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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Marilee Lindemann
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

When we find ourselves on shipboard, among hundreds of strangers, we very soon recognize those who are sympathetic to us. We find our own books in much the same way. We like a writer much as we like individuals; for what he is, simply, underneath all his accomplishments.

Willa Cather, “Miss Jewett” (1936)

Willa Cather had little use for critics, preferring to have ordinary readers find and encounter her books without the mediating lens of the professional interpreter. Critics have, from time to time, returned the favor, consigning her to near-oblivion in the 1930s when they judged her to be out of touch with the painful social and economic realities of Depression-era America. Today, fortunately, her reputation with both lay and professional readers is secure, for she is widely read (the prestigious Library of America has two Cather volumes in its series, and My Ántonia has been reprinted in the Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century series), regularly taught (in a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in American literature, women's literature, and lesbian/gay/queer studies), and the subject of intense critical scrutiny and controversy. Those controversies have in recent years landed Cather on the cover of such influential middle-brow publications as The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, where tabloid-style headlines demand to know “What have the academics done to Willa Cather?” or proclaim “Justice for Willa Cather,” as if the long-dead writer has been a hostage or a political prisoner who has finally gained her freedom.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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  • Introduction
  • Edited by Marilee Lindemann, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL052182110X.001
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  • Introduction
  • Edited by Marilee Lindemann, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL052182110X.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Marilee Lindemann, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL052182110X.001
Available formats
×