210:
J. Gerald
Kennedy describes the proliferation of the genre in the twentieth century, attributing it in part to the desire "to renounce the organizing authority of an omniscient narrator, asserting instead a variety of voices or perspectives reflective of the radical subjectivity of modern experience.
41:
highlighting the conflict between two opposing concepts or thoughts. Because of this dynamic, the stories need to have an awareness of what the other stories accomplish; therefore, cycles are usually written with the express purpose of creating a cycle as opposed to being gathered and arranged later.
55:
Scholars have pointed out that there is a wide range of possibilities that fall between simple collections and novels in their most-commonly understood form. One question is how well the stories stand up individually: chapters of a novel usually cannot stand alone, whereas stories in collections are
40:
because the parts that would make up the chapters can all stand alone as short stories, each individually containing a beginning, middle and conclusion. When read as a group there is a tension created between the ideas of the individual stories, often showing changes that have occurred over time or
224:
Dunn and Morris list several methods that authors use to provide unity to the collection as a whole. It has to be noted that these organising principles pertain to their theory of the composite novel as a short story collection where the focus lies on the coherent whole. (the examples are theirs):
215:
and its use of fragmentation, juxtaposition and simultaneism to reflect the "multiplicity" that he believed to characterize that century. Scholars such as James Nagel and RocĂo G. Davis have pointed out that the story cycle has been very popular among ethnic U.S. authors. Davis argues that ethnic
216:
writers find the format useful "as a metaphor for the fragmentation and multiplicity of ethnic lives" insofar as it highlights "the subjectivity of experience and understanding" by allowing "multiple impressionistic perspectives and fragmentation of simple linear history".
56:
meant to be fully independent. But many books have combined stories in such a way that the stories have varying degrees of interdependence, and it is these variations that cause problems in definition. Maggie Dunn and Ann Morris, for instance, claim that the stories in a
35:
in which the narratives are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the group as a whole as opposed to its individual parts. Short story cycles are different from
140:
In their study of the genre, Maggie Dunn and Ann Morris note that the form descends from two different traditions: There are texts that are themselves assembled from other texts, such as the way the tales from the
428:
80:
implies temporal linearity, neither of which he finds to be essential to most such collections. Rolf Lundén has suggested four types of cycles, in order of decreasing unity: the
104:, in which the links between stories are not always made obvious and in which the discontinuity between them is more significant than their unity (e.g.,
477:
484:
645:
295:
701:
505:
883:
341:
749:
Scholars are still debating the differences between these terms; see Nagel's introduction for an overview of the discussion.
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94:, in which each story is linked to the ones before it but without a cumulative story that ties everything together (e.g.,
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173:
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86:
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512:
470:
329:
982:
Davis, RocĂo G. (1997). "Identity in
Community in Ethnic Short Story Cycles". In Julie Brown (ed.).
911:. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture. Vol. 80. John Wiley & Sons. p. 370.
1023:
540:
189:, etc. Dunn and Morris show how in the nineteenth century, the genre appeared in such forms as the
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185:
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Multiple of these organizing principles may be used in order to create a composite novel.
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114:, in the classical sense of a collection of unrelated stories brought together by a
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Modern
American Short Story Sequences: Composite Fictions and Fictive Communities
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421:
142:
125:
84:, in which the ending resolves the conflicts brought up at the beginning (e.g.,
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851:
The
Contemporary American Short-Story Cycle: The Ethnic Resonance of Genre
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624:
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195:
168:
164:
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32:
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a central protagonist, which has the option of also being the narrator:
358:
159:
124:). Robert M. Luscher compares and contrasts the short story cycle and
429:
For
Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
414:
237:
876:
The United
Stories of America: Studies in the Short Story Composite
491:
37:
853:. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 13.
129:
803:
The One and the Many: English-Canadian Short Story Cycles
934:
The
Composite Novel: The Short Story Cycle in Transition
956:
800:
211:Kennedy finds this proliferation in keeping with
1005:
807:. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p.
478:The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories
981:
351:
931:
961:. Cambridge University Press. p. x-xi.
646:The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
296:Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
950:
898:
485:How the GarcĂa Girls Lost Their Accents
64:, and James Nagel points out that both
44:
1006:
984:Ethnicity and the American Short Story
892:
873:
219:
199:) and the patchwork collection (e.g.,
867:
848:
798:
765:. New York: Greenwood Press. p.
60:are more independent than those in a
986:. New York: Garland. pp. 3–23.
842:
758:
450:A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
925:
702:The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963
128:short stories combined into longer
13:
14:
1040:
932:Dunn, Maggie; Ann Morris (1995).
909:A Companion to the American Novel
957:Kennedy, J. Gerald, ed. (1995).
936:. Twayne Publishers; Macmillan.
901:"The American Short-Story Cycle"
688:Until the Victim Becomes our Own
975:
401:The Country of the Pointed Firs
232:The Country of the Pointed Firs
833:
792:
783:
752:
743:
327:focus on storytelling itself:
301:patterns to create coherence:
1:
736:
527:Legends of the Province House
342:How to Make an American Quilt
163:. Then there are the classic
352:Titles using cycle technique
23:(sometimes referred to as a
7:
899:Luscher, Robert M. (2012).
723:The Women of Brewster Place
695:A Visit From the Goon Squad
322:A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
244:The Women of Brewster Place
174:One Thousand and One Nights
16:Collection of short stories
10:
1045:
878:. Rodopi. pp. 37–38.
520:The Last of the Menu Girls
275:a collective protagonist:
225:The organising principles
135:
87:The Bridge of San Luis Rey
48:
730:A Young Doctor's Notebook
471:The House on Mango Street
336:Pricksongs & Descants
330:The Way to Rainy Mountain
145:are compiled in books by
118:and a narrator(s) (e.g.,
541:Lives of Girls and Women
76:implies circularity and
1019:Short story collections
660:The Things They Carried
799:Lynch, Gerald (2001).
653:A Sportsman's Sketches
555:The Martian Chronicles
171:; this genre includes
151:Wolfram von Eschenbach
72:are misleading, since
51:Short story collection
874:Lundén, Rolf (1999).
849:Nagel, James (2001).
817:10.3138/9781442681941
762:The Short Story Cycle
569:Mrs. Spring Fragrance
310:Exile and the Kingdom
229:a geographical area:
31:) is a collection of
759:Mann, Susan (1989).
681:Uncle Tom's Children
611:Pictures of Fidelman
443:The Golovlyov Family
186:The Canterbury Tales
167:, many of them with
45:Definitional debates
839:Dunn and Morris p.5
220:The composite novel
205:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag
165:serialized novellas
464:A Hero of Our Time
457:Hearts in Atlantis
193:collection (e.g.,
147:Chretien de Troyes
1014:Short story types
885:978-90-420-0692-8
639:The Seven Wonders
632:Sinbad the Sailor
513:The Joy Luck Club
394:The Conjure Woman
316:The Golden Apples
264:The Woman Warrior
201:Louisa May Alcott
21:short story cycle
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604:The Piazza Tales
597:Olive Kitteridge
366:Black Swan Green
97:The Unvanquished
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1024:Literary genres
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716:Winesburg, Ohio
583:Olinger Stories
576:Old Creole Days
562:Monkeys (novel)
534:Linmill Stories
422:The Finer Grain
373:The Candy House
354:
270:A Certain Lucas
258:Winesburg, Ohio
222:
143:Arthurian cycle
138:
126:science fiction
121:Winesburg, Ohio
62:composite novel
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29:composite novel
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284:Go Down, Moses
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191:village sketch
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107:Go Down, Moses
46:
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25:story sequence
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1029:Fiction forms
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993:0-8153-2105-8
989:
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978:
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968:0-521-43010-0
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943:0-8057-0966-5
939:
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860:0-8071-2660-8
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180:The Decameron
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169:frame stories
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155:Thomas Malory
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33:short stories
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709:The Wide Net
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623:
618:Pulp Fiction
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590:Olive, Again
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408:Dark Avenues
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674:Three Tales
667:Three Lives
625:Red Cavalry
499:In Our Time
304:Three Lives
278:In Our Time
252:Cosmicomics
196:Our Village
116:frame story
110:); and the
58:story cycle
1008:Categories
737:References
506:Jesus' Son
359:Annie John
160:Mabinogion
49:See also:
789:Mann p.11
415:Dubliners
387:Cathedral
238:Dubliners
213:modernism
492:I, Robot
157:and the
92:sequence
78:sequence
70:sequence
907:(ed.).
136:History
112:novella
102:cluster
100:); the
90:); the
990:
965:
940:
915:
882:
857:
823:
773:
130:fixups
38:novels
903:. In
82:cycle
74:cycle
66:cycle
988:ISBN
963:ISBN
938:ISBN
913:ISBN
880:ISBN
855:ISBN
821:ISBN
771:ISBN
380:Cane
68:and
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203:'s
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996:.
971:.
946:.
921:.
888:.
863:.
829:.
815::
779:.
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