ABSTRACT
Essays on the short story began to appear frequently, especially in America. These repeat unanimously the view that it is a distinctive genre whose uniqueness lies in three related qualities: it makes a single impression on the reader, it does so by concentrating on a crisis, and it makes that crisis pivotal in a controlled plot. In his influential 1884 essay, elaborating on Edgar Allan Poe’s principles, Brander Matthews declared that ‘symmetry of design’ was a sine qua non in the short story. Insistence on this quality accords with his view that a short story is almost null if it has no plot. Insistence on symmetry began with Poe, and has more to do with his own psychic obsessions than with any essential qualities of the genre. Plot-hatching is part of his preoccupation with detective puzzles, and with situations and imagery of enclosure – chambers, pits, walled cavities, vaults.
