Abstract
Using the novella as the European literary genre has divided the Iranian literary scholars due mostly to its unknown features. Lack of research in this area has caused many writers either to abandon this literary term or to opt for alternatives such as “novelette”,” long story”, “long short story” or “short story”. This article aims to introduce the theory and characteristics of the novella as a unique literary genre, based on German literature. Despite the Italian root of the novella, it reflects its Germanic roots as it was flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries Germany. In addition, the paper explores the concept of “long story” in Iranian literature as the synonym of the term novella. The Blind Owl clearly exhibits these characteristics of the genre, especially the dramatic structure and representing a new aspect of human trait. The analysis of The Blind Owl leads to a deeper understanding of one of the most important and well-formed European literary genres and a new look at Sadegh Hedayat’s ideology as a professional author in addition to familiarizing scholars with this genre.
Highlights
Teaching the German Language through literary texts, es‐ pecially narrative literatures has recently shown a notable increase, marking the novella as a popular form and at once the epicenter of this pedagogical surge
One can identify Sadegh Hedayet’s The Blind Owl, as the notable work of art in Persian literature that fits the genre, which is still being categorically misconstrued as the ‘nov‐ el’, the ‘short novel’, and even sometimes as ‘the long story’
While in Persian literature the novella is recognized in terms of the length of the narrative, namely, being ‘longer than the short story’ or ‘shorter than the novel’, this article examines the genre in terms of its distinctive internal dynamics, seek‐ ing to identify the main stylistic, and structural feature as well as notable elements in the formation of the content in the novella that had made the genre one of the most attrac‐ tive forms in narrative literature
Summary
Teaching the German Language through literary texts, es‐ pecially narrative literatures has recently shown a notable increase, marking the novella as a popular form and at once the epicenter of this pedagogical surge. As the form is gen‐ erally known in Farsi by its variant terms such as the ‘long short story’, the ‘long story’ or even the ‘short novel’, in lieu of its original nomenclature, namely, the novella, this paper seeks to provide a relevant categorical definition of the term and its concomitant form One justification for such generic misconceptions of the term lies in our unfamiliarity with the form with its European roots, the existence of a cultur‐ al uncertainty in using the accurate term in Persian literature. He understands the long story as the conflu‐ ence of the novel and the short story, and after a passing anal‐ ysis discards the form as an unknown and only a byproduct of various forms In his reading, Mirsadeghi considers a few titles only perfunctorily as Persian manifestations of the form such as Behazin’s Peasant Girl, Ebrahim Golestan’s Narrating a Bygone’s Past, Jalal Ahlahmad’s The Principal, Bahram Sadeghi’s Paradise, Reza Berahani’s Chah-be-Chah (Well to Well), Jafar Modares’ Gav Khooni. This is study, draws upon the very imperfections of such generic studies, examining the exact qualitative nature of the genre, and as a result serving further studies on the European literature
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