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Contents Cather Questions | Cather Bio | Cather Links
Source: some questions adapted from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/antonia/study.html
Cather Bio Note: I highly recommend you read the bio in our text. It's very good and contains a great deal of detail not seen in these short overviews. Source: http://www.britannica.com Born Dec. , 1873, near Winchester, Va., U.S. died April 24, 1947, New York, N.Y. in full Wilella Sibert Cather American novelist noted for her portrayals of the settlers and frontier life on the American plains. At age 9 Cather moved with her family from Virginia to frontier Nebraska, where from age 10 she lived in the village of Red Cloud. There she grew up among the immigrants from Europe—Swedes, Bohemians, Russians, and Germans—who were breaking the land on the Great Plains. At the University of Nebraska she showed a marked talent for journalism and story writing, and on graduating in 1895 she obtained a position in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on a family magazine. Later she worked as copy editor and music and drama editor of the Pittsburgh Leader. She turned to teaching in 1901 and in 1903 published her first book of verses, April Twilights. In 1905, after the publication of her first collection of short stories, The Troll Garden, she was appointed managing editor of McClure's, the New York muckraking monthly. After building up its declining circulation, she left in 1912 to devote herself wholly to writing novels. Cather's first novel, Alexander's Bridge (1912), was a factitious story of cosmopolitan life. Under the influence of Sarah Orne Jewett's regionalism, however, she turned to her familiar Nebraska material. With O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918), which has frequently been adjudged her finest achievement, she found her characteristic themes—the spirit and courage of the frontier she had known in her youth. One of Ours (1922), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and A Lost Lady (1923) mourned the passing of the pioneer spirit. In her earlier Song of the Lark (1915), as well as in the tales assembled in Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920), including the much-anthologized “Paul's Case,” and Lucy Gayheart (1935), Cather reflected the other side of her experience—the struggle of a talent to emerge from the constricting life of the prairies and the stifling effects of small-town life. A mature statement of both themes can be found in Obscure Destinies (1932). With success and middle age, however, Cather experienced a strong disillusionment, which was reflected in The Professor's House (1925) and her essays Not Under Forty (1936). Her solution was to write of the pioneer spirit of another age, that of the French Catholic missionaries in the Southwest in Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and of the French Canadians at Quebec in Shadows on the Rock (1931). For the setting of her last novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), she used the Virginia of her ancestors and her childhood. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: http://www.uic.edu/depts/quic/history/willa_cather.html Willa Sibert Cather was born in Back Creek Valley, Virginia., on December. 7, 1873. She died on April. 24, 1947. Cather's work made her one of the most important American novelists of the first half of the 20th century. When Cather was nine, her family homesteaded in pioneer Nebraska. She was a tomboy at home in the saddle. enjoyed distinguished careers as journalist, editor, and fiction writer. Cather is most often thought of as a chronicler of the pioneer American West. Critics note that the themes of her work are intertwined with the universal story of the rise of civilizations in history, the drama of the immigrant in a new world, and views of personal involvements with art. Cather's fiction is characterized by a strong sense of place, the subtle presentation of human relationships, an often unconventional narrative structure, and a style of clarity and beauty. In 1895, Cather graduated from the University of Nebraska. She had first arrived at the University dressed as William Cather, her opposite sex twin. While in college, she fell passionately in love with Louise Pound, a fellow student and athlete. In her book column published in the Lincoln, Nebraska Journal, she condemned Oscar Wilde in 1985. Her first books were a poetry collection, April Twilights (1903), and a short story collection, The Troll Garden (1905). From 1906-1912 she worked in New York for McClure's Magazine and became its managing editor. The writer Sarah Orne Jewett (a lesbian) advised Cather to leave McClure's to focus on her writing. She spent forty years of her life with her companion, Edith Lewis, in New York city. [. . .] Cather never wrote openly about lesbian or gay themes. Much her work, however, can be interpreted with a lesbian or gay subtext if one knows to look for the clues. Nothing overt would have been tolerated by the publishers (and probably by the reading public as well).
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Last Updated January 12, 2003 | Questions? Picture
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