Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Cather, Willa - Sister Lucy Schneider, C. S. J. (essay date 1967)

Cather, Willa - Sister Lucy Schneider, C. S. J. (essay date 1967)

Sister Lucy Schneider, C. S. J. (essay date 1967)

SOURCE: Schneider, Sister Lucy, C. S. J. “Willa Cather's Early Stories in the Light of Her ‘Land-Philosophy.’” Midwest Quarterly 9 (1967): 75–94.

[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 her fiction with a Midwestern setting, it is helpful to suggest three stages, roughly corresponding to the periods 1892-1912, 1913-1918, and 1922-1947. Although in general there is adequate and sometimes abundant evidence to support a theory of Miss Cather's developing attitude toward the land, still when one examines the whole sweep of her fiction, he finds a basic continuity in her commitment to the land as a value in itself and as a touchstone of value. That commitment, which at first is only latent, progressively becomes ever more overt and...

[The entire page is 6173 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass