Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Willa Cather and John Milton: The search for paradise
Abstract
Willa Cather and John Milton are seldom considered together; however, readers of Cather's work who are also familiar with Milton's writing will recognize that Cather not only knew Milton well, but included a myriad of Miltonic allusions in her writing. While those allusions are typically subtle and sometimes easy to overlook, overt references in "On the Divide," Alexander's Bridge, One of Ours, and "Before Breakfast," dated 1896, 1912, 1922, and 1946, respectively, demonstrate an affinity for Milton and his work which lasted throughout Cather's literary career. Most, although not all, of Cather's Miltonic allusions are based on Paradise Lost. Many of her villains, for instance, display the traits of Milton's Satan, while other characters often mirror the actions or attributes of Adam and Eve or the Son. Cather's inclusion of Miltonic material in a short story or novel almost invariably emphasizes a character's search for paradise, either a paradise of the world, or the paradise within. Miltonic allusions provide an appropriate means of stressing the difficulty of that search: the risks of great ambition, the dangers of overweening pride, the hazards of excessive devotion to materialistic values. Cather, like Milton, understood the consequences of failure to resist temptation; her use of his material demonstrates that she likewise understood that triumph was seldom achieved without great price.
Subject Area
Comparative literature|British and Irish literature|American literature
Recommended Citation
Fessler, Paula F, "Willa Cather and John Milton: The search for paradise" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9600733.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9600733