Literary Significance and Criticism
On the Divide was Cather's first story to be published in a national magazine. In a 1938 letter to Edward Wagenknetch, Willa Cather admitted that On the Divide was retouched by one of her professors and submitted for publication without her consent.
The story bears similarities with O Pioneers!. Moreover, it has been noted that Cather's spare style parallels the harshness of the landscape.
Read more about this topic: On The Divide
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
“In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language: the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)