Willa Cather NEWSLETTER & REVIEW VOLUME 55, NO. 1 SUMMER 2O11 Lucy Gayheart and On Chesil Beach JOHN J. MURPHY . The Professor’s House as Academic Novel STEVEN TROUT Willa Cather NEWSLETTER & REVIEW VOLUME 55, NO. 1 SUMMER 2011 7 18 15 16 26 Contents 3 Letter from the President 16 Remembering James Woodress, 1916-2011 SUSAN MAHER MARGARET ANNE O’CONNOR The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Reverberations “Exterior—to Time” in Lucy 4 of the Norma Ross Walter Scholarship 18 Gayheart and McEwan’s On Chesil Beach VIRGIL ALBertini JOHN J. MURPHY Hamilton and Higher Education: Charles E. Cather Collection Donated to the 7 Revisiting Willa Cather’s 26 University of Nebraska The Professor’s House as an Academic Novel ANDREW JEWELL STEVEN TROUT 15 “Archbishop Latour’s” Garden On the cover: Berthe Morisot, The Mozart Sonata, 1894. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. Oil on canvas, 18-1/8 x 21-15/16 in.; Bequest of Mrs. Robert S. Tangeman (E. Clementine Miller, class of 1927); SC 1996:24-2. WILLA CATHER NEWSLETTER & REVIEW / SUMMER 2011 Letter from the President SUSAN MAHER hen last year I left the open skies and rolling a relentless enemy.” My new home country country of Nebraska for a new position in had once stirred Cather’s imagination as she Duluth, Minnesota, I felt deep ambivalence projected her fictional hero into the interior of Wabout widening the distance between me and Red Cloud. North America. One of the pleasures of my work at the University of While at Smith College for the Nebraska-Omaha was the three-hour drive to Red Cloud. International Cather Seminar, I wondered Up in Duluth, I am many more hours away from the rolling again about Cather’s ability to connect to hills of Webster County, living now in a rugged, forested many lands. Her complex sense of geography landscape that curves along the shores of Lake Superior. At ranges over time and space, and thus brings first I felt severed from Catherland, from the beehive of the together many people, ardent readers and Cather Project in Lincoln, and from the larger Great Plains scholars, who every two years travel from many parts of landscape that I love and study. North America and the world to discuss her literature and But Cather herself healed my sense of separation. In the consider new perspectives and arguments on her oeuvre, her seventeenth century, Duluth was an important connecting correspondence, and her biography. Participants at Smith point for the Northwest Company’s fur trade out of French had come from as far away as Taiwan and Japan to share Canada. Duluth itself is named after Daniel Greysolon, Sieur in a different kind of exchange than Pierre’s, one grounded du Lhut, one of the greatest of the fur traders and adventurers. in knowledge, textual evidence, and historical curiosity. It This is voyageur country and is thus a significant backdrop was a memorable meeting that included a trip to wooded, to Cather’s lyrical historical novel, Shadows on the Rock. mountainous Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where Cather wrote The fragile order and unity of what she calls “Kebec” in of other places and other times. that novel depends upon the entrepreneurial spirit of the On my way home from Northampton, my flight happened coureurs de bois, including the “hero of the fur trade” Pierre to take a more northerly route following the St. Lawrence Charron. Cather writes, from boyhood on, Pierre “shot up River into the Great Lakes. I could see from up high much and down the swift waters of Canada in his canoe; who was of the country that Pierre Charron traversed in canoe. There now at Niagara, now at the head of Lake Ontario, now at the was Michilimackinac and Sault Saint Marie below me. In Sault Sainte Marie on his way into the fathomless forbidding the seventeenth century, a journey of this scope was epic; waters of Lake Superior.” In the wilderness of the northern now it takes only a few hours. So much seems telescoped Great Lakes, Pierre Charron “had a name among [Native at 36,000 feet. Cather provides me with the long view that I Americans] for courage and fair dealing, for a loyal friend and need to understand such journeys and larger humanity. Welcoming Our New Executive Director: Leslie Levy he Cather Foun- Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Consumer dation is proud to Protection and Antitrust Division of the Nebraska Depart- welcome Leslie ment of Justice. She has worked with a diverse constituency, TLevy of Lincoln, Nebraska including nonprofit and community organizations, and is as our new Executive well-qualified to meet the challenge of leading the Founda- Director. Originally from tion in its work of promoting Cather’s work and preserving Grand Island, Nebraska, her legacy. Leslie holds B.A. and J.D. Leslie began her duties August 1, 2011. We invite our degrees from the Univer- readers to join us in welcoming her to the Foundation and sity of Nebraska-Lincoln wishing her all success. and since 2002 has been WWW.willacather.org 3 The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Norma Ross Walter Scholarship VIRGIL ALBertini t every annual Cather Spring Conference, many another one of the early winners to return. Lynn said that attractive sessions are offered for members to attend. she “felt honored to be part of that impressive group!” and One began in 1987 when Norma Ross Walter left a said that “thanks to the scholarship,” she went to Harvard Agenerous bequest in her will to help a female high-school University, where she graduated summa cum laude with graduate from a Nebraska high school achieve her career a degree in women’s studies. Lynn earned a master’s in goals by majoring in English at an accredited college or English Literature/Critical Theory from Sussex University. university. So for the past twenty-four years, stellar students Many honors have come her way including Phi Beta Kappa, have been honored at each spring conference. Rotary Scholarship, and Dean’s Scholarship at New York Selection by five judges is based stongly on the applicants’ University, where she received the J.D. degree. She has intellectual promise, creativity, commitment to an English worked as a book editor and publisher, and has authored major, extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, many essays on feminism and Asian American culture. An grades, a personal essay, and an original essay on a Cather advocate for reform in the areas of criminal justice, child work. Norma Ross Walter, a former newspaper editor, held welfare, and poverty law, Lynn now teaches at the New York both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English and was University School of Law. an avid reader of Cather, frequently visiting Red Cloud and Erin Duncan (1992), from the Franklin high school class, Catherland. was delighted that her mother, Carol Duncan, accompanied Every year the three finalists for the Scholarship present her. She happily came not only as a mother, but as Erin’s their original essays, answer questions from the audience, former high school English teacher. Carol, incidentally, also and are recognized by the media. As usual, this year’s three taught Alicia Dahling, another Franklin graduate (2002) did not disappoint, for their meaningful words enhanced the and scholarship awardee. Since Alicia is currently finishing audience’s understanding of works like My Ántonia, A Lost her second year of teaching and researching in Spain with Lady, or Obscure Destinies. This past April there was an a Fulbright Scholarship, she could not be present. She, extended anniversary session, one in which five of the past however, sent a letter stating that “receiving recognition recipients helped make the occasion an especially rewarding from the Willa Cather Foundation as a high school senior one. They made comments about their lives, careers, future was and remains one of my most cherished honors.” Erin, plans, and how Ms. Walter’s legacy did so much to launch recognized as a Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Scholar, received them on their successful paths. They felt honored to be back a B.A. with highest distinction from Nebraska Wesleyan, in Red Cloud. Their discussions generated warm responses majoring in French and English. She was awarded an M.A. from the conference attendees. in English from Iowa State University, receiving its Research Among the five past recipients present was the initial Excellence Award for outstanding master’s thesis. She first winner, Karen Hartmann Roggenkamp (1987), Minden high served as Congressman Bill Barrett’s legislative assistant school graduate. She called the scholarship a “life-changing and later held the same position in Congressman Tom event,” saying that “before that scholarship I planned on Osborne’s office. Since 2006, Erin has been a lobbyist for the majoring in history, not English.” It all led to “following the National Education Association, contributing significantly to path which led to graduate school and becoming a professor.” numerous pieces of education and social services legislation, After graduating from the University of Michigan with federal legislative process, policy, and strategy. high honors, she later received a Ph.D. from the University Tuesday Metcalf, who graduated from Beatrice in of Minnesota. A prolific writer and researcher who has 2000, told the audience that a “major highlight of her senior published one book and is completing another, Karen year was winning the Norma Ross Walter Scholarship.” teaches American literature and Children’s and Adolescent She majored in English and French at the University of Literature at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Nebraska-Lincoln, and before receiving her degree studied in Lynn D.