The Song of the Lark
– A Voice of Wider Appeal
By Joe ScoteseThis assignment utilizes the wealth of online information to provide students with greater
insights into Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark. The seven activities demonstrate how literary works may be understood and interpreted on many different levels. The cyber stops build on each other
as they lead students to a variety of websites that provide valuable insights for understanding Cather's work. Several of the activities require students to apply information gathered online to analyze the
following quote from the novel:
"They do, however, talk oftener of Thea. A voice has even a wider appeal than a fortune. It is
the one gift that all creatures would possess if they could. Dreary Maggie Evans, dead nearly twenty years, is still remembered because Thea sang at her funeral "after she had studied in Chicago."
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1. At http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~cather/quotations.html
you should find three quotes by Willa Cather. Copy each one of these quotes. Next to each of your quotes, write one (1) or
two (2) sentences on how it fits in (be specific) with the extended quote in the box above. 2. We have all read books that were written years ago, from Shakespeare to Huckleberry Finn to
The Song of the Lark. Beyond our prejudices and biases at things that have come long before us, what is lost and what is gained as the years pass a book by? Go to the MerriamWebster site at:
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary Here you will find a modern dictionary. Look up the word lark, then skylark. Either print out or
take notes on the definitions. Next, travel to a 1913 (two years earlier than the publication of The Song of the Lark) version of the Webster's dictionary at:
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~cather/quotations.html Again look up the word lark
and note or print out its definition. Using specific quotes from the definitions, write one paragraph that examines (1) how our understanding of the title's songbird
has changed; (2) how the 1913 definition gives us insight into what happens in the story (movie); and (3) what these definition changes imply about the understanding of literary works over time.
3. Go to the North American Bird Song Homepage at the following address: http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html#alaud Listen to the song by clicking on the name of the "ALAUDIDAE: True Larks." Write down three
(3) emotions (or adjectives of any kind) that come to mind when you hear the song. Be sure to think within the context of your answers from question 2.
4. Point your browser to George Herbert's "Easter Wings" at this location: http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html#alaud What specific connections can you make between this poem (don't simply stop at its mentioning
of larks) and the Cather quote at the beginning of this exercise? Try to find at least one connection in each of the four (4) stanzas.5. Next go to the Willa Cather site at:
http://www.kutztown.edu/faculty/reagan/cather.html While you are there, try to answer the following questions:
- What about Cather's life is echoed in the line about a "voice having even a wider appeal than a fortune"?
- What could her teaching have to do with such a search for a voice? What about Cather's struggle to live as the person she was and to not pretend to be something else?
6. At http://members.iworld.net/ykryu/feminism/Karticle/woolf0k.htm you will find a copy of
Virginia Woolfe's talk (in written essay form) entitled A Room of One's Own. Her ideas on literary feminism and the importance of women's place and lack of place in literature had a huge impact on
literary criticism and our culture (think of "A League of their Own," the movie about women baseball players). If you can, read, scan, or skim the entire article; if not read the introduction
paragraph (not by Woolfe), the entire first paragraph, and the entire last two paragraphs. Write one (1) or two (2) of your own paragraphs to link Cather's line that a "voice has even wider appeal
than a fortune" with Woolfe's thesis. If you can, link Woolfe's piece with the last sentence from Cather's extended quote at the beginning of this exercise. 7. Finally, go to
http://www.willacather.org/html/descript.html. There you will find a description
of western Webster County, also known as "Catherland." Take another look at that last sentence of the quote in the text box and see if you can make a critical connection with this site (or
"Catherland"). Write it down. Joe Scotese teaches at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago. |
