Willa Cather And The Politics Of Criticism

Defending Willa Cather against historical and critical distortions, the author argues that Cather's central vision was a tragic vision of the human condition rather than a firm political agenda.

A contextualizing overview of the polarized critical reception of Willa Cather, one of the pre-eminent US authors of the twentieth-century.

A compilation of essays focusing on the significance of material culture to Cather’s work and Cather scholarship. Willa Cather and Material Culture is a collection of 11 new essays that tap into a recent and resurgent interest among Cather scholars in addressing her work and her career through the lens of cultural studies. One of the volume's primary purposes is to demonstrate the extent to which Cather did participate in her culture and to correct the commonplace view of her as a literary connoisseur set apart from her times. The contributors explore both the objects among which Cather lived and the objects that appear in her writings, as well as the commercial constraints of the publishing industry in which her art was made and marketed. Essays address her relationship to quilts both personally and as symbols in her work; her contributions to domestic magazines such as Home Monthly and Woman's Home Companion; the problematic nature of Hollywood productions of her work; and her efforts and successes as a businesswoman. By establishing the centrality of material matters to her writing, these essays contribute to the reclaiming of Cather as a modernist and highlight the significance of material culture, in general, to the study of American literature.

Claude Wheeler is a young man who was born after the American frontier has vanished. The son of a successful farmer and an intensely pious mother, Wheeler is guaranteed a comfortable livelihood. Nevertheless, Wheeler views himself as a victim of his father's success and his own inexplicable malaise.Thus, devoid of parental and spousal love, Wheeler finds a new purpose to his life in France, a faraway country that only existed for him in maps before the First World War. Will Wheeler ever succeed in his new goal? The novel is inspired from real-life events and also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.

"My Mortal Enemy" is a novella written by American author Willa Cather, first published in 1926. It is a poignant and introspective work that explores themes of love, regret, and the passage of time. The story is narrated by Nellie, who reflects on the life of her cousin, Myra Henshawe, a woman who had been the subject of gossip and speculation due to her complex relationship with her husband Oswald. Myra is portrayed as a woman of strong will and passion, whose choices in life have led to both fulfillment and regrets. The novella delves into the contrast between personal desires and societal expectations. "My Mortal Enemy" is a short but emotionally rich work that examines the consequences of choices made in the pursuit of personal happiness and the price one may pay for deviating from conventional norms. It showcases Willa Cather's talent for character exploration and her ability to capture the human experience with depth and sensitivity.

When the Bergson family leave their home in Sweden to travel to the United States in search of a better life, they, like many immigrants, are awed by the beautiful harshness of their new life in Nebraska. When their father, John Bergson, grows sick and dies, he leaves the farm in the hands of his eldest daughter Alexandra Bergson. Resourceful and determined, Alexandra devotes her life to her family's farm, determined to prosper even as her neighbors are overwhelmed by the unremitting demands of pioneer life. But when she falls in love with her childhood friend, Carl Linstrum, Alexandra must choose between her duty to the land, and to her heart. A spirited celebration of the immigrants who have shaped the United States, O Pioneers! is a masterpiece by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is Willa Cather's best known novel. This epic, is a dream like, mythic story of a life lived simply in the southwestern desert. Father Jean Marie Latour is transferred to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. He finds a vast territory of hills, arroyos, and lonelness. Cather delivers a story of a simple life lived well and full in this her tour de force.