WILLA CATHER Critical Assessments Edited by Guy Reynolds VOLUME I Memoirs and Recollections; General Responses and Critical Overviews HELM INFORMATION
Contents General Editor's Preface 1 Introduction 3 Bibliography of Willa Cather's Major Works 8 Willa Cather: A Chronology of Her Life 9 Critical Bibliography 15 Chronological List of Criticism Included 19 Acknowledgements 32 VOLUME I: Memoirs and Recollections; General Responses and Critical Overviews Introduction to Willa Cather 1. WILLA SIBERT CATHER, 'Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle', The Nation, 117:3035, 5 September 1923 41 2. DOROTHY VAN GHENT, Willa Cather, University of Minnesota Pamphlets on American Writers, Minneapolis, 1964 48 3. ANN M. BEGLEY, 'Remembrance of America Past', The American Scholar, 62, 1993 74 Memoirs and Recollections 4. ELIZABETH MOORHEAD, 'The Novelist', Willa Cather and Her Critics, ed. James Schroeter, Ithaca, 1967; rptd from These Too Were Here: Louise Homer and Willa Cather, Pittsburgh, 1950 87 5. MILDRED BENNETT, Art', The World of Willa Cather, 1951; rptd Lincoln, NE, 1961.' - 97 vii
6. EDITH LEWIS, 'Virginia' and 'Red Cloud', Willa Cather Living: A Personal Record, 1953; rptd Lincoln, NE, 1961 112 7. ALFRED A. KNOPF, 'Miss Cather', The Art of Willa Cather, eds Bernice Slote and Virginia Faulkner, Lincoln, NE, 1974 123 8. YEHUDI MENUHIN, from Aunt Willa', Unfinished Journey, London,1976. 139 Early Responses: Cather's Critics in the 1920s 9. LATROBE CARROLL, 'Willa Sibert Cather', Bookman, 53, 1921 145 10. CARL VAN DOREN, 'Willa Cather', Contemporary American Novelists, New York, 1922; rptd Willa Cather and Her Critics, ed. James Schroeter, Ithaca, 1967 150 11. LLOYD MORRIS, 'Willa Cather', North American Review, 219, 1924 155 12. STUART SHERMAN, 'Willa Cather and the Changing World,' Critical Woodcuts, New York and London, 1926 164 13. LUCY LOCKWOOD HAZARD, from The Frontier in American Literature, New York, 1927 173 14. REGIS MICHAUD, from The American Novel To-day, Port Washington, 1928 177 15. T. K. WHIPPLE, 'Willa Cather', Spokesmen, New York and London, 1928 183 'The Case Against Willa Cather' and 'A Defense of Willa Cather': The 1930s Debate 16. V. L. PARRINGTON, 'Willa Cather: Epics of Women', Addenda to Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920, Vol. Ill, 1860-1920 : The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America, New York, 1930 197 17. WILLIAM BLANKENSHIP, 'Beyond the Village: Willa Cather', American Literature as an Expression of the National Mind, London, 1931 199 18. LOUIS KRONENBERGER, 'Willa Cather', Bookman, 74, October 1931 205 19. CLIFTON FADIMAN, 'Willa Cather: The Past Recaptured', The Nation, 135, 7 December 1932 214 20. A. C. WARD, from American Literature 1880-1930, London, 1932 220 21. ARCHER WINSTEN, A Defense of Willa Cather', Bookman, 74, March 1932 222 22. PELHAM EDGAR, from The Art of the Novel From 1700 to the Present Time, New York, 1933 230 23. GRANVILLE HICKS, 'The Case Against Willa Cather', English Journal, November 1933; rptd Willa Cather and Her Critics, ed. James Schroeter, Ithaca, 1967 234 viii
24. HARRY HARTWICK, 'Simplicity with Glory', The Foreground of American Fiction, New York, 1967 241 25. ROBERT CANTWELL, from 'A Season's Run', The New Republic, 85, 11 December 1935 251 26. HARLAN HATCHER, 'Willa Cather and the Shifting Moods', Creating the Modern American Novel, London, 1936 254 27. MARGARET LAWRENCE, 'Willa Cather', The School of Femininity, New York, 1936; rptd Folcroft Library Editions, 1976 264 28. ARTHUR HOBSON QUINN, 'Willa Cather', American Fiction, New York 1936 271 29. LIONEL TRILLING, 'Willa Cather', The New Republic, 90, 10 February 1937 283 30. ROBERT FOOTMAN, 'The Genius of Willa Cather', American Literature, 10, 1938 289 31. HOWARD MUMFORD JONES, 'The Novels of Willa Cather', The Saturday Review of Literature, 18, 6 August 1938 305 Judgements and Elegies: The 1940s 32. GEORGE L. WHITE, Jr, 'Willa Cather', Sewanee Review, 50, 1942 313 33. ALFRED KAZIN, from 'Elegy and Satire: Willa Cather and Ellen Glasgow', On Native Grounds, London 1943 320 34. E. K. BROWN, 'Homage to Willa Cather', Yale Review, 36, 1946. 329 35. DAYTON KOHLER, 'Willa Cather: 1876-1947', College English, 9, 1947 340 36. MAXWELL GEISMAR, from 'Willa Cather: Lady in the Wilderness', The Last of the Provincials, 1947, New York, 1959 353 37. H. S. CANBY, from Literary History of the United States, ed. Robert E. Spiller et al., 1948, 4th edn, New York and London 1974 365 38. J. DONALD ADAMS, from 'The Fact and the Vision', The Shape of Books to Come, New York, 1948 369 39. BERNARD BAUM, 'Willa Cather's Waste Land', South Atlantic Quarterly, 48, 1949,373 'Willa Cather at Mid-Century': The 1950s and 1960s 40. FRANCIS CONNOLLY, 'Willa Cather: Memory as Muse', Fifty Years of the American Novel, ed. Harold C. Gardiner, New York, 1951 38 41. VAN WYCK BROOKS, from 'Renascence', The Confident Years: 1885-1915, New York, 1952 399 42. FREDERICK HOFFMAN, 'Willa Cather's Two Worlds', The Twenties, 1955, revised edn, New York, 1962 403 ix
43. HOWARD MUMFORD JONES, 'Willa Cather', The Frontier in American Fiction, Jerusalem, 1956 411 44. GEORGE GREENE, 'Willa Cather at Mid-Century', Thought, 32,1957 426 45. MORTON D. ZABEL, 'Willa Cather: The Tone of Time', Craft and Character in Modern Fiction, London, 1957 439 46. HENRY STEELE COMMAGER, from 'The Traditionalists', The American Mind, New Haven, 1959 448 47. JOHN H. RANDALL III, from The Landscape and the Looking Glass: Willa Cather's Search for Value, Boston, 1960 45 48. WILLARD THORP, from 'New Voices', American Writing in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge MA, 1960 458 49. QUENTIN ANDERSON, 'Willa Cather: Her Masquerade', The New Republic, 27 November 1965 464 50. WARNER BERTHOFF, from The Ferment of Realism, Cambridge, 1965 470 51. WILLIAM M. CURTIN, 'Willa Cather: Individualism and Style', Colby Library Quarterly, 8, 1968 476