The Count of Crow's Nest

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The Count of Crow's Nest is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in October 1896. [1]

Willa Cather American writer and novelist

Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I.

Home Monthly was a monthly women's magazine published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the late 19th century.

Contents

Plot summary

At the Crow's Nest, a boarding house, Count de Koch and Harold Buchanan talk about literature. Once, Harold shows a book he has, with what he hopes to be Lola Montez and Ludwig I of Bavaria's signatures. The Count takes out letters of his by these two historical figures, only to prove that it is not the latter's signature, although it is Lola's. The Count's daughter comes in and says these letters should be published. She makes fun of her father's superseded aristocratic stance, and says she would lean towards the bourgeoisie. The two men agree to see her sing sometime later.

Lola Montez Irish dancer and actress

Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld, better known by the stage name Lola Montez, was an Irish dancer and actress who became famous as a "Spanish dancer", courtesan, and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Gräfin von Landsfeld. She used her influence to institute liberal reforms. At the start of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, she was forced to flee. She proceeded to the United States via Australia, Switzerland, France and London, returning to her work as an entertainer and lecturer.

Ludwig I of Bavaria King of Bavaria

Ludwig I or Louis I was king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.

Aristocracy (class) person who either possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch or are related to such people

The aristocracy is a social class that a particular society considers its highest order. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, Rome, and India—aristocratic status came from belonging to a military caste, although it has also been common, notably in African societies, for aristocrats to belong to priestly dynasties. Aristocratic status can involve feudal or legal privileges. They are usually below only the monarch of a country or nation in its social hierarchy. In modern European societies, the aristocracy has often coincided with the nobility, a specific class that arose in the Middle Ages, but the term "aristocracy" is sometimes also applied to other elites, and is used as a more generic term when describing earlier and non-European societies.

After her performance, which Harold deemed to be very poor, the Count leaves and Harold is invited to dinner with Tony and she. Then, she asks him to collect her father's letters and edit them into a book, to make money. He refuses, and is shocked by her mercenariness.

Later, the Count walks into his friend's room in the middle of the night as his letters have vanished. They both go to Helena's and eventually gets them back. The Count expresses grave despair at his daughter's lack of honour, the end of the aristocracy.

Characters

A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is one of the highest of the male voice types. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is roughly A♭2 (two A♭s below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the leggero tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or spieltenor.

Allusions to other works

William Makepeace Thackeray novelist

William Makepeace Thackeray was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.

Norse mythology body of mythology of the North Germanic people stemming from Norse paganism and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia and into the Scandinavian folklore of the modern period

Norse mythology is the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Norse paganism and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Scandinavian folklore of the modern period. The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology, Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities, beings, and heroes derived from numerous sources from both before and after the pagan period, including medieval manuscripts, archaeological representations, and folk tradition.

In Norse cosmology, Asgard is a location associated with the gods. Asgard is attested in a variety of sources, including the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, in the Prose Edda, and in euhemerized form in Heimskringla. The Prose Edda describes Valhalla, the god Odin's afterlife hall for a portion of the battlefield slain, as located in Asgard.

Allusions to actual history

Worlds Columbian Exposition Worlds Fair held in Chicago in 1893

The World's Columbian Exposition was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, the large water pool, represented the long voyage Columbus took to the New World. Chicago had won the right to host the fair over several other cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. The Exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on architecture, sanitation, the arts, Chicago's self-image, and American industrial optimism.

Beatrice Cenci Italian noblewoman and murderer

Beatrice Cenci was a young Roman noblewoman who murdered her father, Count Francesco Cenci. The subsequent, lurid murder trial in Rome gave rise to an enduring legend about her. She was condemned and beheaded for the crime in 1599.

Eugénie de Montijo 16Th Countess of Teba and 15th Marchioness of Ardales

DoñaMaría Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countess of Teba, 15th Marchioness of Ardales, known as Eugénie de Montijo, was the last Empress of the French (1853–70) as the wife of Emperor Napoleon III.

Literary significance and criticism

The Count of Crow's Nest was influenced by Anthony Hope's 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda , which Cather liked a lot. [2] Others have also pointed out the influence of John Esten Cooke's 1880 The Virginia Bohemians . [3]

Anthony Hope English novelist and playwright

Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope, was an English novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works, "minor classics" of English literature, are set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania and spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance, works set in fictional European locales similar to the novels. Zenda has inspired many adaptations, most notably the 1937 Hollywood movie of the same name.

<i>The Prisoner of Zenda</i> novel by Anthony Hope

The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), by Anthony Hope, is an adventure novel in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as his political decoy in an effort to save the unstable political situation of the interregnum.

John Esten Cooke novelist

John Esten Cooke was an American novelist, writer and poet. He was the brother of poet Philip Pendleton Cooke. During the American Civil War, Cooke served as a staff officer for Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart in the Confederate States Army cavalry and after Stuart's death, for Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton. Stuart's wife, Flora, was a first cousin of Cooke.

The story has been deemed Jamesian. [4]

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References

  1. ↑ Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, page 471
  2. ↑ Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, 'Introduction' by Mildred R. Bennett, page xxviii
  3. ↑ Slote, Bernice, The Kingdom of Art, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966, p. 42
  4. ↑ Catherine M. Downs, Becoming Modern: Willa Cather's Journalism, Susquehanna University Press, 2000, page 94
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