Friday, February 08, 2008
I am just starting to get into Willa Cather. I have never read more than excerpts from her books, and I am really, really excited to delve into her books. I found in an introduction to Bohemian Girl this paragraph.
Red Cloud may not have looked like much, but for a genius, it was enough. When asked, in a 1921 interview, if Nebraska was "a storehouse of literary material." Cather responded brusquely, "If a true artist was born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for his work. The only need is the eye to see." Fortunately for Cather, Red Cloud, as unprepossessing as it may have appeared, did indeed have a great deal to offer to a young girl whose intellectual curiosity and strong sense of independence may have been outstripped only by her energy. She made many lifelong friends, including the four Miner sisters, with whom she staged plays and tramped about the undulating countryside outside Red Cloud. (The Miner clan is immortalized as the Harlings in My Antonia.) Cather also had a gift for striking up friendships with adults, and this had a profound effect on her intellectual development. As improbable as it sounds, there was a classics-loving Englishman in town, William Ducker, who clerked in a store; he taught Cather Latin and Greek, and soon she was reading Virgil, Ovid, and Homer. Mrs. Miner exposed Cather to classical music; opera, in particular, was to become a lasting passion for her. And there were the Weiners, a cultivated German-French couple, neighbors whose love for literature inspired Cather to learn French. She of course read widely on her own-- Shakespeare, Carlyle, Dickens, Byron, Poe, George Eliot, Emerson-- and she began to assemble a private library, which ranged from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys, some volumes inscribed with her signature, "Wm Cather Jr."
Anyway, I just thought it was really neat how the community educated her. I think it shows that when someone is motivated to learn, they will, without being forced. It inspires me with my own children to provide a community for learning and an environment that supports and respects curiosity in all its forms. Anyway, I'll see what I think of her books. I'm am going to go read (when I am taking care of the kids... I sneak in a few pages now and then... so far, I've been able to read quite a lot!)
Red Cloud may not have looked like much, but for a genius, it was enough. When asked, in a 1921 interview, if Nebraska was "a storehouse of literary material." Cather responded brusquely, "If a true artist was born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for his work. The only need is the eye to see." Fortunately for Cather, Red Cloud, as unprepossessing as it may have appeared, did indeed have a great deal to offer to a young girl whose intellectual curiosity and strong sense of independence may have been outstripped only by her energy. She made many lifelong friends, including the four Miner sisters, with whom she staged plays and tramped about the undulating countryside outside Red Cloud. (The Miner clan is immortalized as the Harlings in My Antonia.) Cather also had a gift for striking up friendships with adults, and this had a profound effect on her intellectual development. As improbable as it sounds, there was a classics-loving Englishman in town, William Ducker, who clerked in a store; he taught Cather Latin and Greek, and soon she was reading Virgil, Ovid, and Homer. Mrs. Miner exposed Cather to classical music; opera, in particular, was to become a lasting passion for her. And there were the Weiners, a cultivated German-French couple, neighbors whose love for literature inspired Cather to learn French. She of course read widely on her own-- Shakespeare, Carlyle, Dickens, Byron, Poe, George Eliot, Emerson-- and she began to assemble a private library, which ranged from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys, some volumes inscribed with her signature, "Wm Cather Jr."
Anyway, I just thought it was really neat how the community educated her. I think it shows that when someone is motivated to learn, they will, without being forced. It inspires me with my own children to provide a community for learning and an environment that supports and respects curiosity in all its forms. Anyway, I'll see what I think of her books. I'm am going to go read (when I am taking care of the kids... I sneak in a few pages now and then... so far, I've been able to read quite a lot!)
Comments:
In the early '90's I was at Barnes and Nobel and I purchased My Antonia. When I got home, Terry said, "You are reading Willa Cather?" I felt so proud to think that my husband was so impressed with my choice in literary material. Only problem, I never got around to reading it, but I do have a lovely red leather bound edition with guilded pages of My Antonia, The Troll Garden, and selected short stories. It's sitting in my lap as I type. You have inspired me to read it...or at least a couple pages of it till I get distracted by the more pressing things of life like children and laundry.
But I do agree that people learn more and better when they want to and not when they have to.
But I do agree that people learn more and better when they want to and not when they have to.
Well, so far... I haven't had time to get past the intro. But I am going to read it. I will. I hope.
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