The short story sequence in the ‘Homeland of the novel’: A. S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories

This article delivers a close, textual analysis of A. S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories ([1993] 1994). It argues that Byatt’s text is an example of the short story sequence, a form that is only beginning to establish itself in England. The analysis demonstrates the benefits of reading The Matisse Stories ([1993] 1994) as a sequence of autonomous but linked stories. Focusing on a range of themes and formal properties, the article draws connections between Byatt’s poetics and established theories about the form, paying particular attention to her manipulation of metatextual discourses and her exploration of identity politics in late-twentieth-century England. The article raises issues pertaining to art as well as literature, exploring how Byatt’s engagement with Matissean aesthetics informs her formal strategies and poetics.