Excerpt from My Antonia by Willa Cather
Excerpt from My Antonia
Published in 1918
A novel accurately relates the difficulties experienced by European immigrants in the United States in the late ninete...
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Willa Cather
(1873 - 1947)
(Full name Willa Sibert Cather) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and poet.
Willa Cather: Introduction
Willa Cather: Principal Works
Willa Cather: Pri...
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Cather, Willa (1873-1947)
Willa Cather, variously perceived by critics as realistic, regionalist, or sentimental, as well as an unusual literary stylist of unhurried elegance, memorably exploited th...
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Biography EssayWilla Cather is an outstanding example of a writer whose work is deeply rooted in a sense of place and at the same time universal in its treatment of theme and character. The corner of ...
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The American author Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947) is distinguished for her strong and sensitive evocations of prairie life in the twilight years of the midwestern frontier. Her poetic sensibility wa...
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"The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman," Willa Cather observed in her second novel, O Pioneers!, but the same theme resonates throughout all of her work. Passionately in...
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Willa Cather is a splendid example of a writer whose work is deeply rooted in a sense of place and at the same time universal in its treatment of theme and character. The corner of earth that she is ...
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"I do not take myself seriously as a poet," said Willa Cather in a 1925 interview. Having by then published many short stories and six novels (of an eventual twelve) and having won a Pulitzer Prize fo...
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The literary reputation of Willa Cather has steadily risen since her first volume of short stories appeared in 1905, but her present stature as an important American writer rests largely on her twel...
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During the 1973 Willa Cather centennial seminar in Lincoln, Nebraska, Leon Edel--the Henry James biographer who collaborated with E. K. Brown on the first important biographical study of Cather--put h...
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In the following excerpt, Murphy discusses Willa Cather and her belief in literature filled with mystery, free of “literalness.”
Contemporary literary climates seem alien to what I have ...
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Critical Essay by Janis P. Stout
Stout, Janis P. “An Overview of the Life and Career of Willa Cather.” In Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 123, edited by Allison Marion and Lin...
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In the following essay, Brown traces Cather's early literary development.
The decade Willa Cather spent in Pittsburgh—from her twenty-third to her thirty-third year—fell evenly in...
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In the following essay, Rosowski examines elements of temptation and salvation in The Troll Garden, and the ways these themes represent Cather's feelings about being an artist.
We must not look...
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In the following essay, Rosowski contends that Cather's main theme in Obscure Destinies is the acceptance of life as apparent reality, in contrast to her earlier themes of idealism.
Wonderful t...
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In the following essay, Baker explores Cather's early view of Nebraska as a hostile place for artistic pursuits.
For many years Willa Cather's novels set in Nebraska have been praised fo...
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In the following excerpt, Woodress presents an overview of the stories in The Troll Garden and Obscure Destinies, and addresses the effect these publications had on Cather's career and personal...
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In the following essay, Hall underscores the difficulties for Cather in inheriting and drawing upon a predominantly male literary canon and the ways in which she addressed this problem through fiction...
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In the following excerpt, Nelson explores the role of immigrants in Cather's stories, asserting that these characters represent Cather's struggle with the principles of American material...
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In the following essay, Haller investigates the influence of French writer Gustave Flaubert had on Cather's story “Behind the Singer Tower” and on the decisions she made regarding...
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In the following essay, Harris addresses Cather's conflicted notions about gender and the ways she expressed this ambivalence in her stories.
Efforts by feminist scholars to recover Willa Cathe...
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In the following essay, Summers examines “Paul's Case” in the context of Cather's opinions about Irish writer Oscar Wilde and her retreat from the male-centered aestheticis...
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In the following essay, Salemi uses the example of “Paul's Case” to demonstrate his theory that Cather employed her training in the cadences and rhythms of classical writing in he...
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In the following essay, Schneider discusses Cather's notion of the value of land as depicted in her short fiction.
In Willa Cather's literary love affair with the land as manifested in h...
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In the following excerpt, Thurin presents an overview of Cather's debt to classical Greek and Latin literature in her short stories.
From Boldness to Conformity
The narrative technique that was...
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In the following essay, Harris discusses the stories in which Cather featured images of the Greek goddess Athene in an attempt to create female characters who embodied the ideals of her own masculine ...
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In the following essay, Wasserman surveys Cather's short fiction.
Initial Bearings and the Question of Modernism
To describe the working habits of Professor St. Peter, the writer-historian in h...
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In the following essay, Salda questions the standard critical interpretation of the ending to “Paul's Case,” positing instead that the title character does not necessarily die.
Cr...
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In the following essay, Zitter perceives the main female character of “The Marriage of Phaedra” as a precursor to Cather's later women protagonists.
“The Marriage of Phaedr...
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In the following essay, Stich views “The Marriage of Phaedra” as Cather's interpretation of the Greek Amazon myth.
To the classical Greeks, Amazons were enemies because of their t...
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In the following essay, Flannigan argues that Cather's insertion of references to the opera Cavalleria Rusticana is a fundamental element to understand the title character of “Eric Herma...
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In the following essay, Saari presents a psychoanalytic interpretation of “Paul's Case.”
Willa Cather's title “Paul's Case” (1905) invites us to ponder...
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In the following essay, Sullivan examines elements of German culture in Cather's stories, particularly the influence of Goethe on “Uncle Valentine.”
More than 70 years after Willa...
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In the following essay, Crabtree considers the significance of flowers in “Paul's Case.”
Critics frequently mention Paul's red carnation, in Willa Cather's short sto...
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In the following essay, Bush maintains that the power of Cather's fiction did not diminish with “The Best Years,” as other critics have asserted.
Willa Cather's last comple...
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In the following essay, Bohlke dilates upon Cather's sources for her story “The Clemency of the Court.”
Henry James once wrote in “On the Genesis of ‘The Real Thing&...
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In the following excerpt, Stouck discusses Cather's major narrative techniques as well as her portrayal of the artistic temperament in her short fiction.
The Pastoral Imagination
In pastoral th...
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In the following essay, Arnold explores the themes of survival and adaptability in Cather's final stories.
Near the end of her career—and her life—in the conclusion to the story &...
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In the following essay, Arnold presents an overview of Cather's early career and stories.
From 1892, when her first story appeared in print, until the end of 1900 Willa Cather published at leas...
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In the following essay, Arnold offers a thematic overview of the stories in The Troll Garden.
I. a Time of Transition
Cather left the Leader sometime during the spring of 1900 and went to visit her co...
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In the following essay, Petry locates the meaning of the story “The Sculptor's Funeral” in the protagonist's homosexuality.
The fictional works of Willa Cather that have al...
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Excerpt from My Antonia by Willa Cather
Cather, Willa
Cather, Willa (1873-1947)
Willa Sibert Cather
Willa Silbert Cather
Willa Sibert Cather
