SOURCE: Stouck, David. “The Song of the Lark: A Künstlerroman.” In Willa Cather's Imagination, pp. 183-98. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975.

In the following essay, Stouck details how Thea Kronberg's artistic journey in Willa Cather's Song of the Lark marks it as a classic künstlerroman.

Willa Cather's most positive view of art and the artist's life is found in The Song of the Lark (1915).¹ The images of the artist as a divine figure and a heroic conqueror which occur in her journalistic writings are given their full dramatic value in the story of Thea Kronborg who becomes a famous singer—a Wagnerian opera star resplendent in “shining armour.” Perhaps as Willa Cather developed her own powers, her sense of the artist's creative and unique calling took precedence over her recognition of the artist's limitations. Moreover, although she had an external model for her story in the...