Module description
What are shorter narratives, and how are they different from their longer counterparts? This module examines this question and others, with an emphasis on works emerging from global contexts from antiquity to the present day. Includes literature from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
The module questions the relationship between form and content, and between form and context. All of the texts studied in some way thematise the question of normality or reality, and the boundaries of reality and what lies beyond them. What is it that makes shorter narratives an especially appropriate form to discuss such boundaries and questions?
Other topics may include the narrator’s reliability, the prominence of animals and outsiders, the relationship between shorter narrative and historical trauma, and the depiction in shorter fiction of extreme psychological states and abnormal perceptions of reality. Students will gain a historical understanding of the short story and other forms of shorter narrative and will develop their skills of close reading and analysis.
Assessment details
1 x 2000 word essay (100%)
Teaching pattern
One hour lecture and one hour seminar weekly