The Turn of the Twentieth Century: 1880-1920 - Short Fiction (Critical Survey of Short Fiction)
Introduction
Until the early nineteenth century, short prose fiction was primarily a vehicle for didactic
messages, often religious in nature. Romantic writers, wishing to preserve the old values without
the religious dogma and mythological trappings, secularized the old stories by presenting them as
basic psychic processes. The ballad tale that had
previously existed as received story now became infused with the subjectivity of the teller. The
famous collaboration of William Wordsworth and
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