"Beginning with a brief history and evolution of the short story genre, alongside an overview of the key short story writers, and an explanatory chapter of literary criticism, this book aims to give readers insight into the works by canonical British, Irish, and American authors, including Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, Flannery O'Conner, and more. Applying close reading skills and critical literary approaches to four selected short stories in English, this work conducts comparative analyses to reveal theinterrelationships between the texts, the authors, the readers, and the sociocultural contexts. Developed and tested in literature classes at The Open University of Hong Kong over several semesters, this book addresses key issues, topics and trends in the short story genre"--
Beginning with a brief history and evolution of the short story genre, alongside an overview of the key short story writers, and an explanatory chapter of literary criticism, this book aims to give readers insight into the works by canonical British, Irish, and American authors, including Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, and more. Applying close reading skills and critical literary approaches to twelve selected short stories in English, this work conducts comparative analyses to reveal the interrelationships between the texts, the authors, the readers, and the sociocultural contexts. Developed and tested in literature classes at university over several semesters, this book addresses key issues, topics and trends in the short story genre.
Tso, an English professor in Hong Kong, and Lee, an English teacher and examiner and freelance literary critic in Italy, offer a guide to reading and analyzing British, Irish, and American short stories written by canonical authors in different genres in recent decades, namely James Joyce, William Trevor, Robert Louis Stevenson, Doris Lessing, Zadie Smith, Neil Gaiman, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ray Bradbury, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker, and Annie Proulx. They describe influential short story authors in this literature, various types of short stories, different writing styles and literary techniques, and the evolution of the short story, as well as the most common critical literary approaches; close readings of four short stories; and key topics and main themes in eight paired stories in the context of recent debates involving language, politics, justice, religion, gender, psychology, fantasy, national identity, and other areas. Annotation ©2020 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
