The Elopement of Allen Poole

Last updated

"The Elopement of Allen Poole" is a short story by Willa Cather, first published in 1893 by The Hesperian while she was a student. [1] [2] The story itself deals with the character of Allen Poole, who is shot by an officer on the night of his elopement with his partner, Nell. [3]

The story is notable for being the first work in which Cather drew from her Southern heritage, [4] and one of only two stories in which the setting is in the American South. [5] It is relatively newly-identified; it was identified only after the publication of a collection of her short stories in 1965. [2] While it does not bear her name in the original publication, scholars agree that it was written by Cather due to specific circumstantial evidence, including literary style and subject matter, as well as that she was the editor for The Hesperian at the time of publication. [6] Additionally, scenes from the story are paralleled closely in Cather's later work, in particular Sapphira and the Slave Girl . [6] [7]

While it is unclear why she chose to leave the story unsigned, one theory is that she feared consequences from her family for impugning Southern men, such as when she writes, "It takes a man of the South to do nothing properly." [8] It has been praised as a "local color" story, that is, centered around male characters deeply influenced by their physical and social environment. [9] At the same time, it has been criticized as having a male-defined view, using conflicting archetypes such as the "nurturing" and "devouring" mother to advance an ambivalent view on women. It has also been questioned whether Cather's use of a male character is a way of signifying her own potential attraction to women. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willa Cather</span> American writer (1873–1947)

Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.

<i>The Daily Nebraskan</i> Student newspaper of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

The Daily Nebraskan, established in 1871 as the Monthly Hesperian Student, is the student newspaper of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Although many journalism students are on staff, the Daily Nebraskan is independent of the university's College of Journalism and Mass Communications. The newspaper is entirely student-produced and managed, and has a professional general manager, Allen Vaughan, who joined in July 2019 after the retirement of Dan Shattil, who retired in October 2019 after 37 years at the helm.

<i>O Pioneers!</i> 1913 novel by Willa Cather

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather, written while she was living in New York. It was her second published novel. The title is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman entitled "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" from Leaves of Grass (1855).

"Lou, the Prophet" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in The Hesperian in 1892.

"The Burglar's Christmas" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in 1896 under the pseudonym of Elizabeth L. Seymour, her cousin's name.

"A Wagner Matinee" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Everybody's Magazine in February 1904. In 1906, it appeared in Cather's first published collection of short stories, The Troll Garden.

"Nanette: An Aside" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Courier on 31 July 1897 and one month later in Home Monthly.

"Ardessa" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Century in May 1918.

"On the Divide" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Overland Monthly in January 1896.

"A Night at Greenway Court" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Nebraska Literary Magazine in June 1896. Four years later a revised version was published in the Library.

"The Affair at Grover Station" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Library in June 1900 in two installments, and reprinted in the Lincoln Courier one month later. The story is about a geological student asking an old friend of his about the recent murder of a station agent.

"The Professor's Commencement" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in New England Magazine in June 1902

<i>April Twilights</i> 1903 poetry collection by Willa Cather

April Twilights is a 1903 collection of poems by Willa Cather. It was reedited by Cather in 1923 and 1933. The poems were first published in many literary reviews, often under pen names.

"A Son of the Celestial" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published on 15 January 1893 in The Hesperian.

"The Clemency of the Court" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published on 26 October 1893 in The Hesperian.

"The Fear That Walks By Noonday" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in The Sombrero, a yearbook published by the University of Nebraska in 1894.

Bernice Slote, a Willa Cather scholar, was a professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

"The Best Years" is a short story by Willa Cather, first published after her death in the collection The Old Beauty and Others in 1948. It is her final work, and was intended as a gift to her brother, Roscoe Cather, who died as it was being written. Set in Nebraska and the northeastern United States, the story takes place over twenty years, tracing the response of Lesley Ferguesson's family to her death in a snowstorm.

Hard Punishments, also sometimes referred to as Cather's Avignon story, is the final, unpublished, and since lost novel by Willa Cather, almost entirely destroyed following her death in 1947. It is set in medieval Avignon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Roseboro'</span> American editor

Viola Roseboro' was an American literary editor. She was the fiction editor for McClure's and, later, for Collier's, in which role she discovered several important authors. Ida Tarbell called her a "born reader" and a "reader of real genius".

References

  1. ↑ Ryan, Pat M. (1968). "Review of The Kingdom of Art: Willa Cather's First Principles and Critical Statements, 1893-1896". Arizona and the West. 10 (1): 81–83. ISSN   0004-1408.
  2. 1 2 Meyering, Sheryl L. (1994). A reader's guide to the short stories of Willa Cather. New York: G.K. Hall. p. 83. ISBN   0816118345.
  3. ↑ Turner, Elizabeth A. (1994). The poetics of "the thing not named": Willa Cather's tradition of silence. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. p. 53. ISBN   9798645416256.
  4. ↑ Legge, Anne LeHew (Fall 2014). "Willa Cather: Virginia Girl to Literary Classic". www.ncsociology.org. The Torch Magazine.
  5. ↑ Piacentino, Ed (1999). "Review of The Stuff of Our Forebears: Willa Cather's Southern Heritage". South Atlantic Review. 64 (3): 140–143. doi:10.2307/3201710. ISSN   0277-335X.
  6. 1 2 Slote, Bernice (1966). The kingdom of art: Willa Cather's first principles and critical statements, 1893-1896 (1967 ed.). University of Nebraska Press. p. 104.
  7. ↑ Arnold, Marilyn (1986). Willa Cather's short fiction (1st paperback ed.). Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. p. 8. ISBN   0821407228.
  8. ↑ Ambrose, Jamie (1988). Willa Cather : writing at the frontier. Oxford: Berg. p. 36. ISBN   0854961526.
  9. ↑ Downs, M. Catherine (1999). Becoming modern : Willa Cather's journalism. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press. p. 41. ISBN   1575910233.
  10. ↑ O'Brien, Sharon. Willa Cather : the emerging voice. New York. pp. 215–216. ISBN   0195041321.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.