Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects Feminist theory/Women's studies Literary Studies Literary Studies MOSTLY Theory

by Joan Acocella

University of Nebraska Press

Due/Published February 2000, 128 pages, cloth

ISBN 0803210469

Expanding on her controversial 1995 New Yorker article, Acocella examines the politics of Willa Cather criticism: how Cather's work has been seized upon and often distorted by critics on both the left and the right. Acocella argues that the central element of Cather's works was not a political agenda but rather a tragic vision of life. Acocella makes a significant contribution to Cather studies and, at the same time, points out the follies of political criticism in the study of all literature.

" What is most astonishing is that Joan Acocella, our nation's premier dance critic, should also be one of our sharpest literary critics. Here, in a vastly expanded version of her refreshing, astute New Yorker article, she defends Willa Cather from the willful misreadings of academic scholarship. Final score: all points to Acocella and Cather."--Wendy Lesser