Midwest Literature:

[Music] the Midwest is is a region of cold Winters a region of hot [Music] summers of huge lakes and rivers of Rich [Music] farmlands of small towns and of busy cities there is no sharp difference between the Midwest and any other region of the United States yet here there has developed a distinctly different literature a literature whose point of view alternates between love of Nature and fear of nature between disdain of Midwestern people and values and faith in midwestern rightness and goodness this ambivalence is most evident in that Midwest literature that deals with farming and Rural Life the Indiana poetry of James whitcom Riley the Wisconsin stories of Hamlin Garland the plains novels of AA rvog and the Prairie novels of Willa CA among these works there is a Unity of local Wilderness and farmland a Unity of activity taming the Wilderness putting new land to the plow yet describing similar scenes and activities the writers took different views of Farm Life consider James Wham Riley writer of such poems as the Raggedy man and Home Folks during Riley's happy childhood the family cabin in Greenfield Indiana was enlarged from this conf able home young James was sent to a public school in view of his Pleasant childhood it seems logical that Riley's poetry was sentimental and folksy his subjects the family at home and at prayer the beauty of Nature and the old swimming hole yet Riley had seen another side of Midwestern life traveling as an Entertainer and Medicine Show salesman separated from his family by disagreements he endured great hardship and he shared the misery of Indiana's Poor Farm people later as a poet Riley wrote lines that denied hardship lines like these from a vision of summer the air and the Sun and the shadow were wedded and made as one and the winds Ran Over The Meadows as little children run Riley knew the difficulties of rural life but he showed midwesterners a beauty and serenity often forgotten in the Grim struggle for existence scenes of Riley's youth resemble the Wisconsin setting where Hamlin Garland was raised in the 1860s and70s but Garland's Viewpoint differs from Riley's his books including main traveled roads and Son of the middle border are openly bitter and sardonic Garland returned to the farm after studying in the East and he found that despite the beauty of the land Rural Life could ruin a man's hopes and his character in his story up the CP Garland described a young man's return to his farm home a brother who remained on the farm speaks to his City brother life ain't worth very much to me I'm too old to take a new start I'm a dead failure I come to the conclusion that life's a failure for 99% C of us you can't help me now it's too late this is the midwestern farmer that Hamlin Garland showed us imagine the Midwest as an endless plane from Kansas Illinois it stretches far into the Canadian North God Alone knows how far from the Mississippi River to the Western Rockies miles without number endless beginningless this is the land of ula rolvag in his great novel Giants in the earth rolvag became a teacher at St Olive's College in Minnesota after having been a fisherman in Norway a farmand in South Dakota relatives of rbags had settled the terrifying Baron dtas and in his writing he traced the path of their journey and the life they LED as settlers a tragic incident occurred his 5-year-old son Paul fell to his death and this merged with stories rvog had heard about the brooding hopelessness of Norwegian settlers traveling the midwestern Plains in the best of Ula V's work the Midwest is a mystical land where men's Destinies are Guided by mysterious powers like the ancient gods of Norway rvog told tragic stories with unique immigrant overtones and Hamlin Garland's Farm stories are very deliberately anti-romantic James witam WR 's Farm poetry is very deliberately romantic these authors never achieved special greatness like Willa Cather author of O Pioneers my Antonia and one of ours Willa's girlhood home may still be seen in Red Cloud Nebraska there during the late 19th century she saw the last remnants of pioneer life and she tried through writing to keep the Pioneer Spirit from being lost the setting of several Cather novels was the town of Red Cloud and the surrounding Prairie the people European immigrants and Cather contrasted the hot blooded and suspicion of central Europeans with the coolness of settlers from northern Europe there was in those early days a wildness and uncertainty about the people and the land and she mourned its passing and immortalized it Willie CA brought a Nostalgia a Detachment and a great talent to the literature of the Midwest farm and she made the Midwest meaningful to all English-speaking people the pale Cold Light of the winter Sunset did not beautify it was like the light of Truth itself when the Smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts then the wind sprang up aresh with a kind of bitter song as if it said this is reality whether you like it or not will Cather on the midwestern Farmland Cather Riley Garland and rvog Drew vivid pictures of the generation of farmers that followed the frontier when Farmers came to the Midwest the region began to develop its unique character and later when Midwestern people began to see themselves as existing in the heartland of a great nation they began to question their values and Customs then the midwestern writers try to judge which values and Customs could resist the corrosions beginning in the cities and towns as well as in the Farmland during the 20th century