Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

Ann Moseley (Texas A&M University, Commerce)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1913

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

O Pioneers! is Willa Cather’s successful fusion of two separate stories: “Alexandra” and “The White Mulberry Tree”. “Alexandra”, written in late 1911, began at the same point as O Pioneers! and continued through Part I and the dream that now appears at the end of Part III (Lewis, 1953, 83). After a transformative trip to the Southwest in the spring of 1912, Cather spent a few weeks at her childhood home in Red Cloud, Nebraska where, on the edge of a wheat field, she had the idea for the tragic story of star-crossed lovers that became “The White Mulberry Tree”. An epiphanic creative moment occurred, however, when she put these two stories side by side and realized they belonged together. She told her …

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4377 words

Citation: Moseley, Ann. "O Pioneers!". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 April 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=22354, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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