CHAPTER X

THE NOVEL, THE NOVELETTE, AND THE

SHORT-STORY

Novel, Novelette, and Short-Story-The Novel and the Novelette The Short-Story a Distinct Type-The Dictum of PoeThe Formula of Brander Matthews-Definition of the ShortStory-Explanation of This Definition: 1. "Single Narrative Effect"; 2. "Greatest Economy of Means"; and 3. "Utmost Emphasis"-Brief Tales That Are Not Short-Stories-Short-Stories That Are Not Brief-Bliss Perry's Annotations The Novelist and the Writer of Short-Stories-The Short-Story More Artistic Than the Novel-The Short-Story Almost Necessarily Romantic.

Novel, Novelette, and Short-Story.-Turning our attention from the epic and the drama, and confining it to the general type of fiction which in the last chapter was loosely named novelistic, we shall find it possible to distinguish somewhat sharply, on the basis of both material and method, between three several forms,-the novel, the novelette, and the short-story. The French, who are more precise than we in their use of denotative terms, are accustomed to divide their novelistic fiction into what they call the roman, the nouvelle, and the conte. "Novel" and "novelette" are just as serviceable terms as roman and nouvelle; in fact, since "novelette" is the diminutive of "novel," they express even more clearly than their French equivalents the relation between the two forms they designate. But it is greatly to be regretted that we do not have in English a distinctive word that is the equivalent of conte. Edgar Allan Poe used the word "tale" with similar meaning; but this term is so indefinite and vague that it has been discarded by later

critics. It is customary at the present day to use the word "short-story," which Professor Brander Matthews has suggested spelling with a hyphen to indicate that it has a special and technical significance.

The French apply the term roman to extensive works like "Notre Dame de Paris" and "Eugénie Grandet"; and they apply the term nouvelle to works of briefer compass but similar method, like the "Colomba" and the "Carmen" of Prosper Mérimée. In English we may class as novels works like "Kenilworth," "The Newcomes," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Rise of Silas Lapham"; and we may class as novelettes works like "Daisy Miller," "The Treasure of Franchard," "The Light That Failed." The difference is merely that the novelette (or nouvelle) is a work of less extent, and covers a smaller canvas, than the novel (or roman). The distinction is quantitative but not qualitative. (The novelette deals with fewer characters and incidents than the novel; it usually limits itself to a stricter economy of time and place; it presents a less extensive view of life, with (most frequently) a more intensive art. But these differences are not definite enough to warrant its being considered a species distinct from the novel. Except for the restrictions imposed by brevity of compass, the writer of novelettes employs the same methods as the writer of novels; and, furthermore, he sets forth similar materials.

The Novel and the Novelette.-More and more in recent years, the novel has tended to .shorten to the novelette. A stricter sense of art has led to the exclusion of digressive and discursive passages; and the hurry and preoccupation of contemporary readers has militated against the leisurely and rambling habit of the authors of an earlier time. The lesson of excision and condensation has been taught by writers as different in tone as Mérimée, Turgénieff, and Stevenson. "The three

volume novel is extinct," as Mr. Kipling stated in the motto prefixed to the poem called "The Three-Decker,” in which, with a commingling of satire and sentiment, he chanted its requiem. It was nearly always, in the matter of structure, a slovenly form; and there is therefore little cause for regret that the novelette seems destined to supplant it. (For the novelette accomplishes the same purpose as the novel, with necessarily a more intensive emphasis of art, and with a tax considerably less upon the time and attention of the reader.

The Short-Story a Distinct Type.-But the conte, or short-story, differs from the novel and the novelette not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, not only in length, but also in kind. In such contes as "The Necklace" of de Maupassant and "The Last Class" of Daudet, in such short-stories as "Ligeia," "The Ambitious Guest," "Markheim," and "Without Benefit of Clergy," the aim of the author is quite distinct from that of the writer of novels and of novelettes. In material and in method, as well as in extent, these stories represent a type that is noticeably different.

The short-story, as well as the novel and the novelette, has always existed. The parable of "The Prodigal Son," in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, is just as surely a short-story in material and method as the books of "Ruth" and "Esther" are novelettes in form. But the critical consciousness of the short-story as a species of fiction distinct in purpose and in method from the novel dates only from the nineteenth century. It was Edgar Allan Poe who first designated and realized the short-story as a distinct form of literary art. In the scholarly and thorough introduction to his collection of "American Short Stories," Professor Charles Sears Baldwin points out that Poe, more than any of his pre

1A contribution to "The Wampum Library"; Longmans, Green & Co., 1904.

decessors in the art of fiction, felt narrative as structure. It was he who first rejected from the tale everything that was, from the standpoint of narrative form, extraneous, and made the narrative progress more direct. The essential features of his structure were (to use Professor Baldwin's words) harmonization, simplification, and gradation. He stripped his stories of every least incongruity. What he taught by his example was reduction to a straight predetermined course; and he made clear to succeeding writers the necessity of striving for unity of impression through strict unity of form.

The Dictum of Poe.-Poe was a critic as well as a teller of tales; and what he inculcated by example he also stated by precept. In his now famous review of Hawthorne's "Tales," published originally in Graham's Magazine for May, 1842, he thus outlined his theory of the species:

"The ordinary novel is objectionable, from its length, for reasons already stated in substance. As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of course, of the immense force derivable from totality. Worldly interests intervening during the pauses of perusal, modify, annul, or counteract, in a greater or less degree, the impressions of the book. But simple cessation in reading would, of itself, be sufficient to destroy the true unity. In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the fulness of his intention, be it what it may. During the hour of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer's control. There are no external or extrinsic influences-resulting from weariness or interruption.

"A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents-he then combines such

events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preëstablished design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem; but undue length is yet more to be avoided."

The Formula of Brander Matthews. From the very outset, the currency of Poe's short-stories was international; and his concrete example in striving for totality of impression exerted an immediate influence not only in America but even more in France. But his abstract theory, which (for obvious reasons) did not become so widely known, was not received into the general body of critical thought until much later in the century. It remained for Professor Brander Matthews, in his wellknown essay on "The Philosophy of the Short-story," printed originally in Lippincott's Magazine for October, 1885,1 to state explicitly what had lain implicit in the passage of Poe's criticism already quoted, and to give a general currency to the theory that the short-story differs from the novel essentially,-and not merely in the matter of length. In the second section of his essay, Professor Matthews stated:

"A true short-story is something other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true short

This paper, later included in Pen and Ink, 1888, has since been published by itself in a little volume: Longmans, Green & Co., 1901.