Introduction: theories of form

Summary

In this section we turn to what might broadly be called the ‘afterlife’ of the modernist short story. It should be clear from the title that interest here lies in the ways in which the theory and practice of the modernist short story were variously sustained, transfigured, attenuated, challenged and amplified after the high-tide of modernism proper had passed. What this presupposes, of course, is that the short story in its modernist guise remained vital and valid in the minds of writers in this period; that it did so is a central assumption of this section, but one that we should feel justified in making when we look at what writers in the inter-war and post-war years did in the form, and what, in their critical work, they said about it.

The period from around 1930 until approximately 1980, roughly the time span covered in this section, sees the publication of four major critical works on the short story, all of them by practising writers. These are Elizabeth Bowen's introduction to the Faber Book of Modern Short Stories (1936), H. E. Bates's The Modern Short Story (1941), Sean O'Faolain's The Short Story (1948) and, most renowned of all, Frank O'Connor's The Lonely Voice (1962). One thing that will be immediately noticed about this quartet is that three of them are Irish born.