More than a shorter version of a novel, the short story is a unique and rewarding literary form in itself. In Masterpieces of Short Fiction, esteemed scholar and educator Dr. Michael Krasny takes you into 23 renowned short stories from iconic writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Hemingway. You explore how tales such as "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Killers" characterize the artistry and insight found in these miniature masterpieces. Travel into a world of imagination and gain an appreciation of how these great authors elevated the craft of storytelling into an art form whose impact can last a lifetime.
Masterpieces of Short Fiction
Travel into a world of imagination and gain an appreciation of how great authors like Poe and Hemmingway elevated the craft of short fiction into an art form whose impact can last a lifetime.
Rated 1 out of
5
by
ecomarco from
Unplayable
There is no sound or image. It cannot be played, there is no 'play' button.
Date published: 2024-11-09
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Dedange from
Superbly conceived and delivered! A masterpiece!
This course exceeded all expectation! It spoke of the short story as humanizing, and was, itself, exactly that.
Date published: 2024-08-10
Rated 3 out of
5
by
YearningForMore from
Why the mandatory 30-minute lectures?
The professor has good selections and often provides helpful insights. But he rarely has enough fresh content in his lectures to fill 30 minutes. So there's lots of "filler" content that is repetitive and/or superficial. And he'll also fill time be unnecessarily telling parts of the story and/or reading passages. His lectures would be so much stronger if they were edited down and stop when it's time to stop. Sort of like a good short story!
Date published: 2023-10-29
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Reza K from
Very informative course
This is a very good course. He talks fast & sometimes I lost him; specially, if one is not totally focused, for example, when biking or in the gym. Also his analyses are above moderate level of difficulty. One needs some literary knowledge.
Date published: 2022-10-10
Rated 3 out of
5
by
highstandards from
Ultimately Disappointing
The teacher does some things well. He's picked some important stories. He brings to bear important information about the works and their authors. And he presents the material in well-structured lessons.
But I felt he was very deficient at what I was most hungry for. The great literature courses from TGC typically feature professors who are superb at literary analysis. They break down the literature itself to get to deeper layers of meaning, and they offer their own profound understandings. This professor is only so-so in this respect. He teaches what he believes is the lesson to be learned or what is conventionally thought to be important to learn. But he either can't or simply doesn't do more.
So, my rating is average. And I would discourage those wanting more from taking this course.
Date published: 2021-12-19
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Don12345 from
Great overview of top fiction
Excellent presentation. Broadened my reading experience. Wanted to read more...
Date published: 2021-12-14
Rated 5 out of
5
by
MaryamW from
Excellent course
This is my third course and I am surprised at how good they are. I enjoy Prof Krasny who really knows his fiction works.
Date published: 2021-11-04
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Reader456789 from
Great lectures
Bay Area radio listeners will recognize the erudite Michael Krasney from KQED's Forum program. Here he chooses 24 short stories, easy to find online, and gives great context and analysis. Highly recommended.
Date published: 2021-09-23
Overview
About
Dr. Michael Krasny is Professor of English at San Francisco State University. He earned his M.A. from Ohio University, where he is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Professor Krasny has published a variety of fiction, literary criticism, and political commentary. He is the coauthor of Sound Ideas (McGraw-Hill) and author of Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life (Stanford University Press, 2007), which was on the San Francisco Chronicle and the Marin Independent Journal best-seller lists. Professor Krasny hosts KQED's award-winning Forum, a news and public affairs radio program. He is a veteran interviewer for the nationally broadcast City Arts and Lectures and worked for many years as host of one of ABC's highest-rated radio programs. He has worked as host of KQED's television programs This Week in Northern California and Civic Space and as substitute host for National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. Professor Krasny received four Kudo Awards from American Women in Radio and Television and the National Public Radio Award from the American Publishers Association. He received two Emmy nominations for his television work.
01: Excavations—Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”
What is a short story? How do we judge the strengths and weakness of short fiction? Using Edgar Allen Poe's masterpiece of suspense and psychological horror, you enter the world of the short story and examine the techniques used by writers in this powerful genre.
33 min
02: Hawthorne's "Goodman Brown" and Lost Faith
Colonial puritanism serves as the backdrop for Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of a young man who glimpses the evil in the human heart. You explore how Hawthorne weaves together the strands of Calvinism, paganism, and Indian lore in this surreal allegory.
29 min
03: Under Gogol's "Overcoat"
The next stop is tsarist Russia, where you encounter one of the most influential pieces of 19th-century short fiction. In this darkly satiric yet sympathetic story, Gogol' creates the ultimate "low man," Akaky, the predecessor of a generation of literary underdogs.
29 min
04: Maupassant’s “The Necklace”—Real and Paste
This lecture continues to focus on "little people" with Maupassant's classic tale of bourgeois longing and ironic reversals. In considering the story's famous surprise ending, you examine what the author had to say about morality, materialism, and the unpredictability of fate.
29 min
05: Chekhov, Love, and "The Lady with the Dog"
According to novelist Vladimir Nabokov, "All the traditional rules of storytelling have been broken in this wonderful story." In this lecture, Professor Krasny delineates how Chekhov's unorthodox but deft treatment of character, plot, and setting result in a masterpiece of short fiction.
28 min
06: James in the Art Studio—"The Real Thing"
The work of Henry James is the epitome of 19th-century Realism. Using as his source an anecdote about an aristocratic couple and an artist, James creates a unique piece of short fiction that questions the distinction between appearance and reality and raises profound questions about the social order of his day.
31 min
07: Epiphany and the Modern in Joyce's "Araby"
This lecture enters the 20th century, moving to Dublin and the work of one of the greatest Modernists, James Joyce. In this story from his famous collection of short fiction, "Dubliners," Joyce offers a view of a boy's epiphany about life's disappointments expressed through the story of a failed quest.
30 min
08: Babel's "My First Goose"—Violent Concision
This lecture takes you back to Russia and to a remarkable initiation tale set against the backdrop of the Bolshevik Revolution. Through Babel's shocking and unsettling tale, you are introduced to a singularly important theme that will recur throughout 20th-century fiction: violence.
30 min
09: Male Initiation—Hemingway's "The Killers"
A similar initiation into the world of violence appears in Hemingway's dark story of a young man's encounter with two hit men. The story provides an opportunity to examine the author's mastery of language and to contemplate his enormous influence on later writers.
30 min
10: Kafka's Parable—"A Hunger Artist"
In this satirically humorous allegory of the proverbial "starving artist," Kafka presents a grim but funny vision of the faddishness of public tastes and explores Modernists' ideas about Existentialism and the relationship of art and commerce.
29 min
11: Lawrence's Blue-eyed "Rocking-Horse Winner"
A young boy's uncanny abilities have dire consequences for him and his family in this dark fairy tale about materialism and familial relations. This lecture explores the story's many meanings, including its resonance with Lawrence's own complicated relationships with his mother and his wife.
28 min
12: Female Initiation—Mansfield's "Party"
Class conflict and psychological complexity take center stage in this great Chekhov-influenced story, which traces the initiation of a young girl from pampered naiveté into the understanding of the relationship between life and death.
32 min
13: Jackson's Shocking Vision in "The Lottery"
The mid-century focus begins with "The Lottery," a tale that shocked the World War II generation. You consider how the story's revelation of a deadly and inhuman ritual reflects a new awareness of the horrors of war and human aggression.
32 min
14: O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
This lecture turns to the great Southern American writer Flannery O'Connor, whose harrowing story of a family murdered by a serial killer presents a paradoxical vision of grace.
31 min
15: Paley on Survival and "An Interest in Life"
With Grace Paley, you encounter one of the first authors to reflect a feminist perspective. Paley creates the memorable character Virginia, an abandoned wife and mother who, despite her suffering, maintains a kind of faith in life and other human beings.
31 min
16: The “Enormous Wings” of García Márquez
Myth and satire blend in this powerful allegory about a winged man who falls from the sky and upsets life in a small South American village. You consider the literary movement of Magical Realism and explore why this story has such a powerful impact on readers.
30 min
17: A New World Fable—Malamud's "The Jewbird"
Malamud's story about a fantastical Jewish black bird named Schwartz offers another version of Magical Realism, one that reflects growing anxieties about the assimilation of Eastern European Jews in the United States during the 20th century.
30 min
18: Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"—A Harlem Song
This lecture considers the great Baldwin story "Sonny's Blues," with its themes of music, drug addiction, suffering, family relationships, and the blues, and examines how the story explores the conflicts implicit in the experience of black Americans.
32 min
19: Updike's "A & P"—The Choice of Gallantry
Considered one of John Updike's best short stories, "A & P" is a realistic, bittersweet tale of awakening and the pain of adolescence. You consider how the story reflects both its time (the Sixties) and its place (New England) and appreciate the authentic voice of Updike's narrator, the teenager Sammy.
31 min
20: Kingston's "Warrior" Myth—"No Name Woman"
In this story of family secrets, Kingston uses autobiographical details to create an exploration of the meaning of identity. The result is a groundbreaking work that combines strands from ethnic, cross-cultural, and feminist writing.
30 min
21: Atwood's "Happy Endings" as Metafiction
Atwood takes the conventions of fiction as her subject in this Postmodernist and satiric explication of what makes a "happy ending." You consider how readers contribute to the meaning of fiction and test how Atwood's story reflects Hemingway's idea that all stories end in death.
29 min
22: Gordimer's "Moment Before" Apartheid Fell
This lecture begins with a discussion of the role of apartheid in South Africa and examines how Gordimer, a long-time antiapartheid activist, creates a story that sheds a compassionate light on both the victims of this oppressive political order and its supporters.
29 min
23: Carver's "Cathedral"—A Story that Levitates
Art, transcendence, intimacy, and consciousness-expanding substances all play a role in this subtle and beautifully rendered account of a working stiff, his wife, her blind friend, and the evening they share.
33 min
24: Why Short Fiction Masterpieces?
Is short fiction really needed? What does this format offer that cannot be achieved in other literary forms? In this summary, you meditate on the value of the short story and take a long view of its development.
35 min
