It is dependent on the past and yet possesses something more enigmatic. There was home in it, too first memories, first mornings long ago the amazement of a new soul in a new world a soul new and yet old.” Again, her understanding is tethered to her past experiences. Later, as Thea experiences her first symphony in Chicago, her initial physical reaction to the melody is a recollection of the land outside of Moonstone-“the high tableland above Laramie the grass-grown wagon trails, the far-away peaks of the snowy range, the wind and the eagles.” By the next movement, Thea recalls “the sand hills, the grasshoppers and locusts… the reaching of high plains, the immeasurable yearning of all flat lands. One example is when she first visits the Art Institute in Chicago-“The Institute proved, indeed, a place of retreat, as the sand hills or the Kohler’s garden used to be a place where she could forget… she could relax and play.” It’s as if her understanding of place is based on her ability to reconnect to the past.

Her wanderings trace her freedom and growth as a child, but more importantly, they resurface as sentiment in her young adult life. In Moonstone, Colorado, Cather paints a desert landscape of color, light, and life for young Thea.

For Thea, the desert town of Moonstone and its landscape, the epiphanies of Panther Canyon, and the sentiment of childhood all come to wield a lasting influence upon the artist she becomes. Cather expresses a sentimentality and longing for the old ways because it somehow grounds her central character Thea Kronborg. Though land and setting seem rarely featured in Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark, they do comprise an unusual role, one that grows towards the past instead of the future.

Willa cather song of the