East-west Expressionist Aesthetic Reconsideration Of Western Short Story Generic Study

Modern short story,as a young genre,is drawing world attentions.Yet,it is not studied as a specific academic field till Charles E·May in the 1970 s.It is conceded that there is special aesthetic quality in the genre,while numerous problems emerge on the way to prove the fact.Meanwhile,it is besieged by more prestigious theories of narrative based on the longer forms of the novel or the epic and theories of culture,politics,and society etc.The thesis is meant to have a new exploration on the special aesthetic quality in the genre.Chapter 1 mainly explores western dilemmas under representational aesthetics facing western short story.Since the mainstream behind their discussion is representational aesthetics,seeing literature as the reflection of reality,only few lines talking about the genre from the perspective of expressionist aesthetics can be found.Based on the meager invaluable expressionist discussions on the genre,Chapter 2 points out the Anders-streben tendency of short story genre,making full use of Water Pater’s concept of Anders-streben,and expressionist thoughts from Croce,Susanne Langer,Qian Zhognshu,Wai-lim Yip.In chapter 3,Alice Munro’s “Passion”,“Soon”,“The Progress of Love” etc.are analyzed to illustrate the Anders-streben tendency.Finally,we review the defining traits of the genre with expressionist aesthetics.Scrutinizing short story genre from the vanguard of east-west expressionist aesthetics,the thesis explored the distinctive feature intrinsic to the genre.By the virtue of its shortness,short story genre is able to realize aesthetic qualities of different types of art more conveniently and deliver readers to different artistic realms,such as the reserve of lyrics,and the cubic quality of sculpture.“Mystery”,typical of short story,is more than the representation of the mysterious reality,but a distinctive expressiveness of pregnancy,produced in the process of Anders-streben.