Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism

Author/Contributor(s):	Acocella, Joan
Publisher:	University of Nebraska Press
Date:	02/01/2000
Binding:	Hardcover
Condition:	NEW

Expanding on her absorbing and controversial 1995 New Yorker article, Joan 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. This beautifully written book 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. A staff writer for the New Yorker, Joan Acocella is the author of Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder and Mark Morris, and the editor of The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky.