small worlds

Kleinkunst in German refers to a so-called art of small forms, “little art,” in other words.
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By “small forms” in literature, we generally understand various types of prose works of short length. These might include short stories, sketches, anecdotes, essays, reviews, feuilletons, and aphorisms. They were, to be sure, cultivated at a time when large novels, full-length plays, and fine poetry of every hue and stamp were being written...But the modernist upheaval in the arts beginning at the turn of the century [19 to 20th] created a climate of experimentation and innovation of far-reaching consequences for all literary creativity. Structural and linguistic transformations of conventional literary genres, from novel to poem, was also accompanied by a spurning of these genres by writers who were attracted to, and sought to make their niche in, the emerging world of literary small forms.

The Vienna Coffeehouse Wits, 1890-1938 (Purdue U. Press, 1993) by Harold B. Segel