Review of Sophus K. Winther By Barbara Howard Meldrum

Authors

Joy Ritchie, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Date of this Version

1986

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 6:3 (Summer 1986). Copyright © 1986 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Abstract

Sophus Winther, who documented the experience of Danish immigrants in the novel Take All to Nebraska, is often considered a strictly regional writer. Barbara Meldrum's analysis of Winther's fiction, political essays, and literary criticism provides evidence of a philosophical consistency and depth in Winther's writing which transcends regional boundaries. Writing about immigrants in rural settings, workers in modern cities, the soldier/ hero in post-war fiction, or about Eugene O'Neill's plays, Winther focuses on the individual struggle against the oppressiveness of physical and economic environments.