The fairytale is irresponsible; it is frankly imaginary, and its purpose is to gratify wishes, "as a dream doth flatter." It heroe...s and heroines, though of delightfully high station, wealth, beauty, etc., are simply individuals; "certain prince," "a lovely princess." The end of the story is always satisfying, though by no means always moral; the hero's heroism may be slyness or luck quite as readily as integrity or valor. The theme is generally the triumph of an unfortunate one--an enchanted maiden, a youngest son, a poor Cinderella, an alleged fool--over his or her superiors.... In short, the fairytale is a form of "wishful thinking," and the Freudian analysis of it fully explains why it is perennially attractive, yet never believed by adults even in the telling. Myth, on the other hand, whether literally believed or not, is taken with religious seriousness, either as a historic fact or as a "mystic" truth. Its typical theme is tragic, not utopian; and its personages tend to fuse into stable personalities of supernatural character.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How else is the famous short story 'A study in Abjection' to be understood but as an outbreak of disgust against an age indecently... undermined by psychology.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport:... Let us not then rush blindly on unto it, Like lustfull beasts, that onely know to doe it:LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity.... No inspiration is too noble for it; no amount... of hard work is too severe for it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is our life? a play of passion; Our mirth the music of division;... Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses be Where we are dressed for this short comedy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,... And speed glum heroes up the line to death,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I think a surgeon is particularly suited by temperament to the short story form as opposed to the novel, because the short story i...s rather like a surgical operation. It has a beginning, middle, and an end--at least my stories all do: you make an incision, you rummage around inside for a little while, then you stitch it up. Writing a short story is like taking out an inflamed appendix.... The act of making an incision is the creation of a wound for the purpose of healing the patient. The earliest forms of writing were exactly that: taking up a sharp rock and gouging out hieroglyphics in a flat stone--making wounds, as it were, to tell a story. The difference, of course, is that the surgical wound must heal, eventually, but the writer's wound does not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees... Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »