TALK FOUR: of generational perspective

ABLE: But not above criticism. Acocella reminds us that from the 'twenties until this day, Cather's critics have not been able to situate her. In the twenties, after acclaiming her, H. L. Mencken consigned her to the category of "lady novelist." The leftist critics of the thirties saw in her an affront or an irrelevance. The whole new tribe then did not rate her highly--Edmund Wislon, Lionel Trilling, Granville Hicks, Clifton Fadiman. Acocella points out that all of these critics were of a younger generation than Cather. She could have been their mother. Meanwhile, regrettably in Acocella's view, Cather became the darling of a conservative, often Catholic, public constituency. That combined with the condemnation of Cather by the leftist liberal critical establishment to polarize discussion of her work. She was nowhere, critically speaking.

CHARLIE: That was a long time ago. What does it matter today?

ABLE: It matters precisely because Acocella sees political priorities at play again in the postmodern reappraisal of Cather. The winds of ideology blow in every season, it seems to her.

CHARLIE: The postmodern reappraisal has been the work mostly of younger feminist critics. They have "outed" her as a lesbian and found that this rescripting of her person leads to a new insight into the value of her fiction. This has an exciting effect on one's traditional way of evaluating Cather.

ABLE: Yes. Acocella recounts the saga of feminist scholarship that "outed" Cather. She reports that the principal task was done by Sharon O'Brien in her essay, "'The Thing Not Named': Willa Cather as a Lesbian Writer." This was in 1984, at a time when feminist criticism was identifying the voices of women who had been denied entry into the canon and women who, like Cather, could be held up as models to demonstrate the psychic conflicts inflicted on women, particularly lesbian women, by the masculine hegemony.

BAKER: Despite the opprobrium of Wilson and his ilk, Cather enjoyed great popularity with readers and with many writers. She had a highly successful career in a domain thought to be the natural preserve of Hemingway and his kind. What obstacles created by the hegemony did she fail to overcome--leaving aside the poor opinion of the critical establishment?

ABLE: Exactly the point Acocella makes. Here she is: "If anything, she [Cather] is a rebuke to feminists. All the things they say a woman can't do--learn to write from men, create a life centered on writing, with no intrusions--Cather did, and with very little wear and tear. No booze, no abortions, no nervous breakdowns. She jumped the gate, and therefore she makes the gate look not so high after all."

CHARLIE: Acocella should be careful. The unique success of a remarkable woman can't be raised up as evidence that women generally could jump the gate.

ABLE: The article is here on the table only to point up the color and tilt that postmodern critics give to their criticism as a result of their generational affiliation and the issues that preoccupy a generation. Wilson had marxist politics on his mind. O'Brien has feminist empowerment on hers. They each treated the same author according to those predilections.

BAKER: Scholarship of any kind bears the style of the scholar who generates it. That should not reduce every finding to mush in our minds.

ABLE: Nor does it guarantee an objective finding. What it assures, in Acocella's view here, at least, is that the finding will be in the patois of the academy at that moment--and that it will have been done because of the priorities and needs of the scholar. She tells us about O'Brien's use of her Cather studies to overcome her personal feelings of powerlessness. O'Brien gave the world an insight into this personal journey in a Times Book Review essay, which Acocella cites. Acocella also illustrates the extremes to which Cather criticism can go in the ahistorical space occupied by young postmodern scholars. This comes out in a 1989 essay by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick of Duke; here Sedgwick gets to the heart of Cather's "loyalty" to feminism and lesbianism by deconstructing one word in "The Professor's House,"--Berengaria, the name of a ship in the story.

BAKER: Do we hear distant echoes of the close reading of our New Critical friends of years ago?

ABLE: But with a differance! Acocella is mainly pursuing the point that the lack of historical understanding of younger critics constitutes a basic shortcoming in the criticism. Here her: "These critics, probably born, on the average, in 1950, attempt to cope with the amazing fact that Cather, born under Ulysses S. Grant, sometimes betrays views different from theirs about blacks, Mexicans, and American Indians." (71) She fears, finally, for the revenge the next generation of critics will take upon this generation of critics who, as she views them, are so short-sighted. On their behalf, she would charitably plead for a little historical understanding. "But what historical understanding can these critics expect, who have shown none?"

CHARLIE: Acocella has brought a very special case of critical limits to our table. We should not make the mistake of thinking that she has punched a hole in the larger postmodern project or even in the larger feminist project, which is a part of it.

BAKER: True; but instances count for something.

Joan Acocella. "Cather and the Academy." THE NEW YORKER. 27 Nov 95, 56-71.