Willa Cather Describes Erotics of Place in her Novel, A Lost Lady Essay

Willa Cather Describes Erotics of Place in her Novel, A disconnected LadyTo discover an erotics of place in Willa Cathers A Lost Lady, takes little preparation. One begins by simply allowing Sweet Water fenland to seep into ones consciousness through Cathers exquisite prose. Two paragraphs from the middle of the impertinent beckon us to follow Neil Herbert, now 20 years old, into the marshland that lies on the Forrester property. This passage, rich in pastoral beauty, embraces the heart of the novel-appearing not totally at the novels center point but enfolding ideas central to the novels case An impulse of affection and guardianship drew Niel up the poplar-bordered road in the early light . . . and on to the marsh. The sky was burning with the soft go and silver of a cloudless summer dawn. The heavy, bowed bulletes splashed him to the knees. all told over the marsh, snow-on-the-mountain, globed with dew, made cool sheets of silver, and the swamp milk-weed spread its flat, raspberry-coloured clusters. There was an or so religious purity about the fresh morning air, the tender sky, the grass and flowers with the sheen of early dew upon them. There was in all living things something distinct and joyous-like the wet morning call of the birds, flying up through the genuine atmosphere. Out of the saffron east a thin, yellow, wine-like sunshine began to gild the odoriferous meadows and the glistening tops of the grove. Neil wondered why he did not often devolve over like this, to see the day before men and their activities had bollocks up it, while the morning star was still unsullied, like a invest handed down from the heroic ages. Under the bluffs that overhung the marsh he came upon thickets of excited roses, with flaming buds, just beginning to open.... ...arsh. A final glimpse of marsh turned wheat field comes in the fourth chapter of the novels Part Two. obese rains have come to the Sweet Water valley, lifting the river over its banks and sw elling the creeks. Cather reports that the chaff of Ivy Peters wheat fields lay under water, (121) raising the wish that Peters intrusion upon the land is merely temporary, that given respite from human meddling, the marsh will reassert itself. I admit that this is my hope more than it is Cathers. but even if this is so, it is Cather who arouses the desire that invites me to hope. Works Cited Cather, Willa. A Lost Lady. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski with Kari Ronning, Charles W. Mignon and Frederick M. Link. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. capital of Nebraska U of Nebraska P, 1997. Williams, Terry Tempest. An Unspoken Hunger Stories from the Field. New York Vintage, 1994.