The Humanization of Willa Cather: Classicism in an American Classic by Erik Ingvar Thurin (review)

382 Western American Literature The Humanization of Willa Cather: Classicism in an American Classic. By Erik Ingvar Thurin. (Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1990. 406 pages, SEK240.) Willa Gather’s interest in classical arts and culture has long been acknowl­ edged, but Thurin’s study is the first book-length examination of classical influences in Cather’s writing. The book is commendable for its scope, for it covers classical allusions, form, and themes in all phases of her career, ranging from her journalistic reviews in Nebraska to her later novels and short fiction. The reader must have a rather extensive awareness of classical literature and the biography of Cather in order fully to appreciate this study. The work is helpfully divided into separate chapters on all major works and phases of Cather’s career, and each chapter discusses specific classical influences for that particular work, as well as placing it in the context of Cather’s development as a writer who incorporates both the literary form and philosophical under­ pinnings of classicism. Thurin is helpful in his consideration of both primary and secondary sources for Cather’s classicism, as he includes sources ranging from notated classical volumes in the author’s own library to second-hand literary sources, such as nineteenth-century romanticism or Shakespeare’s plays, that rely heav­ ily on classicism. This study notes Cather’sstrong interest in Roman culture, as it adapts and filters Greek civilization, and in the extension of both Greek and Roman culture through the Roman Catholic Church and French civilization. Thurin notes other ancient sources, primarily the Bible and medieval litera­ ture, but perceives Cather accommodating those influences to her more pervasive classical thought. The study is less convincing when parallels are drawn without sufficient textual evidence between Cather’s writings and classical works. In the impres­ sive mass of classical references, the study sometimes fails to provide sufficient explanation for its arguments or stretches an admittedly valid thesis beyond its reasonable limits. This book is being published in both Swedish and English. It will be helpful to Cather scholars in the thoroughness of its consideration of specific classical influences on individual works and in its evaluation of the interplay between Cather’s life and development as a writer and classical techniques and ideals. DONNA MAPLES Howard Payne University Innocence, Loss, and Recovery in the Art of Joan Didion. By Michelle Car­ bone Loris. (New York: Peter Lang, 1989. 160 pages, $22.95.) At one point in Joan Didion’s essay collection, The White Album, Didion tries to level with her readers, confessing, “You are getting a woman who for ...