Constance Fenimore Woolson - Critical Evaluation

Critical Evaluation

Woolson’s short stories are regarded today as competent and readable examples of local color. Her novels have suffered somewhat in comparison, though they also reflect her ability to paint impressive backgrounds for her fiction.

Her story "Jeannette" is a fine example of her first period of Great Lakes fiction, with an ending that plays against conventional romance. "Rodman the Keeper" represents her second period of Southern-based fiction, and shows sympathy for both Northern and Southern cultures and worldviews. "In Sloane Street", from Woolson’s final European period, shows genuine insight into the problems of an unmarried woman writer who is staying with a married couple.

Read more about this topic:  Constance Fenimore Woolson

Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or evaluation:

    The male has been persuaded to assume a certain onerous and disagreeable rôle with the promise of rewards—material and psychological. Women may in the first place even have put it into his head. BE A MAN! may have been, metaphorically, what Eve uttered at the critical moment in the Garden of Eden.
    Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)

    Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)