''April Twilights'' is a 1903 collection of poems by

Willa Cather Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including ''O Pioneers!'', '' The Song of the Lark'', and ''My Ántonia''. In 1923, ...

. It was reedited by Cather in 1923 and 1933. The poems were first published in many literary reviews, often under pen names.

Literary significance and criticism

Cather's influences for the poems were, among others,

Anthony Hope Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope (9 February 1863 – 8 July 1933), was a British novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for only two books: ''Th ...

's '' The Prisoner of Zenda'', Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

's ''

Georgics The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example ...

'',

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

François Villon François Villon (Modern French: , ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these ex ...

Pierre-Jean de Béranger Pierre-Jean de Béranger (19 August 178016 July 1857) was a prolific France, French poet and Chansonnier (singer), chansonnier (songwriter), who enjoyed great popularity and influence in France during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity in the ...

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

's ''

Endymion Endymion primarily refers to: * Endymion (mythology), an Ancient Greek shepherd * ''Endymion'' (poem), by John Keats Endymion may also refer to: Fictional characters * Prince Endymion, a character in the ''Sailor Moon'' anime franchise * Raul ...

'' and '' Hyperion'',

Alphonse Daudet Alphonse Daudet (; 13 May 184016 December 1897) was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet. Early life Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the ''bo ...

's '' Kings in Exile'',

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...

's '' The Gods in Exile'' and ''

The North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

'', and

Edward Coley Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, J ...

. Cather's favourite poems were ''Grandmither'', ''Mills of Montmartre'' and ''The Hawthorn Tree''.Bernice Slote, 'Willa Cather and Her First Book', Willa Cather, ''April Twilights'', University of Nebraska Press, 1968, page xxiii At the time of publication, the collection received mixed reviews; the

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Gazette A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers ...

'', the '' New York Times Saturday Review'', '' Academy and Literature'', the ''

Criterion Criterion, or its plural form criteria, may refer to: General * Criterion, Oregon, a historic unincorporated community in the United States * Criterion Place, a proposed skyscraper in West Yorkshire, England * Criterion Restaurant, in London, Eng ...

'', the '' Bookman'', the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'', and the ''

Poet Lore ''Poet Lore'' is an English-language literary magazine based in Bethesda, Maryland. Established in 1889 by Charlotte Porter and Helen Archibald Clarke, two progressive young Shakespeare scholars who believed in the evolutionary nature of literatur ...

'' praised it; The Dial thought it was bland. Cather decided to buy the remaining copies and burn them.

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

praised her poem ''The Palatine''. It has been noted that Cather broaches 'the enduring aura of a homosexual myth' as she alludes to

Antinous Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; grc-gre, Ἀντίνοος; 27 November – before 30 October 130) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and probable lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his ...

several times in her poems.John P. Anders, ''Willa Cather's Sexual Aesthetics and the Male Homosexual Literary Tradition'', University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 21

References

External links

''Full Edition''
at th
''Willa Cather Archive''
* {{Cather 1903 poetry books American poetry collections Works by Willa Cather