Skip to main content

‘Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff’

Scofield, Martin P. (2001) ‘Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff’. Yearbook of English Studies, 31 (No (1). pp. 93-108. ISSN 1 902653 15 7.. (doi:10.2307/3509376) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:7730)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb351/is_200...

Abstract

Criticism that has tried to come to terms with the outstanding short stories of Tobias Wolff (and writers associated with him) has often had recourse to variations of the contested term ‘realism’. It is argued that the term still has its usefulness, but that it should not be seen to have the simplifying resonances sometimes attributed to it. In Wolff as much as in Flaubert ‘realism’ also involves ‘invention’ and imagination, or what Wolff has called ‘winging it’. His finely crafted and subtle stories often take off into flights of poetry and imagination which question the fixed identities of realistic ‘character’ and allow for the variety of subject-positions sometimes seen as the exclusive province of non-realist writing.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.2307/3509376
Additional information: This article was later reprinted in ‘Tobias Wolff’, in Short Story Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers, Thomson Gale, 2004, pp.334-43 ISBN 0-786-7020-0
Subjects: P Language and Literature
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Alison Priest
Date Deposited: 19 Mar 2009 19:42 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 11:30 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/7730 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Scofield, Martin P..

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.