MURTYMUSE

  Selected Modern Hindi Short Stories An Overview  Introduction What is a ‘short story’? Does the modifying tag ‘short’ indicate its length or size, or does the appellative signify some other quality? Obviously a physical measure of any literary work cannot be defined in terms of any particular length or size . When we write a short story we know that it doesn’t have its boundary lines drawn like a straitjacket Petrarchan sonnet. A short story can be of only two pages or even twenty pages. ‘Short’ therefore is not a modifier here in its usual sense of size or length. At best, it is a neutral modifier of the traditional and free form of a ‘story’ loosely meant to distinguish it from its arch rival novel which again is totally free from any such limitation of length. And because the central element of the ‘story’ is integrally common to both, the modifier ‘short’ is surely a distinctive definer.   It only means that ‘short’ is a general distinguishing term which only ...