Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Wolff, Tobias - Martin Scofield (essay date 2001)

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Martin Scofield (essay date 2001)

SOURCE: Scofield, Martin. “Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff.” Yearbook of English Studies 31 (2001): 93-108.

[In the following essay, Scofield argues that realism and experimentalism in literature are not mutually exclusive concepts.]

What is the best way to get a critical purchase on the stories of Tobias Wolff? Inevitably, he has hitherto been put in the critical filing cabinet in one of the sections of the drawer marked “Realism.” As long ago as 1963 Gordon Becker wrote in the introduction to his Documents of Modern Literary Realism: “Certainly it would add to ease of discourse in the future if whatever happens next should be given a new name, and not be tagged with some variant or permutation of the word ‘realism’.”¹ But this has not prevented the persistence of the (more or less serious) permutations: “Dirty Realism”...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Thomas Sutcliffe (review date 30 July 1982)
   2. Richard Eder (review date 17 November 1985)
   3. Perry Glasser (review date December 1985)
   4. Mona Simpson (essay date 9 December 1985)
   5. Jay Woodruff and Tobias Wolff (interview date spring 1990)
   6. Richard Eder (review date 13 October 1996)
   7. Robert Stone (review date 15 November 1996)
   8. Joan Smith and Tobias Wolff (interview date December 1996)
   9. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   10. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   11. James Hannah (essay date 1996)
   12. Colm J. Kelly (essay date March 1999)
   13. Martin Scofield (essay date 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright