From romantic aestheticism to aesthetic Christianity: Willa Cather's The professor's house, My mortal enemy, and Death comes for the archbishop

The Professors House (1925), My Mortal Enemy (1927), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1928), three of Willa Cathers most important works, collectively comprise Cathers transition from Romantic Aestheticism to Aesthetic Christianity. Though critics have set forth many competing readings of the three works, none have considered them as a cohesive unit of Cathers output. By examining together these three disparate-seeming works, one can observe and better understand the intimate and deep, though not initially obvious, connections that unify this period of Cathers career.