Because of structural and stylistic similarities, "Mrs Dalloway" is commonly thought to be a response to James Joyce's "Ulysses", a text that is often considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century (though Woolf herself, writing in 1928, denied any deliberate "method" to the book, saying instead that the structure came about "without any conscious direction"). In her essay "Modern Fiction", Woolf praised "Ulysses", saying of the scene in the cemetery, "on a first reading at any rate, it is difficult not to acclaim a masterpiece." At the same time, Woolf's personal writings throughout her reading of "Ulysses" are abundant in criticisms. While in the initial reading process, she recorded the following response to the aforementioned passages,