29 (p. 205) (p. 205) "The young Queen of Italy": "The young Queen of Italy": Because she was an ethnic Slav, Elena, wife of King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy, would probably have been looked upon with pride by the Bohemian Cuzaks. Known as an avid hunter, Elena became Queen of Italy in 1900. Because she was an ethnic Slav, Elena, wife of King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy, would probably have been looked upon with pride by the Bohemian Cuzaks. Known as an avid hunter, Elena became Queen of Italy in 1900.
30 (p. 215) (p. 215) Maria Vasak: Maria Vasak: This is probably a reference to Emmy Destinn (or Destinnova), the famous Czech opera singer who sang with the Metropolitan Opera in New York between 1908 and 1916 and was known for promoting the cause of Czech nationalism. This is probably a reference to Emmy Destinn (or Destinnova), the famous Czech opera singer who sang with the Metropolitan Opera in New York between 1908 and 1916 and was known for promoting the cause of Czech nationalism.
31 (p. 220) (p. 220) "Up on the Niobrara": "Up on the Niobrara": The Niobrara River extends from eastern Wyoming into northern Nebraska, where it flows into the Missouri River. The Niobrara River extends from eastern Wyoming into northern Nebraska, where it flows into the Missouri River.
32 (p. 221) (p. 221) In the Bad Lands and up on the Stinking Water: In the Bad Lands and up on the Stinking Water: The Badlands, in southwestern South Dakota, incorporate dramatic geological formations and are visually stunning. Two creeks in the Badlands are known as "Stinking Water." The Badlands, in southwestern South Dakota, incorporate dramatic geological formations and are visually stunning. Two creeks in the Badlands are known as "Stinking Water."
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work"s history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Willa Cather"s My Antonia through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
Comments RANDOLPH BOURNE Willa Cather has already shown herself an artist in that beautiful story of Nebraska immigrant life, O Pioneers! O Pioneers! Her digression into Her digression into The Song of the Lark The Song of the Lark took her into a field that neither her style nor her enthusiasm really fitted her for. Now in took her into a field that neither her style nor her enthusiasm really fitted her for. Now in My Antonia My Antonia she has returned to the Nebraska countryside with an enriched feeling and an even more golden charm of style. Here at last is an American novel, redolent of the Western prairie, that our most irritated and exacting preconceptions can be content with. It is foolish to be captious about American fiction when the same year gives us two so utterly unlike, and yet equally artistic, novels as Mr. Fuller"s she has returned to the Nebraska countryside with an enriched feeling and an even more golden charm of style. Here at last is an American novel, redolent of the Western prairie, that our most irritated and exacting preconceptions can be content with. It is foolish to be captious about American fiction when the same year gives us two so utterly unlike, and yet equally artistic, novels as Mr. Fuller"s On the Stairs On the Stairs and Miss Cather"s and Miss Cather"s My Antonia. My Antonia. She is also of the brevity school, and beside William Allen White"s swollen bulk she makes you realize anew how much art is suggestion and not transcription. One sentence from Miss Cather"s pages is more vivid than paragraphs of Mr. White"s stale brightness of conversation. The reflections she does not make upon her characters are more convincing than all his moralizing. Her purpose is neither to ill.u.s.trate eternal truths nor to set before us the crowded gallery of a whole society. Yet in these simple pictures of the struggling pioneer life, of the comfortable middle cla.s.ses of the bleak little towns, there is an understanding of what these people have to contend with and grope for that goes to the very heart of their lives. She is also of the brevity school, and beside William Allen White"s swollen bulk she makes you realize anew how much art is suggestion and not transcription. One sentence from Miss Cather"s pages is more vivid than paragraphs of Mr. White"s stale brightness of conversation. The reflections she does not make upon her characters are more convincing than all his moralizing. Her purpose is neither to ill.u.s.trate eternal truths nor to set before us the crowded gallery of a whole society. Yet in these simple pictures of the struggling pioneer life, of the comfortable middle cla.s.ses of the bleak little towns, there is an understanding of what these people have to contend with and grope for that goes to the very heart of their lives.
Miss Cather convinces because she knows her story and carries it along with the surest touch. It has all the artistic simplicity of material that has been patiently shaped until everything irrelevant has been sc.r.a.ped away. The story has a flawless tone of candor, a nave charm, that seems quite artless until we realize that no spontaneous narrative could possibly have the clean pertinence and grace which this story has. It would be cluttered, as Mr. White"s novel is cluttered; it would have uneven streaks of self-consciousness, as most of the younger novelists" work, done impromptu with a mistaken ideal of "saturation," is both cluttered and self-conscious. But Miss Cather"s even novel has that serenity of the story that is telling itself, of people who are living through their own spontaneous charm.... My Antonia My Antonia has the indestructible fragrance of youth: the prairie girls and the dances; the softly alluring Lena, who so unaccountably fails to go wrong; the rich flowered prairie, with its drowsy heats and stinging colds. The book, in its way, is as fine as the Irishman Corkery"s has the indestructible fragrance of youth: the prairie girls and the dances; the softly alluring Lena, who so unaccountably fails to go wrong; the rich flowered prairie, with its drowsy heats and stinging colds. The book, in its way, is as fine as the Irishman Corkery"s The Threshold of Quiet, The Threshold of Quiet, that other recent masterpiece of wistful youth. But this story lives with the hopefulness of the West. It is poignant and beautiful, but it is not sad. Miss Cather, I think, in this book has taken herself out of the rank of provincial writers and given us something we can fairly cla.s.s with the modern literary art the world over that is earnestly and richly interpreting the spirit of youth. In her work the stiff moral molds are fortunately broken, and she writes what we can wholly understand. that other recent masterpiece of wistful youth. But this story lives with the hopefulness of the West. It is poignant and beautiful, but it is not sad. Miss Cather, I think, in this book has taken herself out of the rank of provincial writers and given us something we can fairly cla.s.s with the modern literary art the world over that is earnestly and richly interpreting the spirit of youth. In her work the stiff moral molds are fortunately broken, and she writes what we can wholly understand.
-from The Dial The Dial (December 14, 1918) (December 14, 1918) H. L. MENCKEN [Cather"s] work for ten years past has shown a steady and rapid improvement in both matter and manner. She has arrived at last at such a command of the mere devices of writing that the uses she makes of them are all concealed-her style has lost self-consciousness; her feeling for form has become instinctive. And she has got such a grip upon her materials-upon the people she sets before us and the background she displays behind them-that both take on an extraordinary reality. I know of no novel that makes the remote folk of the western prairies more real than My Antonia My Antonia makes them, and I know of none that makes them seem better worth knowing. Beneath the swathings of balder-dash, the surface of numbskullery and illusion, the tawdry stuff of Middle Western Kulture, she discovers human beings embattled against fate and the G.o.ds, and into her picture of their dull struggle she gets a spirit that is genuinely heroic, and a pathos that is genuinely moving. It is not as they see themselves that she depicts them, but as they actually are. To representation she adds something more. There is not only the story of poor peasants, flung by fortune into lonely, inhospitable wilds; there is the eternal tragedy of man. makes them, and I know of none that makes them seem better worth knowing. Beneath the swathings of balder-dash, the surface of numbskullery and illusion, the tawdry stuff of Middle Western Kulture, she discovers human beings embattled against fate and the G.o.ds, and into her picture of their dull struggle she gets a spirit that is genuinely heroic, and a pathos that is genuinely moving. It is not as they see themselves that she depicts them, but as they actually are. To representation she adds something more. There is not only the story of poor peasants, flung by fortune into lonely, inhospitable wilds; there is the eternal tragedy of man.
-from Smart Set Smart Set (February 1919) (February 1919) CARL VAN DOREN That Miss Cather no less truly understands the quieter attributes of heroism is made evident by the career of Antonia Shimerda-of Miss Cather"s heroines the most appealing. Antonia exhibits the ordinary instincts of self-preservation hardly at all. She is gentle and confiding; service to others is the very breath of her being. Yet so deep and strong is the current of motherhood which runs in her that it extricates her from the level of mediocrity as pa.s.sion itself might fail to do. Goodness, so often negative and annoying, amounts in her to an heroic effluence which imparts the glory of reality to all it touches. "She lent herself to immemorial human att.i.tudes which we recognize as universal and true.... She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last.... She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races." It is not easy even to say things so illuminating about a human being; it is all but impossible to create one with such sympathetic art that words like these at the end confirm and interpret an impression already made.
"My Antonia," following "0 Pioneers!" and "The Song of the Lark," holds out a promise for future development that the work of but two or three other established American novelists holds out.
-from The Nation The Nation (July 27, 1921) (July 27, 1921) Questions 1. Many writers have given us characters who are exemplary types-characters who show us how to be or how not to be. Is Antonia a character we should emulate? How does Cather encourage us to compare Antonia with Lena Lingard? 1. Many writers have given us characters who are exemplary types-characters who show us how to be or how not to be. Is Antonia a character we should emulate? How does Cather encourage us to compare Antonia with Lena Lingard?2. Does Willa Cather in My Antonia My Antonia imply a theory about the influence of the natural environment on character? If so, what traits do the local denizens in imply a theory about the influence of the natural environment on character? If so, what traits do the local denizens in My Antonia My Antonia share by virtue of their environment? How do the residents of farming regions like the "Divide" differ from the inhabitants of cities or small towns like Black Hawk? share by virtue of their environment? How do the residents of farming regions like the "Divide" differ from the inhabitants of cities or small towns like Black Hawk?3. Why does Jim Burden not propose to Antonia instead of going off to law school? Does he know the answer to this question? Does Willa Cather know?4. Recently Willa Cather"s lesbianism has become a matter of critical discussion. This criticism is far more often sympathetic than hostile. Do you believe that Cather"s s.e.xual orientation has left traces in the novel?5. Can you put together a character sketch of Jim Burden? What makes him tick? Does he have a recognizable psychology?
FOR FURTHER READING
Major Works of Fiction by Willa Cather A Lost Lady. 1923. Reprint: New York: Vintage, 1990. 1923. Reprint: New York: Vintage, 1990.
Death Comes for the Archbishop. 1927 1927. Reprint: New York: Vintage, 1990. Reprint: New York: Vintage, 1990.
O Pioneers! Pioneers! 1913. Reprint: edited by Susan J. Rosowski and Charles W. Mignon, with Kathleen Danker. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. 1913. Reprint: edited by Susan J. Rosowski and Charles W. Mignon, with Kathleen Danker. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
The Professor"s House. 1925. Reprint: New York: Vintage, 1990. 1925. Reprint: New York: Vintage, 1990.
The Song of the Lark. 1915; revised 1937. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983. 1915; revised 1937. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983.
Collections of Nonfiction Prose by Willa Cather The Kingdom of Art: Willa Cather"s First Principles and Critical Statements, 1893-1896. Selected and edited by Bernice Slote. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966. 1893-1896. Selected and edited by Bernice Slote. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.
Not Under Forty. 1936. Reprint: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. 1936. Reprint: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988.
The World and the Parish: Willa Cather"s Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902. Selected and edited by William Curtin. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970. 1893-1902. Selected and edited by William Curtin. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970.
Biographies and Memoirs Bennett, Mildred. The World of Willa Cather. The World of Willa Cather. Revised edition: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961. Revised edition: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961.
Brown, E. K., and Leon Edel. Willa Cather: A Critical Biography. Willa Cather: A Critical Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953.
Lee, Hermione. Willa Cather: Double Lives. Willa Cather: Double Lives. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
Lewis, Edith. Willa Cather Living: A Personal Record. Willa Cather Living: A Personal Record. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953.
O"Brien, Sharon. Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice. Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley. Willa Cather: A Memoir. Willa Cather: A Memoir. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, 1953. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, 1953.
Woodress, James. Willa Cather: A Literary Life. Willa Cather: A Literary Life. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
Critical Studies Acocella, Joan. Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism. Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Willa Cather"s "My Antonia." Willa Cather"s "My Antonia." New York: Chelsea House, 1987. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Fryer, Judith. Felicitous s.p.a.ce: The Imaginative Structures of Edith Wharton and Willa Cather. Felicitous s.p.a.ce: The Imaginative Structures of Edith Wharton and Willa Cather. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Lindemann, Marilee. Willa Cather: Queering America. Willa Cather: Queering America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Murphy, John J., ed. Critical Essays on Willa Cather. Critical Essays on Willa Cather. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984.
O"Brien, Sharon, ed. New Essays on "My Antonia." New Essays on "My Antonia." Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Reynolds, Guy. Willa Cather in Context: Progress, Race, Empire. Willa Cather in Context: Progress, Race, Empire. New York: St. Martin"s Press, 1996. New York: St. Martin"s Press, 1996.
Rosowski, Susan. The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather"s Romanticism. The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather"s Romanticism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
Stouck, David. Willa Cather"s Imagination. Willa Cather"s Imagination. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975.
Other Works Cited in Introduction Bourne, Randolph. "Trans-National America." In The Radical Will: Selected Writings 1911-1918, The Radical Will: Selected Writings 1911-1918, edited by Olaf Hansen. New York: Urizen Books, 1977, pp. 248-264. edited by Olaf Hansen. New York: Urizen Books, 1977, pp. 248-264.
Cather, Willa. Early Novels and Stories. Early Novels and Stories. Edited by Sharon O"Brien. New York: Library of America, 1987. Edited by Sharon O"Brien. New York: Library of America, 1987.
-. Stories, Poems, and Other Writings. Stories, Poems, and Other Writings. Edited by Sharon O"Brien. New York: Library of America, 1992. Edited by Sharon O"Brien. New York: Library of America, 1992.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays and Lectures. Essays and Lectures. Edited by Joel Porte. New York: Library of America, 1983. Edited by Joel Porte. New York: Library of America, 1983.
Mencken, H. L. "My Antonia." In Smart Set Smart Set (February 1919). Reprinted in (February 1919). Reprinted in Willa Cather and Her Critics. Willa Cather and Her Critics. Edited by James Schroeter. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967, pp. 8-9. Edited by James Schroeter. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967, pp. 8-9.
Michaels, Walter Benn. Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism. Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
Orvell, Miles. "Time, Change, and the Burden of Revision in My Antonia." My Antonia." In In New Essays on "My Antonia," New Essays on "My Antonia," edited by Sharon O"Brien. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 31-55. edited by Sharon O"Brien. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 31-55.
Robinson, Phyllis C. Willa: The Life of Willa Cather. Willa: The Life of Willa Cather. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983.
a Broadway theater known for avant-garde productions.
b The Bohemian name Antonia is strongly accented on the first syllable, like the English name Anthony, and the i is, of course, given the sound of long e. The name is p.r.o.nounced An"-ton-ee-ah.
c From the Bible, Psalms 47:4; the meaning of "selah" remains unknown.
d Daddy (Czech).
e Allusion to the serpent that in the Bible, Genesis 3, tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden.
f Smelling salts.
g Mama (Czech).
h Ability to understand ("Catch on").
i Reference to the Austro-Prussian War, which Prussia won in 1866 with battles fought in Bohemia.
j Charles Wesley"s 1740 Methodist hymn.
k Former name of Oslo, capital of Norway.
l Thread, b.u.t.tons, ribbons, and other dressmaking supplies.
Chicago dry goods firm, now a department store, established in 1881.
m Popular nineteenth-century song with verse by Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842).
n Card game similar to bridge.
o Famous almanac that Benjamin Franklin published from 1733 to 1758.
p Plow equipped with wheels and thus capable of being ridden.
q Italian coastal town south of Naples renowned for its ancient Greek ruins.
Aurora, G.o.ddess of the dawn.
r Bronson Howard"s 1889 play about the American Civil War.
Reginald De Koven"s 1890 operetta.
s Verdi"s opera based on the novel La Dame aux camelias, by Alexandre Dumas the younger.
In Camille, Armand"s rival for Marguerite"s affections.
Marguerite"s maid.
t Czech pastries filled with fruit conserves or poppy seeds.
u Vienna.
v Famous avenue that encircles central Vienna.