Cather Studies 12: Willa Cather and the Arts ed. by Guy Reynolds (review)

Guy Reynolds, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and former director of the Cather Project, states in his introduction to volume 12 of Cather Studies that the essays within integrate two new trends in Cather scholarship. The first, he writes, is “new forms of contextualization. Literary historians increasingly see Cather as a pivotal or transitional figure working between and across very different cultural periods.” The second major aspect of Cather criticism influencing this volume is the 2013 publication of The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, which, as Reynolds points out, allows scholars to move among the author’s fictional pieces, journalism and now her personal letters in order to “map the continuities and interconnections” in order to see “a life that was deeply embedded—devoted, in fact, to myriad forms of art and culture.”

The first three essays of the volume are tied thematically to the ways “Cather encountered and represented high and low cultures” and indeed Diane Prenatt does an admirable job of seeking to identify the “aesthetic value and cultural function” of the quotidian objects which occupy and render meaning, from “essential theological truths” to affirmation of culture and “group identity” in Cather’s 1931 novel Shadows on the Rock. So too, Janis P. Stout explores a common interest Cather shared with Sterling A. Brown: the “accurate deployment of vernacular speech,” specifically in regard to a popular minstrel song/ballad in the nineteenth century, “Nancy Till.” Stout’s essay deftly illustrates how both authors sought to preserve accurate dialectical speech in their fiction as an important vehicle to understanding the people who used it and the culture out of which it emerged. Unfortunately, the final chapter in this section does little to advance the topic; the basic tenet of Sarah L. Young’s essay, “The Singer as Artist: Willa Cather, Olive Fremstad, and the Artist’s Voice”—that singing “is an interpretive act”—is not a new idea, nor is it lucidly applied to Cather’s use of the singer in her novel The Song of the Lark.

In contrast, John H. Flannigan’s “Cather’s Evolving Ear: Music Reheard in the Late Fiction” is exceptional for its deep research into musicological resources to show just how detailed and comprehensive was Cather’s understanding of composers such as Schubert and Mendelssohn. Flannigan so effectively demonstrates the idea that Cather’s views on “high” and “low” culture shifted during her lifetime that his essay provides a nice bridge to the remaining essays. For example, Stephanie Tsank’s fascinating essay on “Food and Artistry in Cather’s Orchards” leads us to imaginative inroads as she investigates “Cather’s artistic praxis” involving food in her non-fiction pieces as well as in her fiction. Erika K. Hamilton links the various aspects of high and low culture in a fitting tribute to Cather’s remarkable ability to market herself as much as her fiction; especially illustrated in her publicity efforts with her novels published in the 1920s. Joyce Kessler, in “Memory and Image: Graphemics for a New Frontier” explores “picture-memories” of Cather and her characters in My Ántonia as they parallel W. T. Benda’s illustrations for the novel.

James Jaap’s essay on “Paul’s Case” is not a clear fit in this volume for a variety of reasons; but my main concern with its inclusion is its undocumented use of other scholars’ work. This last item is a pity, as in sum, the collected essays within volume 12 of Cather Studies offer an invaluable addition to every Cather scholar’s library—just as it presents fresh and readable new insights for the more casual Cather enthusiast.