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20th Century American Literature
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20th Century American Literature
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1.1 Introduction The nineteen twenties was a remarkable period in the field of American art and literature. A renaissance was clearly taking place in the field of the short story also. It is no exaggeration to say that there has never been a time in the history of American literature when the short story writers have shown more interest in their craft. These writers moved away from the traditional plot line and introduced a flexible form which could accommodate any situation. It is not that the short stories during this period are formless, episodic, or casual. On the contrary, they do have a distinct structure, though not one as tightly organized as in the traditional story. In fact, the writers during this period wove their material into a symbolic design. Instead of rounding off an action definitively, they revealed its meaning through a casual glance, gesture or remark. Such a form of the short story works through indirection rather than explicit statements. The innate and ultimate value of these stories lies in their chaste compactness and inclusiveness. Words in these stories are not used as self-contained units. They are not even a means to convey information. In fact, they only create amplitude, where everything is, and nothing is explained. This characteristic of purity in the narrative prose is the hallmark of the American short story of the twenties. Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio was a landmark in the development of the American short story of the twenties. Here, Anderson challenged the formula or standardized stories which became a model and inspiration for many of the young writers of the nineteen twenties, especially Hemingway and Faulkner. The short story became more poetic and psychologically suggestive tha... ... middle of paper ... ...od. Winesburg, Ohio. 1919. New York: Penguin Books, 1983. Anderson, Sherwood. Memoirs. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1952. Cowley, Malcolm. “Introduction". Sherwood Anderson: A collection of critical essays. Ed. Walter B. Rideout.Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1974. Hassan, Ihab. The Radical Innocence.The Princeton University Press, 1961. Stevick, Philip. The American short story 1900-1945: a Critical History. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1984. Sutton, William A. The Road to Winesburg: A mosaic of the imaginative life of Sherwood Anderson. NJ. The Scarecrow Press, 1972. Taylor, Welford Dunaway. Sherwood Anderson. New York: Frederick Unger Publishing Company, 1977. Thurston, Jarvis, “Anderson and Winesburg: Mysticism and Craft”. Accent XVI (Spring 1956): 13. Whipple, T.K. “Sherwood Anderson: Spokesman” Modern Writers and America. New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1928.