgang Hildesheimer's short story I don't write a book about Kafka ), or an authorial narrator (as in Günter Bruno Fuchs ' Ein Baumeister hat Hunger ).
  • There is no or only a very short introduction ( exposure ). Instead, the short form requires immediate entry into the action ( in medias res ), for example by introducing the as yet unknown person with pronouns.
  • Techniques of condensation through gaps, hints, metaphors and symbols correspond to the short form.
  • The chronological narration is considered to be typical mainly in the past tense , in some cases different courses of action are combined with each other through internal monologues and fade-ins and thus treated simultaneously.
  • The narrated time is usually only a few minutes or hours, often the events are reduced to a few moments, an exemplary situation, a picture or a snapshot.
  • Typical is a laconic style of language, the use of everyday language , sometimes also dialect or jargon.
  • The literary design is mostly based on a hidden ambiguity or ambiguity: the everyday event described refers to more complex problems that can often be explored using metaphors and leitmotifs .
  • An open ending , often with a punchline , makes the reader think about what happened; because there are still questions open; the reader has to read between the lines.
  • Valuations, interpretations and solutions, on the other hand, are largely avoided.

Topics, plot and people

  • Typical is a conflict-ridden, often only sketchily depicted situation characterized by emotions .
  • One or two main characters, often typified, are the focus (however, there are also short stories with significantly more main characters). People are only described and characterized in aspects.
  • The story only takes place in a few places.
  • The plot is usually one-strand and extremely brief.
  • A decisive turning point in the life of the acting person or character is told. Usually there is a change of luck ( peripetia ).
  • The themes of the short story are problems of the time. The everyday nature of the action and people who neither stand out from the crowd nor appear heroic: “a piece of life torn out” (Schnurre 1961).

Many authors see the short story as an open genre and experiment with various elements of other genres , such as aspects of fables , fairy tales or legends .

literature

Text collections

  • Werner Bellmann (Hrsg.): Classic German short stories . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-15-018251-2 (33 stories from 1945 to 1965).
  • Werner Bellmann and Christine Hummel (eds.): German short prose of the present . Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-018387-1 (30 texts from the period from 1965 to 2004).
  • Manfred Durzak (ed.): Narrated time. 50 short stories of the present. Reclam, Stuttgart 1980. ISBN 3-15-009996-X .
  • Herbert Fuchs, Ekkehart Mittelberg : Classical and modern short prose. Variants - creative handling - methods of interpretation. Texts and materials ( Classical School Reading Series ). Cornelsen, Berlin 1999. ISBN 3-464-52232-6 ; sixth edition under the title: Classic and Modern Short Stories. Variants - creative handling - methods of interpretation. Texts and materials. Cornelsen, Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-454-52180-7 .
  • Wolfgang Salzmann (Ed.): Seventeen short stories, with materials. Klett, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-12-261220-8 .
  • Herbert Schnierle-Lutz (Ed.): Schlaglichter. Two dozen short stories. With materials. Klett, Stuttgart 2001. ISBN 978-3-12-262731-7 .

Interpretation aids

  • Werner Bellmann (Hrsg.): Classic German short stories. Interpretations . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-017525-9 (33 interpretations of the texts of the anthology published by Reclam in 2003).
  • Werner Bellmann and Christine Hummel (eds.): German short prose of the present. Interpretations . Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017531-3 (interpretations of the 30 texts of the anthology published by Reclam in 2005).
  • Herbert Fuchs, Ekkehart Mittelberg : Classical and modern short prose. Variants - creative handling - methods of interpretation. Texts and materials ( Classical School Reading Series ). Cornelsen, Berlin 1999. ISBN 3-464-52232-6 ; sixth edition under the title: Classic and Modern Short Stories. Variants - creative handling - methods of interpretation. Texts and materials. Cornelsen, Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-454-52180-7 .
  • Hans-Dieter Gelfert : How do you interpret a novella and a short story? Reclam, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-15-015030-2 .
  • Rainer Könecke: Interpretation aids . German short stories 1945–1968 . Second edition. Klett, Stuttgart and Dresden 1995.
  • Rainer Könecke: German-language short prose between 1945 and 1989. Interpretations, thematic references as well as reflections on their production-oriented use in upper secondary school . Klett, Stuttgart and Dresden 2006.
  • Bernd Matzkowski: How do I interpret fables, parables and short stories? Basic knowledge grades 11–13. With texts. Bange, Hollfeld 2005.
  • Paul Nentwig: The modern short story in the classroom . Georg Westermann, Braunschweig 1967.
  • Timotheus Schwake: EinFach Deutsch lesson models: Classic short stories . Edited by Johannes Diekhans. Schöningh, Paderborn 2008.
  • Franz-Josef Thiemermann: Short stories in German lessons. Texts - interpretations - methodological notes . Kamp, Bochum 1967.

Research literature

  • Hans Bender: Location of the short story . In: Akzente 9 (1962), Heft 3, pp. 205-225.
  • Klaus Doderer: The short story in Germany. Their shape and their development. Metopes, Wiesbaden 1953.
  • Manfred Durzak: The art of the short story . Munich 1989 (UTB 1519).
  • Manfred Durzak: The German short story of the present . Third, expanded edition, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002. ISBN 3-8260-2074-X .
  • Walter Höllerer : The short form of prose . In: Akzente 9 (1962), Heft 3, pp. 226–245.
  • Klaus Lubbers: Typology of the Short Story . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1977. ISBN 3-534-06442-9 .
  • Ruth J. Kilchenmann: The short story - forms and development. In: Wolfgang Salzmann (Ed.): Seventeen short stories, with materials. Klett, Stuttgart 1982, p. 107 ff.
  • Jan Kuipers: Timeless time. The history of German short story research . Groningen 1970.
  • Leonie Marx: short story. In: Literature Lexicon. Authors and works of German language. Edited by Walther Killy . Gütersloh and Munich 1988, p. 498 f.
  • Leonie Marx: The German Short Story . Third, updated and expanded edition. Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2005 (Metzler Collection 216). ISBN 3-476-13216-1 .
  • Urs Meyer: short and shortest story . In: Small literary forms in individual representations. Reclam, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 124-146.
  • Hans-Christoph Graf von Nayhauss (Hrsg.): Theory of the short story (series of working texts for teaching ). Revised and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 3-15-015057-4 .
  • Erna Kritsch Neuse: The narrator in the German short story . Camden House, Columbia (SC) 1991.
  • Ludwig Rohner: Theory of the short story . Second improved edition. Athenaeum, Wiesbaden 1976.
  • Wolfdietrich Schnurre : Criticism and weapon. On the problem of the short story . In: Deutsche Rundschau 87 (1961), Issue 1, pp. 61-66.

Web links

Commons : Short story  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Short story  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Footnotes

  1. ^ Wolfgang Martynkewicz : Edgar Allan Poe. Reinbek near Hamburg 2003, p. 63.
  2. ↑ See Harenberg Lexicon of World Literature . Dortmund 1994, sv "short story".
  3. ↑ Quoted from the pages of the University of Tromsø on the genre short story ( Memento from February 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Ruth J. Kilchenmann: The short story - forms and development . In: Wolfgang Salzmann (Ed.): Seventeen short stories, with materials. Klett, Stuttgart 1982, p. 108 f.
  5. ^ Leonie Marx: Short story . In: Literature Lexicon. Authors and works of German language. Edited by Walther Killy, Gütersloh and Munich 1988, p. 498 f.