Biographical Info. & Literary Works
Woolsons' texts
Constance Fenimore Cooper Society
Bibliographic information
"Rodman the Keeper"
"Jeannete"
"Peter the Parson"
"King David"
"In Sloane Street"
List of Secondary Sources
Horace Chase, Jupiter Lights, et al.
In recent study of Constance Fenimore Coopers' "A Waitress," I found her style, tone, and setting to be among those late eighteenth and early nineteenth century American writers whose texts show the quintessential "Americaness" characteristic of the Realism Movement between 1870 and 1930. In her story "A Waitress," there are several words or phrases that intrigued me and sent me looking for deeper meanings and/or symbolism behind them. I will seek to explain a few.... Edward Gray -- Lord Tennyson wrote a poem about an Edward Gray whose heart is broken over a lost love. http://tennysonpoetry.home.att.net/eg.htm Santa Lucia -- the church in the story, is reminiscent of Saint Lucy. In Scandanavian countries she is known as the "Queen of Lights," but in the Meditteranean region she is known as the patron saint of sight. Modesta -- the name of the 'waitress' in the story, means "shy" or "modest" Garibaldi -- portrait of on the side of a door in the store, an Italian nationalist revolutionary.
