RANAM, vol. XXXII, 1999, p. 93--104

Anne Foata

The Song of the Lark, or Willa Cather's American history lesson

Abstract. Willa Cather's 1915 Künstlerroman pictures the artistic development of a modest immigrant girl from Colorado, her rise to the acme of an international operatic career. The novel can also read as a paean to the American people, native and foreign, who opened up the West and made America. Running counter the aggressive ideology of the Frontier prevailing after the Civil War, Cather pays homage to its two most despised victims, the native Indians and the Hispanics, both determinant of the heroine's artistic growth.

anne2.foata@wanadoo.fr

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