The Literature Network - Willa Cather's Godfrey St. Peter: historian of repressed sensibility?

Willa Cather's Godfrey St. Peter: historian of repressed sensibility?

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From: College Literature
Date: 19940601
Author:Wilson, Matthew

The character of Godfrey St. Peter in Willa Cather's novel 'The Professor's House' represents humanity's unwillingness to face an uncertain future in the wake of the first world war. The historian St. Peter is portrayed as a person of 'repressed sensibility' who withdraws from meaningful personal relationships due to the historical events that have alienated people from each other. His attempt to interpret history is marked by a resignation to this alienation that permeates his life.

Hayden White notes in "The Burden of History" that a "good deal of twentieth century literature . . . ...

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