The Fable Tradition (Critical Survey of Short Fiction)
Overview
The most primitive desire underlying the impulse to tell a story is the need to account for things. Primitive stories, often called myths, that account for basic mysteries of existence, such as the creation of the earth or the origins of human life, were once basic explanatory models, much like scientific theories are in modern times. Since their truth could not be tested by checking them against external reality, such stories were judged “true” if they were coherent, that is, if they held together in a plausible and convincing way. In addition to these broad...
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