Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
You must let me apologize if my note3 sounded curt. I am afraid you simply got the overflow of a fit of irritation aroused in me by a bunch of letters and pamphlets from young English teachers - material that had accumulated here in my absence. You see, the trouble is that most of these young English teachers have never had any actual experience in writing accurately about simple everyday matters, and their idea of being scholarly is to be as far as possible from common sense. A young Mr. Robert Footman4 of Marot Junior College, Thompson, Connecticut5, agress with Mr. Burke6 that a writer's own name "influences his choice of key or important words7." He goes on to say8: "A writer so intuitional as Willa Cather might be expected to exemplify this, and actually, one notices what might be called unconscious name projection in her key words, and the names of her protagonists. Note all the broad "a" sounds as in Willa and the short "a" sounds as in Cather in their names." Then he proceeds to quote the names of the women in various books9. Naturally, if one writes about Scandinavian, Bohemian and Mexican women, one does perhaps overwork the letter a. In those languages nearly all feminine names end with a. As a matter of fact, I have always particularly disliked my first name and would certainly have changed it when I first began to write, had I realized that I would ever write very much. Besides, I rather shrank from hurting my mother10's feelings.
This is just one example of the strange and annoying things that young English teachers try to put over on me. I could quote you dozens of scholarly pronouncements just as foolish as this one. I am told that the title of DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP11 is evidence that I have brought death "into my frame of reference."12 Have I? I used that title because Holbein13 used it14, and because my Bishop's death ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩never seemed to me a passive death but a king of victory – he and Death ride off together. The trouble is, these musty young "scholars" have no imagination and no fire.
Cordially yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1490.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1490
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Burges Johnson 1
- Date letter was written
- September 27, 1940
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Burges Johnson Family Papers, 1895-1963 (MA.00318), Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, MA
Individual Annotations
See #3360.
Footman adopted the term "symbols of authority" from Kenneth Burke's Attitudes Toward History (1939) and also cites Burke's theory concerning names in a footnote in which the quoted passage also appears.
Footman refers to Bartley Alexander (Alexander's Bridge, 1912), Alexandra Bergson and Marie Shabata (O Pioneers!, 1913), Thea Kronborg (The Song of the Lark, 1915), Ántonia Shimerda (My Ántonia, 1918), Marian Forrester (A Lost Lady, 1923), Myra Henshawe (My Mortal Enemy, 1926), Father Latour (Death Comes for the Archbishop, 1927), and Clement Sebastian (Lucy Gayheart, 1935).
Cather is quoting from Footman's article here as well.
Person Annotations
Johnson, Burges (1877-1963). American editor and anthologist.
Born in Vermont, Johnson graduated from Amherst College, Amherst,
MA, in 1899 and received an honorary Litt.D. from the college in 1924. After
careers in journalism and publishing in New York City, Vassar College
appointed him professor of English and head of the Publication Bureau in
1915. He held a similar position at Syracuse University from 1927 to 1935
and was chair of the English department at Union College until his 1944
retirement. In addition to many anthologies of humorous verse, Johnson
published books on writing, including Essaying the
Essay (1927), Written Composition in American
Colleges (1936), and The Art of Fiction: A
Formulation of the Fundamental Principles (1939). Pat Knopf, son of
Alfred A. Knopf, attended Union College in the late 1930s, which may have
made Cather willing to respond to Johnson’s queries.
Footman, Robert Henry (1916-1995). American academic. Born in Alameda, CA, Robert Footman spent part of his youth in Kansas City, MO, and studied literature at Yale University, where he won the Henry H. Strong Prize in American literature for his essay on Cather. He published "The Genius of Willa Cather," likely a version of the same essay, in American Literature in 1938. After graduation in 1937, he married Ella Hedrick. Both subsequently taught at Marat Junior College. He died in Alameda, CA.
Burke, Kenneth (1897-1993). American literary critic. Kenneth Burke was born in Pittsburgh, PA, to Lillian and James Burke. He briefly attended Ohio State and Columbia University between 1916 and 1918, but never received a formal degree. In the 1920s Burke published a series of stories, poems, and essays. He also served the music critic for the Dial (1927-1929) and the Nation (1934-1936), and taught at colleges and universities including Bennington College, Harvard, Rutgers, and Princeton. Burke is most famous for his contributions to literary criticism, with some of his most influential works including Attitudes Toward History (1937), A Grammar of Motives (1945), and Language as Symbolic Action (1966). He died of heart failure at his farm in Andover, NJ.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in Virginia to William Lee Boak
and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and was a
schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872. Her
husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War while
her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Holbein, Hans (1497?-1543). German painter. Hans Holbein, commonly referred to as Hans Holbein the Younger, was born in Augsburg, Germany. He was educated as a painter by his father, renowned Gothic painter Hans Holbein the Elder, and in 1519 he became a member of the Basel artist’s guild. Over the course of his career Holbein became one of the most famous portraitists in 16th century Europe, producing iconic portraits of many members of the Tudor Court. Some of his most notable paintings include his portraits of Sir Thomas More (1527), Henry VIII (1537), and Anne of Cleves (1539). In a 1940 letter, Cather credits a scene from Holbein’s woodcut series The Dance of Death (1523-1525) as the inspiration for the title of her 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"The Genius of Willa Cather," American Literature (1938), by Robert H. Footman
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
Dance of Death: The Bishop (1526), by Hans Holbein
