Wendy Perriman's book follows the chronology of Cather's writings, beginning with her early poetry and short fiction, and offering a chapter per novel from Alexander's Bridge through Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Cather's final completed novel, published in 1940. In each chapter, the scholar matches a novel with one or more dance performances, weaving together the histories of each and pinpointing their similarities. To substantiate her argument, she turns her eye toward close textual analysis of the writings, looking to the details of language to support her case.
Perriman's book is a substantial addition to the scholarly corner devoted to uncovering traces of the dance within literary writings. Her extensive appendix, which details "the major dance performances presented in the New York area" between 1906 and 1940, will prove invaluable to dance scholars. Certainly, she has done her fellow researchers a service scouring a broad array of newspaper reviews and memoirs to compile such a resource. And her efforts to understand Cather's complex incorporation of multiple art forms in her fiction points toward the often unacknowledged importance of dance within literary circles, the enduring legacy of dance in the fiction of the early twentieth-century, and the value of further exploration of the subtle and intricate interplay between literature and dance.
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