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 |
Immediately on my return from Canada3 one
week ago, I sent out for Archibald MacLeish4's
eloquent and powerful declaration5. I agree with you
as to its excellence, and with him as to the importance of the subject. Of course,
in Milton6's time there were very few mediums
for disseminating opinion. In Voltaire7's time
and country8 there were even fewer. The urgent appeals of
great men fell resoundingly into a comparatively silent world. Today we are so
deafened and blinded by the daily press and the nightly radio, that no news is
startling, no moment solemn. Who can state the deeper dangers which confront us any
better than Mr. Churchill9? In almost every
one of his speeches he has put the danger to which Archibald MacLeish refers above
every other danger. Neither writers nor
scholars10 can awaken a people nowadays.,
I fear. Most of our colleges have done
their best to train young men to a critical aloofness, and the young men are ashamed
to show any devotion to a just cause. If you have read the college magazines during
the last year, you will know that this is true.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1496.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1496
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Van Wyck Brooks 1
- Date letter was written
- October 14, 1940
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- , University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Philadelphia, PA
Individual Annotations
MacLeish's Irresponsibles specifically takes to task scholars for not opposing fascism in its earlier stages.
Person Annotations
Brooks, Van Wyck (1886-1963). American literary critic and cultural
historian. Born in Plainfield, NJ, and educated at Harvard
University, Brooks was a prolific author of books on American literature and
culture, focusing especially on the legacies of Puritanism and on
nineteenth-century American literature. The Flowering of
New England, 1815-1865 (1936) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in
history in 1937. Followed by New England: Indian Summer,
1865-1915 (1940) and three additional volumes about American
literature through the early twentieth century, the five volumes were
collected as Makers and Finders: A History of the Writer
in America, 1800-1915 (1952). In 1940 Brooks wrote Cather about
Archibald MacLeish’s book The Irresponsibles (1940),
and she agreed with his assessment of it. Shortly thereafter, she wrote to
correct his assertion in Indian Summer that she had
edited the letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman. It is not clear whether their
acquaintance went beyond this brief correspondence.
MacLeish, Archibald (1892-1982). American poet, Librarian of Congress, and educator. Born in Glencoe, IL, Archibald MacLeish graduated from Yale University and the Harvard Law School. He married Ada Hitchcock in 1916, and they had four children. After serving in World War I, he practiced law before moving to France in 1923, becoming part of the expatriate artistic community in Paris. Returning to the U.S. in 1928, MacLeish worked as a writer and editor, winning the first of his three Pulitzer Prizes in 1933. In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt nominated him as Librarian of Congress; he served until 1944, reorganizing the Library. During his tenure, Willa Cather was persuaded to allow several of her books to be recorded as Talking Books for the Blind.
Milton, John (1608-1674). English poet. Born in London,
England, Milton received his BA (1629) and MA (1632) from Cambridge
University; his first published poem, on Shakespeare, was written while at
university. He spent six years of intensive study on his own, then traveled
abroad, spending time in Rome, Italy, and Geneva, Switzerland. The English
Civil War was brewing when he returned to England, and he wrote tracts and
pamphlets attacking practices in the Anglican Church and defending
Parliament’s execution of Charles I. When the monarchy was restored in 1660,
Milton, by then totally blind, went into retirement and wrote his greatest
works, Paradise Lost (1667) and Paradise Regained (1671). Cather read Milton in her youth and
refers to his works in several of her books, most notably in One of Ours (1922).
Voltaire (1694-1778). French writer and philosopher. Voltaire, originally named François Marie Arouet, was born in Paris, France, the fourth of five children born to François Arouet and Marie Marguerite d’Aumart. He benefitted greatly from the political and financial privilege of his parents, which enabled him to receive a first-rate education at the Collège Louis-le-Grand and pursue his ambitions as a writer. In 1718, Arouet adopted the name Voltaire, which he debuted with the publication of Oedipe, his reworking of Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus. Voltaire is recognized as one of the principal architects of the Enlightenment movement, and some of his most influential works include Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1734), Candide, ou l'Optimisme (1759), and Commentaires sur Corneille (1764). He died in Paris, France, after travelling to see the premiere of his tragedy, Irene (1778).
Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer (1874-1965). British
politician and writer. Son of Lord Henry Randolph Spencer
Churchill and Jeannette Jerome Churchill, daughter of a New York financier,
Churchill had a long career in British diplomacy and politics, culminating
in his service as Prime Minister during World War II. Cather was
enthusiastic about Churchill's leadership during the war, following his
speeches, reading biographies of him, and attributing his shrewdness to his
American mother.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Irresponsibles: A Declaration (1940), by Archibald MacLeish
