Short Stories, Knowledge and the Supeatural:Machado de Assis, Henry James and Guy de Maupassant

by: Amândio Reis (Author)

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Edition:1st ed. 2022

Publication Date: July 13, 2022

Language: English

Print Length: 260 pages

ISBN-10: 3031066804

ISBN-13: 9783031066801

Book Description

This book proposes a comparative approach to the supeatural short stories of Machado de Assis, Henry James and Guy de Maupassant. It offers an alteative to predominantly novel-centric and Anglo-centric perspectives on literary pre-modeism by investigating a transnational and multilingual connection between genre, theme and theory, i.e., between the mode short story, the supeatural and the problem of knowledge. Incorporating a close analysis of the literary texts into a discussion of their historical context, the book argues that Machado, James and Maupassant explore and reinvent the supeatural short story as a metafictional genre. This modeized and innovative form allows them to challenge the dichotomies and conventions of realist and supeatural fiction, inviting their past and present readers to question common assumptions on reality and literary representation.
This book proposes a comparative approach to the supeatural short stories of Machado de Assis, Henry James and Guy de Maupassant. It offers an alteative to predominantly novel-centric and Anglo-centric perspectives on literary pre-modeism by investigating a transnational and multilingual connection between genre, theme and theory, i.e., between the mode short story, the supeatural and the problem of knowledge. Incorporating a close analysis of the literary texts into a discussion of their historical context, the book argues that Machado, James and Maupassant explore and reinvent the supeatural short story as a metafictional genre. This modeized and innovative form allows them to challenge the dichotomies and conventions of realist and supeatural fiction, inviting their past and present readers to question common assumptions on reality and literary representation. Read more