Song of the Lark & The Professor's House A Woman's Career and Life Contras

In both (The Song of the Lark( (published in 1915) and (The

Professor's House( (published in 1925), Willa Cather builds the

action of a novel around the career of the protagonist. The form

that the action takes differs markedly in each book. (The Song of the

Lark( chronicles the struggle of Thea Kronborg to become a premiere

opera singer over a period of years, while (The Professor's House(

deals with a renowned scholarhistorian named Godfrey St. Peter

during the months of a midlife crisis.

The action of (The Song of the Lark( is linear, the narrative

progressing along with the development of Thea's career. The action

of (The Professor's House( is reflective, presented in large measure

as St. Peter's memory (and evaluation) of his life and work. The

character of the two careers and the world of the two novels are

also widely disparate, with (The Song of the Lark( offering a glimpse

into the heady world of show business and musical artistry and (The

Professor's House( showing the staid respectability of professorial

life in a Midwestern college town. More important, (The Song of the

Lark( shows a woman artist who struggles psychically to reach and

finally reaches the peak of her career, while (The Professor's House(

shows a man whose career as a respected scholar has involved very

little material or psychic struggle a

. . .
arsanyi calls her "uncommon, in a common, common world" (Cather, (Song( 268). When Thea admits to Harsanyi that she considers herself a serious artist she refers to it as well: "I come of rough people. I'm rough. But I'm independent, too. It wasall I had" (Cather, (Song( 266). It is Thea's uncommon assertion of independence in various arenas that distinguishes her life. For one thing, it positions her as a pioneer quite as definitely as the pioneers who settled Moonstone, Colorado. For as an artist, Thea becomes a pioneering professional woman, clearing the path for professional women who are to follow. This appears to have been drawn from real life, for the model for Thea was the opera singer Olive Fremstad, a Scandana( vian immigrant whose independent way of living Cather admired. As Woodress reports, Cather "told Elizabeth Sergeant that if she could write all that Fremstad made one know, it would be worthwhile. She was just like the women on the Dividewith suspicious, defiant, farseeing pioneer eyes. It came to Willa Cather in a flash that here was Alexandra Bergson with a voice. . . . Cather believed that the pioneer women on the Divide possessed m
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 10436
Approximate Pages = 42 (250 words per page)