The American Southwest was arguably as formative a landscape for Willa Cather s aesthetic vision as was her beloved Nebraska. Both landscapes elicited in her a sense of raw incompleteness. They seemed not so much finished places as things unassembled, more like countries still waiting to be made into a] landscape. Cather s fascination with the Southwest led to its presence as a significant setting in three of her most ambitious novels: The Song of the Lark, The Professor s House, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. This volume focuses a sharp eye on how the landscape of...

The American Southwest was arguably as formative a landscape for Willa Cather's aesthetic vision as was her beloved Nebraska. Both landscapes elicited in her a sense of raw incompleteness. They seemed not so much finished places as things unassembled, more like countries "still waiting to be made into a] landscape." Cather's fascination with the Southwest led to its presence as a significant setting in three of her most ambitious novels: The Song of the Lark, The Professor's House, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. This volume focuses a sharp eye on how the landscape of the American...