Caroline Gordon Criticism
The literary oeuvre of Caroline Gordon offers an incisive exploration of Southern life, deeply embedded with the cultural and historical narratives of her Kentucky upbringing. Known for her precise historical contexts and Impressionist style, Gordon's work captures the complexities of Southern identity, agrarian values, and the societal transformations post-Civil War. Her novels, such as Penhally, completed with help from Ford Madox Ford, and None Shall Look Back, are celebrated for their polished prose and thematic depth, as highlighted by critics like Herschel Brickell and Edith H. Walton, who recognized their historical significance despite sometimes limited character focus.
Gordon's marriage to poet Allen Tate brought her into the literary circles of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, influencing her early works, which reflect Southern Agrarian themes and the resistance to industrialization. Critics like Ashley Brown and Louise Cowan note her unique blend of pagan myths and Christian motifs, creating a rich tapestry of personal and cultural integration. Robert Penn Warren praised her most acclaimed novel, Aleck Maury, Sportsman, for its depiction of Southern identity and the inherent tension with modern industrialism.
Her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1947 marked a significant shift in her later works, such as The Strange Children and The Malefactors, where themes of redemption and spiritual transformation become prominent. John W. Simons noted the originality and religious depth in these narratives. Her Collected Stories continue to draw critical attention, with Anne Tyler commending their vivid portrayal of Southern landscapes.
Gordon's style, as appreciated by critics such as Andrew Lytle and Jennifer Uglow, is marked by historical continuity and a nostalgic conservatism, yet it transcends regional boundaries. Her rigorous narrative technique and moral depth have drawn comparisons to literary giants like Faulkner and Joyce, as stated by W. J. Stuckey. By blending mythological symbolism with Christian themes, Gordon's work provides a universal scope and profound insights into the human condition, as emphasized by Robert S. Dupree and Thomas H. Landess. Her narratives remain a testament to her commitment to unity of technique and moral vision.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Gordon, Caroline (Vol. 13)
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The Achievement of Caroline Gordon
(summary)
In the following essay, Ashley Brown analyzes Caroline Gordon's work as a conscious continuation and innovation within the Impressionist tradition, highlighting her novels' thematic focus on historical ruin, the search for redemption, and the symbolic use of natural imagery, while noting her stylistic debt to the masters of the form.
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Aleck Maury, Epic Hero and Pilgrim
(summary)
In the following essay, Louise Cowan explores Caroline Gordon's writing, emphasizing her epic vision that combines pagan myths and Christian themes, highlighting the dualities of masculine and feminine principles, and examining the character Aleck Maury as an epic hero navigating a secular world in search of personal and cultural integration.
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Caroline Gordon's 'Constants' of Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert S. Dupree examines Caroline Gordon's emphasis on the unity of technique and moral vision in fiction, highlighting her critical insistence on "constants" in literature and her portrayal of the artist's moral and philosophical attitudes, as exemplified in her story "Emmanuele! Emmanuele!."
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Caroline Gordon's Ontological Stories
(summary)
In the following essay, Thomas H. Landess argues that Caroline Gordon's work reflects the ontological assumptions of the traditional Southern society, exploring themes of heroism, personal sacrifice, and societal manners through complex narratives in her stories, which provide insight into the human condition and the hierarchical structure of being.
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The Achievement of Caroline Gordon
(summary)
- Gordon, Caroline (Vol. 6)
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Gordon, Caroline (Vol. 29)
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Caroline Gordon and the Historic Image
(summary)
In the following essay, Andrew Lytle examines Caroline Gordon's literary technique, arguing that her work successfully creates a dynamic historic image which critiques and builds upon the American tradition by embedding personal and cultural introspection within the broader context of historical change and continuity.
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Frederick P.W. McDowell
(summary)
In the following essay, Frederick P.W. McDowell argues that Caroline Gordon's work exemplifies the qualities of the Southern literary tradition by exploring the tragic dimensions of human life, integrating myth and Christianity, and blending social reality with visionary insight, ultimately producing a canon marked by intelligence, compassion, and psychological depth.
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W. J. Stuckey
(summary)
In the following essay, W. J. Stuckey argues that Caroline Gordon's fiction, while critically underappreciated, is characterized by a rigorous modern technique and anti-modern attitude, demanding high moral and aesthetic responses from readers, and reflects influences from literary figures like Faulkner, Flaubert, and Joyce, transcending regional and temporal boundaries.
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Introduction
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert Penn Warren praises Caroline Gordon's The Collected Stories for their profound exploration of familial and societal complexities, highlighting their subtlety, emotional depth, and the author's unique Southern literary voice.
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The South without the Scent of Lavender
(summary)
In the following essay, Anne Tyler argues that Caroline Gordon's "Collected Stories" capture the vitality and sensory richness of the Southern landscape through vivid depictions of hunting life and themes of freedom and aging, while also highlighting some narrative missteps in her portrayal of African American characters.
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Wings against the Sky
(summary)
In the following essay, Margaret Dickie Uroff explores Caroline Gordon's short stories as evocative celebrations of a vanishing world, highlighting her ability to capture specific details and realistic contours amidst historical and geographical diversity, reflecting the Southern storyteller's art and Gordon's broad sympathies and reverence for tangible reality.
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Southern Kin and Connections
(summary)
In the following essay, Jennifer Uglow examines Caroline Gordon's fiction, highlighting its nostalgic conservatism, exploration of the tension between traditional Southern values and the complexities of modern life, and the delicate depiction of nature as a refuge amidst a world marked by violence, betrayal, and the quest for an unattainable ideal.
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New Caroline Gordon Books
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr. evaluates Caroline Gordon's literary contributions, particularly emphasizing the significance of her works "The Collected Stories" and "Aleck Maury, Sportsman," noting her mastery in capturing life's complexities and her thematic evolution from personal heroics to religious themes, while critiquing her later attempts to merge Christian and classical visions.
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Caroline Gordon and the Historic Image
(summary)
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Gordon, Caroline (Vol. 83)
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Penhally
(summary)
In the following review, Brickell praises Gordon's 'polished and rhythmic' prose and thematic focus in Penhally. This skilfully fictionized chapter of American cultural history deals with a theme that has a curiously ancient, almost archeological, ring, for it is concerned with the ownership of land and its influence upon the lives of people.
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None Shall Look Back
(summary)
In the following review of None Shall Look Back, Walton faults the novel for its failure to focus on any character, but classifies the work as a classic example of Civil War fiction.
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None Shall Look Back
(summary)
In the following review, Porter provides a highly laudatory assessment of None Shall Look Back, discussing the characters Fontaine Allard and his son Ned, as well as the contrasting character of Jim, who represents the truly defeated man.
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Green Centuries
(summary)
In the review below, Benet praises Green Centuries for its accurate portrayal of American history, but questions the plausibility of its tragic ending. He discusses the challenges of accurately depicting the first settlements and the complexities of the frontier experience.
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The Forest of the South
(summary)
In the following review Sullivan provides a highly favorable assessment of The Forest of the South, noting the collection's depth of feeling, wisdom, and appreciation for the American South.
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Overview of Gordon's Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, she provides an overview of Gordon's fiction through the publication of The Strange Children, suggesting that Caroline Gordon's work has suffered from a lack of appreciation compared to other Southern women writers, and attributing this to her un-modishness and refusal to conform to popular trends in Southern literature.
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The Malefactors
(summary)
In the following review of The Malefactors, Simons lauds the book's originality and successful rendering of religious themes in vernacular terms. The novel deals with the theme of conversion, focusing on a poet who, at forty-seven years old and seemingly forsaken by his muse, discovers Christ.
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William Van O'Connor (essay date 1961)
(summary)
O'Connor was an American critic, editor, and educator who was a pioneer in the development of analytical criticism, a form of critical theory which examines historical, linguistic, environmental, and cultural influences on literary works. In the following essay, which provides an overview of Gordon's fiction, he claims that Gordon is a distinctively American writer despite her allegiance to the European literary heritage.
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Self-Realization in the Fiction of Gordon
(summary)
Cheney identifies Gordon's fiction as the artistic and personal process of "self-realization" through which she achieved her conversion to Roman Catholicism. According to Cheney, Gordon's career is "the revelation of ontological motivation" which realizes its apotheosis in The Malefactors.
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The Strange Children
(summary)
In the essay below, Rocks discusses how The Strange Children exemplifies the pivotal point of Gordon's career, demonstrating the transition from the agrarian themes of her earlier fiction to her emphasis on Christian mysticism in her later works.
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The Function of Myth in Gordon's Novels
(summary)
In the following essay, Brown explains the function of myth, mythical allusions, and history in Gordon's first five novels.
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Exploring Gordon's Views About Writing as a Woman
(summary)
In the following essay, she explores Gordon's views about writing as a woman, examining why Caroline Gordon is known as a 'writer's writer' and the cultural attitudes she internalized regarding women and writing.
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Gordon's Later Fiction and the Distinctly Christian Imagination
(summary)
In the essay below, Allums examines Gordon's later fiction as indicative of a 'distinctly Christian imagination.' He discusses the shift in artistic method following her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1947, noting the contrast between her earlier epic and tragic novels and her later works, which are more restricted and move toward comic resolutions. Allums suggests that this change reflects a radical distance between classical and Christian myths, particularly evident in her final novel, a retelling of the story of Heracles.
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Penhally
(summary)
- Further Reading