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On the Nature of the [Portuguese] Short Story: A Poetics of Intimacy. Over het Wezen van het [Portugese] Kortverhaal: een Poëtica van de Intimiteit. (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. J.C. Stoof, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 15 januari 2010 des middags te 2.30 uur door Erik Adolf Van Achter geboren op 19 juli 1963 te Wetteren, België Promotor: Prof.dr. P. de Medeiros Co-promotor: Prof.dr. O. de Almeida Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my father (†) and my brother (†) who would have been proud of me and to my mother, for bearing the brunt of my growing Latino character. It is also dedicated to those once so close and now so far away, but always on my mind: Cazé Silva (Brasilia, Brazil), Paola Rolletta (Maputo, Mozambique), José Luís Landeira (São Paulo, Brazil)) and to Tim Fagundes (San Diego, USA) serving the United States Army somewhere in the world. It is dedicated to all those who have taught Portuguese in the Low Countries, especially Prof. Dr. Roegiest (University of Ghent, Flanders—Belgium) and Prof Dr. Venâncio (University of Amsterdam—the Netherlands) Table of Contents Acknowledgements. .................................................................................................................... i Preface........................................................................................................................................ v 0. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter I. Generic Labels for Short Prose Fiction..................................................................... 4 1.0. Introduction. ................................................................................................................ 4 1.1. A New Label in Literary Criticism. ............................................................................ 5 1.2. Portugal. .................................................................................................................... 12 1.3. Label stretching......................................................................................................... 14 1.4. História – Conto – Novella. ...................................................................................... 16 1.5. Romance – Novella – Conto...................................................................................... 18 1.6. Golden Years............................................................................................................. 22 1.7. Conclusion................................................................................................................. 29 Chapter II. The Rise of the Conto Literário, moderno in Nineteenth Century Portugal. ........ 32 2.0. Introduction. .............................................................................................................. 32 2.1. Folhetim Crónica – Folhetim Conto. ........................................................................ 37 2.2. The Romantic Short Story......................................................................................... 39 2.3. O Conto de Terror..................................................................................................... 43 2.4. O Conto Rústico. ....................................................................................................... 44 2.6. From History to Theory............................................................................................. 61 2.7. Conclusion................................................................................................................. 79 Chapter III. The Genesis of a Paradigm in Short Story Studies............................................... 82 3.0. Introduction. .............................................................................................................. 82 3.1. E. A. Poe and the Tale Proper. .................................................................................. 84 3.2. Brander Matthews and the Short-story...................................................................... 89 3.3. The Anonymous Review........................................................................................... 96 3.4. The Effects of Poe’s and Matthews’ Essays. ............................................................ 98 3.5. Conclusion: Long Term Effects. ............................................................................. 104 Chapter IV. Trends in Modern Short Story Criticism: an Overview. .................................... 110 4.0. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 110 4.2. The Analogy to Poetry. ........................................................................................... 112 4.3. The Short Story -Novel Distinction. ....................................................................... 114 4.4. Ferguson vs. May. ................................................................................................... 132 4.5. Is there a Reader in /for the Short Story? ................................................................ 138 4.6. The Splintering Frame: beyond Genre.................................................................... 163 4.7. Conclusion............................................................................................................... 171 Chapter V. The Portuguese Short Story as a Genre. .............................................................. 174 5.0. Introduction: Genre, Mode and Sub-genre.............................................................. 174 5.1. The Corpus and a Methodological Approach. ........................................................ 181 5.2. The Corpus Analysed.............................................................................................. 190 5.2.1. “Realist” Short Stories ......................................................................................... 190 5.3.2. Short Stories: The Period of Second Modernism................................................. 209 5.3.3. Short Stories from the Magazine: Ficções. .......................................................... 220 5.3.4. Conclusion............................................................................................................ 229 5.4. From Discourse Description towards the Concept of Genre................................... 237 5.4.1. Narrators and their Space. .................................................................................... 237 5.4.2. Narrated Time in the Portuguese Short Story. ..................................................... 246 5.4.3. Characters: Larger than Life, less than Real. ....................................................... 250 5.5. Conclusion............................................................................................................... 263 VI. Final Conclusion. ............................................................................................................. 266 Samenvatting in het Nederlands............................................................................................. 272 Works Cited............................................................................................................................ 275 2.1. Portuguese Short Story Criticism and Literary History. ......................................... 277 2.2. American and General Short Story Criticism. ........................................................ 282 2.3. German Short Story Criticism................................................................................. 290 2.4. Literary History, Theory and Criticism................................................................... 291 Appendix I. A German Lesson in Genre Description. ........................................................... 296 Appendix II. Counter Analysis: four Neo-Realist Fictions.................................................... 316 Acknowledgements. In the first place I would like to thank Professor Dr. Paulo de Medeiros for having given me the opportunity to write and defend a PhD at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands), and for having gone with me this far. The venture was not an obvious one, as the subject matter is extremely volatile, and the first long and difficult years passed by quickly without clear results. Someone who has accompanied me too for this very long stretch of time, and from whom I had my first real introduction in Portuguese Literature, is Professor Dr. Seabra Pereira (University of Coimbra). When in Portugal he assumed the function of a real co-promotor. It was after the examination of Portuguese Literature at the University of Coimbra, he proposed to write about narrativa breve. When the laborious writing process started, a stitching together of so many different partial theories and pieces of criticism, Professor Dr. Onésimo de Almeida of Brown University (U.S.A.) was my first serious critical reader. I am convinced that the manuscript benefited immensely from his expertise and being a short fiction writer himself, the meetings were always a stimulus which should not be underestimated. The last to enter the scene was Professor Dr. Rosa Goulart of the University of the Azores. Besides having written a curiously fresh piece of criticism on