Staff Pick
Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark is, to me, an overlooked classic. It is a work that sticks with you. The novel tells the story of protagonist Thea's struggle toward fulfilling her dream of being an opera singer, and in doing so, the novel explores what it means to become, and to be, an artist. The sacrifices, the doubt, the tumultuous and uncertain journey toward discovering one's artistic voice are here captured in a way that any creative individual, from amateur to professional, can relate to. Were I a slightly faster reader, I'd have read the whole book in one day. Recommended By Nickolas J., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
One of the foremost 20th-century American novelists, Willa Cather is particularly renowned for the memorable women who populate such works as My Antonia and O Pioneers! In The Song of the Lark, she presents the portrait of another such formidable woman, Thea Kronborg, who defies the limitations set on women of her time and social station to become an international opera star. This coming-of-age novel, important for the issues of gender and class that it explores, is one of Cather's most popular.
Synopsis
A novelist and short-story writer, Willa Cather is today widely regarded as one of the foremost American authors of the twentieth century. Particularly renowned for the memorable women she created for such works as My Antonia and O Pioneers , she pens the portrait of another formidable character in The Song of the Lark. This, her third novel, traces the struggle of the woman as artist in an era when a women's role was far more rigidly defined than it is today.
The prototype for the main character as a child and adolescent was Cather herself, while a leading Wagnerian soprano at the Metropolitan Opera (Olive Fremstad) became the model for Thea Kronborg, the singer who defies the limitations placed on women of her time and social station to become an international opera star. A coming-of-age novel, important for the issues of gender and class that it explores, The Song of the Lark is one of Cather's most popular and lyrical works.
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About the Author
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather (1873and#8211;1947) spent her formative years in Nebraska, which was at that time frontier territory. Her exposure to the region's dramatic environment and intrinsic hardships and#8212; along with its diverse population of European-Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants and#8212; shaped and informed much of her fiction.