1052 Week 5

ANTON CHEKHOV

Russian writer Anton Chekhov is recognized as a master of the modern short story and a leading playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In Yalta, Chekhov wrote one of his most famous stories, The Lady with the Dog.

His plays are still staged worldwide, and his overall body of work influenced important writers of an array of genres, including James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and Henry Miller.

VOCABULARY

Prefixes

hyper- = over

hypertension /ˌhaɪpə(r)ˈtenʃ(ə)n/

e.g. The goal of hypertension treatment is to lower high blood pressure and protect important organs. 

hypo- = under

hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθəsɪs/

e.g. Several hypotheses for global warming have been suggested.

Roots

path = feeling, suffering

pathetic /pəˈθetɪk/

e.g. He made a pathetic attempt to explain his failure.

Suffixes

-dom = place or state of being

freedom /ˈpeərəntɪdʒ/

e.g. My parents gave me total freedom to do whatever I liked.

THE WESTERN CANON

Literary critic Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list-it is a vision.

A major part of the book reviews specific literature and compares and contrasts it with other works.

Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the great works of the western literary tradition and essential writers of the ages.

GENRES OF PROSE FICTION BY LENGTH

A novel

40,000+ Words

It is meant to be read over a period of days. The plot moves forward through many characters, actions, thoughts, time periods, and situations. The reader often feels that the story deviates and is affected by the involvement of different sub-stories and sub-plots, by the passage of time, or by the involvement of new important characters. This is considered the real beauty of a novel.

A novella

17,000 - 40,000 Words

Novellas contain fewer characters, themes and conflicts than a novel. More often, the timeline of a novella also tends to be short. It generally doesn't contain chapters and is meant to be read in one sitting. There are prominent examples of novellas in literature include "The Little Prince",  and "The Old Man and the Sea."

A novelette

7,500 - 17,000 Words

Back in the day, novelettes referred to a story that was romantic or sentimental in character. However, in modern times, the term is rarely used, and novelettes are rarely published singly.

A short story

3,500 - 7,500 Words

It is often used to describe a single event, a single episode, or a tale of one particular character. A short story does not usually involve major twists and conflicts, and involvement of various sub-plots and multiple characters is not common. A short story is basically fictional prose, written in a narrative style.

A short short story

53 - 1,000 Words

The writer should convey the intended message in a maximum of 1000 words. It’s really fun writing flash fiction, but the writer needs the required skills to entertain the reader in a minimum number of words.These works used to be referred to as "short short stories" until around the turn of the century (the year 2000), when the term "flash fiction" became the norm.

THE READER

It is a 2008 German-American romantic drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by David Hare, based on the 1995 German novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink.