Tale, Novella, Short Story

The tenth international Salzburg conference was focused on the short forms of fiction: the tale, the novella, and the short story. The volume contains selected papers from that three-day event. They address several groups of issues. First, the influence on English short fiction of specific historical texts (One Thousand and One Nights, the medieval dream poem, William Painter). Then there are close readings of contemporary short fiction from many countries and literatures (e.g. Australia, Africa, India, U.S.A., Great Britain, Ireland). Further contributions are attempts to identify nodal points, power lines, currents and cross-currents, forces of tradition and innovation which have kept short fiction alive through the ages. A last group of contributions is concerned with general aspects and theoretical issues, exploring brevity and compactness as aesthetic principles.