Students who desire to pursue a special study of the materials and methods of the drama will find a full discussion of these topics in three books by Clayton Hamilton, entitled “The Theory of the Theatre,” “Studies in Stagecraft,” and “Problems of the Playwright.”
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 Poe––The Formula of Brander Matthews––Definition of the Short-Story––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 173 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 174 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.