Willa Cather, The Professor's House Lecture II

1
Willa Cather, The Professor's House Lecture II

• Ramon Saldivar
• Stanford University

2
The Professors House, 1925 A Domestic Fable

• Edith Lewis, The Professors House is . . . the
  most personal of Willa Cathers novels.
• Professor Godfrey St. Peters story
• His student, Tom Outlands story

3
Origins of American Identity on the Frontier

• Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of
  the Frontier in American History
• Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness
• Theodore Roosevelt, Americanism, The
  Strenuous Life

4
The Homosocial Romance

• Narrative structure
• Book I The Family
• Book II Tom Outlands Story
• Book III The Professor
• (Professors story (Toms story) Professors
  story)
• Professors love for Tom (Toms love for Rodney)

5
Tom and Roddy

• Dangerous crossing p. 223
• Homosexuality and the American West
• Why must Cather be indirect?

6
Blue Mesa/Mesa Verde

• The significance of the frontier in American
  history
• Exterior movement
• Interior movement
• Site of national autonomy and of
• Individual identity formation
• The discovery of the Cliff City

7
Love, Betrayal and Restoration to Life

• Youve gone and sold your countrys secrets,
  like Dreyfus p. 219
• I went to sleep that night hoping I would never
  waken p. 224
• He had let something go . . . p. 258