- The Count of Crow's Nest
The Count of Crow's Nest is a short story by
Willa Cather . It was first published in "Home Monthly " in October1896 [Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, page 471] .Plot summary
At the Crow's Nest, a boarding house, Count de Koch and Harold Buchanan talk about literature. Once, Harold shows a book he has, with what he hopes to be
Lola Montez andLudwig I of Bavaria 's signatures. The Count takes out letters of his by these two historical figures, only to prove that it is not the latter's signature, although it is Lola's. The Count's daughter comes in and says these letters should be published. She makes fun of her father's supersededaristocratic stance, and says she would lean towards thebourgeoisie . The two men agree to see her sing sometime later.After her performance, which Harold deemed to be very poor, the Count leaves and Harold is invited to dinner with Tony and she. Then, she asks him to collect her father's letters and edit them into a book, to make money. He refuses, and is shocked by her mercinariness.
Later, the Count walks into his friend's room in the middle of the night as his letters have vanished. They both go to Helena's and eventually gets them back. The Count expresses grave despair at his daughter's lack of honour, the end of the aristocracy.
Characters
*Harold Buchanan, out of college and looking for a job.
*Count de Koch
*a prima donna
*a reviewer, failed novelist
*Helena de Koch, the Count's daughter. She is a singer by profession.
*Tony, atenor Allusions to other works
*Literature is mentioned through
William Makepeace Thackeray ,Norse mythology (especiallyAsgard ,Honoré de Balzac 's "Pere Goriot ",Andrew Lang 's appreciation ofEdgar Allan Poe as 'a gentleman among canaille' in "Letters to Dead Authors",Theophile Gautier 's "La Morte Amoureuse " and "Fortunio ",François Rabelais ,Greek mythology (withAres andEros )William Shakespeare 's "Hamlet ",Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's "Confessions", andMary Shelley 's "Frankenstein ".
*Music is mentioned throughNellie Melba ,Felix Mendelssohn , andJoseph Haydn .
*Painting is mentioned throughAnthony van Dyck .Allusions to actual history
*The story is set before the
World's Columbian Exposition .
*Historical figures such asBeatrice Cenci , Empress Eugenie,Lola Montez ,Ludwig I of Bavaria ,Joséphine de Beauharnais ,Napoleon ,Julius Caesar , andNicholas I of Russia are mentioned.
*William Tell , a legendary figure, is also mentioned.Literary significance and criticism
"The Count of Crow's Nest" was influenced by
Anthony Hope 's1894 novel "The Prisoner of Zenda ", which Cather liked a lot [Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, 'Introduction' by Mildred R. Bennett, page xxviii] . Others have also pointed out the influence ofJohn Esten Cooke 's 1880 "The Virginia Bohemians " [Slote, Bernice, "The Kingdom of Art", Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966, p. 42] .The story has been deemed Jamesian [Catherine M. Downs, "Becoming Modern: Willa Cather's Journalism", Susquehanna University Press, 2000, page 94] .
References
External links
* [http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/cather/writings/shortfiction/crownest.html Full text]
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