AESTHETIC FEATURES OF SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S STORY WRITING MASTERY
Keywords:
Maugham’s story writing mastery, aesthetic features, psychological realism, plot, style, irony, character, dramatism.Abstract
Somerset Maugham claims a prominent position in world literature as one of the most prolific and distinctive short story writers of the 20th century English literature. This article analyzes the writer's storytelling mastery from an aesthetic perspective. The article examines the poetic structure of his stories, plot construction, artistic devices used to reveal the psychology of characters, as well as the writer's distinctive stylistic features. Maugham’s principal aesthetic principles in storytelling - objective depiction of reality, psychological realism, achieving climax through dramatic turns, and irony - are consistently analyzed through the stories “Red”, “The Man with the Scar”, “The Verger”, “The Luncheon”, and “The Ant and the Grasshopper”. Furthermore, the writer's simple, precise, and concise prose style is examined as an essential component of his aesthetic program. The study explores the views of literary scholars such as G. Orwell, S. Hastings, J. Meyers, D. MacCarthy, and Ch. May on Maugham's storytelling, contributing to a definition of the writer’s outstanding achievement in English short fiction.
References
1. Orwell. G. Autobiographical Note - Twentieth Century Authors - New York.: Stanley J. Kunitz and H. Haycraft. New York: H.W. Wilson & Co., 1942.
2. MacCarthy. D. Somerset Maugham: The English Maupassant - Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. 91, May 1933.
3. Connolly. C. Enemies of Promise - London.: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1938.
4. Meyers. J. Somerset Maugham: A Life - New York.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
5. May. C.E. Masterplots II: Short Story Series. Revised Edition - Pasadena.: Salem Press, 2004.
6. Hastings. S. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham - London.:John Murray, 2009.
7. Maugham. W.S. The Summing Up - London.: Heinemann, 1938.
8. Maugham. W.S. A Writer's Notebook - London.: Heinemann, 1949.
9. Maugham W.S. The complete short stories - Great Britain.: Bookprint Limited by London and Crawley, 1967.
10. Maugham W.S. Sixty-five short stories - Great Britain.: William Clowes Limited, Becclass and London, 1988.
