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- handle: 10670/1.oyrcr3
- hal: hal-02429521
- doi: 10.3917/rfea.161.0058
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Mots-clés
Willa Cather Joan of Arc One of Ours Reading aloud Voice First world war WW1 Epic Richard Wagner Parsifal Idealism Mysticism Willa Cather Jeanne d'Arc Lecture à voix haute Lecture à haute voix Voix Voix -- dans la littérature Première guerre mondiale Epique Richard Wagner Parsifal Mysticisme IdéalismeSujets proches
Hostilities Conflict, Armed (War) Wars Armed conflict (War) Fighting Literary criticsCiter ce document
Florent Dubois, « Voix et idéal : Jeanne d’Arc dans One of Ours de Willa Cather », HAL-SHS : littérature, ID : 10.3917/rfea.161.0058
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As a form of homage to her cousin killed in action, Willa Cather wrote an ambiguous novel, in which the need to glorify WWI soldiers is mingled with a disenchanted depiction of the United States. At the end of the novel, the lofty ideals that permeated the American nation during the conflict do not seem to have put an end to the consumerism that was already rampant before the war. In her attempt to resuscitate an idealism that seemed to have deserted the modern world, Cather was accused of sentimentalism by the literati of the time as well as many critics of the following decades, despite the book’s considerable popular success. Some critics, however, later pointed out that the many ironies of the narrative should dissuade the reader from hastily equating the author’s perspective with that of Claude, the protagonist. By looking at the many echoes that Joan of Arc’s story finds in the novel, I shall argue that her story symbolizes both the ideal and its loss, the former now irrevocably confined to a legendary past. We shall see in particular how the voices that Claude encounters in Nebraska serve to designate France as a far-off land that could accommodate all of his ideals, and how the voices that he eventually hears in France actually belie his idealized vision.