Syllabus for ENG-243 Introduction to the Short Story class taught by Dr. Suzanne O'Brien during the Fall 2016 Semester.

Studies important twentieth-century texts from Spain and Latin America that represent the principal fictional genres--poetry, theatre, short story, and the novel. Includes works by Bombal, Lorca, Neruda, Vallejo, Machado, and GarcĚ_a MĚÁrquez. Taught in Spanish. Subject offered Spring 2003 and Fall 2004.

This is a class designed to get to the heart of fiction by starting with the simplest of myths, moving into short stories, and finally finishing with a novel.

We'll look at the beginning origins of the tale and see how it slowly grew from being something largely contained in plot devices to being something more attuned to character studies before finally showing you how bonkers some fiction can be.

Many elements of our world will be played with and looked at through different view points in an attempt to stir something in the student. As Kafka said, "A book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us."

We'll look at how the short story isn't so much different or a new thing, but is often the one most overlooked. People celebrate poems and Shakespearean plays, and the greatest novels of the time, as they should...but too often we overlook the brilliance of the short story, yet...for many of us, it is the preferred style to enjoy. And in many ways, it is just a poem in prose form, and as Poe said, it was intended to create a trance-like state, "an exaltation of the soul which cannot be long sustained."