Kansas University Weekly.
261
LITERARY.
THE SHORT STORY.
Its Genesis, History, Scope and Possibilities.
Read by Miss Adelia Alice Humphrey '95, before the Kansas Academy of Language and Literature.
The suddenness with which the short story has forced itself upon our attention of late might lead one to regard it as a sort of mushroom growth. Such is not the case, for if its genealogy be carefully traced it will be found that the short story is the oldest form of literary production and that it has been subject to fewer changes than any other branch of written or oral literature. Christ himself taught in parables, which are nothing more or less than one of the varied types of the short story. But even long before the Christian era stories were not unknown in the oriental countries and it is from Arabia and Persia that legends first came to the Western Continent.
Such savants as Beufey, Godeke, Kohler, Nöldeke and Liebrecht maintain that our popular tales are but secondary versions of the original oriental legends, and for fifty years this interesting subject has occupied their attention. England's scholars contend that they are the common heritage of the Aryan race, survivals of primitive myths and legends, and came to Europe when the Aryan race migrated west and north.
The interesting fact that legends and tales of a more or less supernatural cast are identical with slight allowances for local color, in countries so widely different as Norway and Italy and among people so unlike as the Norwegians and Italians, may be taken as significant of the fact that they are of common origin. It is highly probable that they are reflections or survivals of ancient Aryan traditions, which still continue current among Asiatic nations. Sometimes, indeed, it is possible to trace the actual passage of the story from Asiatic to European tradition.
Many scholars have suggested the probablity of the transmission having taken place during the Crusades. Although exchange of ideas in many lines may be attributed to those expeditions, traces can be found of a literary emigration at a much earlier period. In 1080 a Greek translation was made of the fables of Bidpai from an Arabic version. The Arabic was a translation from the Persian and the Persian in turn from the Sanskrit original. From the twelfth century was found a small collection of tales written by a Spanish Jew named Peter Alfonsus. These tales were partly derived from the Hebrew Talmud and partly from the Arabian fables. We find therefore that before the time of the Crusades we had at least two works of Asiatic origin not imported by oral tradition.
From that time until the present the story has had its places in all literatures though it is difficult to trace its history on account of the lack of distinction made in the use of the terms romance, novel and story. Writers of the Renaissance in Southern Europe did not consider fiction worthy the attention of educated men so they paid no notice to the difference existing between these forms. The novel and the short story must not be confused. The latter is not a condensation of the the former but the expansion of a single motive.
Recently the short story has had a revival of popularity and has been meta-morphosed from the country cousin in literature to the polished and cosmopolitan relation. Not many years ago writers of some repute considered it rather beneath their dignity to write anything less important than a novel, but recently not a few writers have gained literary fame as authors of short stories only. Thomas Nelson Page, Amelie Rives, Constance Fenimore Woolson and Mary E. Wilkins are a few of the names that might be mentioned in that connection. Rudyard Kipling was one of the leaders in the movement and it is, perhaps, his great success which has stimulated others to a trial of their skill. Kipling stood alone as a representative of England in the Short Story field until the appearance of Conan Doyle. But with these two exceptions and also excluding the works of Daudet, Coppée and Maupassant and perhaps a few others, the signal successes have all been achieved by Americans.
Perhaps that is because the field for the short story writer is practically unlimited in America, the widely various character of its population, the natures and customs of the peoples of different localities all opening up to the student of human nature a vast field for research. In England the changes have been rung on ghosts and detectives until they can no longer arouse popular interest. The boldness of conception and utter scorn of conventionality shown by writers of the short story are most important reasons for its success as is also the analogy