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William Faulkner

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American writer (1897–1962)
"Faulkner" redirects here. For other uses, seeFaulkner (disambiguation) andWilliam Faulkner (disambiguation).

William Faulkner
Faulkner in 1954
Faulkner in 1954
Born
William Cuthbert Falkner

(1897-09-25)September 25, 1897
DiedJuly 6, 1962(1962-07-06) (aged 64)
EducationUniversity of Mississippi(no degree)
Notable works
Notable awards
Spouse
Estelle Oldham
(m. 1929)
Children1
RelativesMarjorie Finlay (third cousin)[1]
Signature

William Cuthbert Faulkner (/ˈfɔːknər/;[2][3] September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known forhis novels and short stories set in the fictionalYoknapatawpha County,Mississippi, a stand-in forLafayette County where he spent most of his life. ANobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers ofAmerican literature, often considered the greatest writer ofSouthern literature and regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.

Faulkner was born inNew Albany, Mississippi, and raised inOxford, Mississippi. DuringWorld War I, he joined theRoyal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended theUniversity of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved toNew Orleans, where he wrote his first novelSoldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wroteSartoris (1927), his first work set in Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he publishedThe Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wroteAs I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wroteLight in August;Absalom, Absalom!; andThe Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing toHoward Hawks'sTo Have and Have Not andThe Big Sleep, adapted fromRaymond Chandler'snovel. The former film, adapted fromErnest Hemingway'snovel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.[4]

Faulkner's reputation grew following publication ofMalcolm Cowley'sThe Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel."[5] He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works,A Fable (1954) andThe Reivers (1962), won thePulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before.Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".

Life

[edit]

Childhood and heritage

[edit]
Faulkner was influenced by stories ofWilliam Clark Falkner, his paternal great-grandfather and namesake.

Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, inNew Albany, Mississippi,[6] the first of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler.[7] His family was upper middle-class, but "not quite ofthe old feudal cotton aristocracy".[8] After Maud rejected Murry's plan to become a rancher in Texas,[9] the family moved toOxford, Mississippi in 1902,[10] where Faulkner's father established a livery stable and hardware store before becoming theUniversity of Mississippi's business manager.[11][10] Except for short periods elsewhere, Faulkner lived in Oxford for the rest of his life.[7][12]

Faulkner spent his boyhood listening to stories told to him by his elders – stories that spanned theCivil War, slavery, theKu Klux Klan, and the Faulkner family.[13] Young William was greatly influenced by the history of his family and the region in which he lived. Mississippi marked his sense of humor, his sense of the tragic position of "black andwhite"Americans, his characterization of Southern characters, and his timeless themes, including fiercely intelligent people who are dwelling behind the façades of good ol' boys and simpletons.[14] He was particularly influenced by stories of his great-grandfatherWilliam Clark Falkner, who had become a near legendary figure in North Mississippi. Born into poverty, the elder Falkner was a strict disciplinarian and was a Confederate colonel. Tried and acquitted twice on charges of murder, he became a member of theMississippi House and became a part-owner of a railroad before being murdered by a co-owner. Faulkner incorporated many aspects of his great-grandfather's biography into his later works.[15]

Faulkner initially excelled in school and skipped the second grade. However, beginning somewhere in the fourth and fifth grades, he became a quieter and more withdrawn child. He occasionally played truant and became indifferent about schoolwork. Instead, he took an interest in studying thehistory of Mississippi. The decline of his performance in school continued, and Faulkner wound up repeating the eleventh and twelfth grades, never graduating from high school.[13] As a teenager in Oxford, Faulkner dated Estelle Oldham (1897–1972), the popular daughter of Major Lemuel and Lida Oldham, and he also believed he would marry her.[16] However, Estelle dated other boys during their romance, and, in 1918,Cornell Franklin (five years Faulkner's senior) proposed marriage to her before Faulkner did. She accepted.[17][note 1]

Trip to the North and early writings

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When he was 17, Faulkner metPhil Stone, who became an important early influence on his writing. Stone was four years his senior and came from one of Oxford's older families; he was passionate about literature and had bachelor's degrees fromYale and the University of Mississippi. Stone read and was impressed by some of Faulkner's early poetry, becoming one of the first to recognize and encourage Faulkner's talent. Stone mentored the young Faulkner, introducing him to the works of writers likeJames Joyce, who influenced Faulkner's own writing. In his early 20s, Faulkner gave poems and short stories he had written to Stone in hopes of their being published. Stone sent these to publishers, but they were uniformly rejected.[18] In spring 1918, Faulkner traveled to live with Stone at Yale, his first trip to the North.[19] Through Stone, Faulkner met writers likeSherwood Anderson,Robert Frost, andEzra Pound.[20]

During theFirst World War, Faulkner attempted to join the US Army. There are accounts of this that indicate he was rejected for being under weight and his short stature of 5'5".[20] Other accounts purport to prove that the aforementioned accounts are false.[21] Although he initially planned to join theBritish Army in hopes of being commissioned as an officer,[22] Faulkner instead joined theRoyal Air Force (Canada) with a forged letter of reference and left Yale to receive training inToronto.[23] He enlisted in Toronto on July 10, 1918, as a Private (II Class), No.173799, in theRAF (C)[24] but never saw active service overseas during the First World War, only training at the recruit depot in Toronto.[25]

Faulkner is pictured in a military uniform and cap, leaning on a cane. A caption reads "Royal Flying Corps".
Faulkner as a cadet in the Canadian RAF, 1918

On January 4, 1919, he was discharged as a Private (II Class) due to the end of the War, having served 179 days.[26] Despite claiming so in his letters, Faulkner did not receive cockpit training or ever fly.[27] Returning to Oxford in December 1918, Faulkner told acquaintances false war-stories and even faked a war wound.[28]

In 1918, Faulkner's surname changed from "Falkner" to "Faulkner". According to one story, a careless typesetter made an error. When the misprint appeared on the title page of his first book, Faulkner was asked whether he wanted the change. He supposedly replied, "Either way suits me."[29] His 1918 Attestation Papers for the RAF (C) note his name as "Faulkner". In adolescence, Faulkner began writing poetry almost exclusively. He did not write his first novel until 1925. His literary influences are deep and wide. He once stated that he modeled his early writing on theRomantic era in late 18th- and early 19th-century England.[7]

He attended the University of Mississippi, enrolling in 1919, studying for three semesters before dropping out in November 1920.[30] Faulkner joined theSigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and pursued his dream to become a writer.[31] He skipped classes often and received a "D" grade in English. However, some of his poems were published in campus publications.[18][32] In 1922, his poem "Portrait" was published in the New Orleans literary magazineDouble Dealer. The magazine published his "New Orleans" short story collection three years later.[33] After dropping out, he took a series of odd jobs: at a New York City bookstore, as a carpenter in Oxford, and as the Ole Miss postmaster. He resigned from the post office with the declaration: "I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp."[34]

New Orleans and early novels

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Photographic portrait of Faulkner at bust length, in profile facing right, smoking a pipe, with short hair and a mustache.
Photographic portrait of Faulkner seated in a chair.
Publicity photographs of Faulkner, summer 1924
During part of his time in New Orleans, Faulkner lived in a house in theFrench Quarter (pictured center yellow).

While most writers of Faulkner'sgeneration traveled to and lived in Europe, Faulkner remained writing in the United States.[35] Faulkner spent the first half of 1925 inNew Orleans, Louisiana, where manybohemian artists and writers lived, specifically in theFrench Quarter where Faulkner lived beginning in March.[36] During his time in New Orleans, Faulkner's focus drifted from poetry to prose and his literary style made a marked transition fromVictorian tomodernist.[37]The Times-Picayune published several of his short works of prose.[38]

After being directly influenced bySherwood Anderson, Faulkner wrote his first novel,Soldiers' Pay,[7] in New Orleans.Soldiers' Pay and his other early works were written in a style similar to contemporariesErnest Hemingway andF. Scott Fitzgerald, at times nearly exactly appropriating phrases.[39] Anderson assisted in the publication ofSoldiers' Pay andMosquitoes by recommending them to his publisher.[40]

The miniature house at 624 Pirate's Alley, just around the corner fromSt. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, is now the site of Faulkner House Books, where it also serves as the headquarters of the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society.[41]

During the summer of 1927, Faulkner wrote his first novel set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County,Flags in the Dust. This novel drew heavily from the traditions and history of the South, in which Faulkner had been engrossed in his youth. He was extremely proud of the novel upon its completion and he believed it a significant step up from his previous two novels—however, when submitted for publication toBoni & Liveright, it was rejected. Faulkner was devastated by this rejection but he eventually allowed his literary agent, Ben Wasson, to edit the text, and the novel was published in 1929 asSartoris.[32][40][note 2] The work was notable in that it was his first novel that dealt with the Civil War rather than the contemporary emphasis on World War I and its legacy.[42] Eventually Faulkner's daughter, Jill, would approach University of Virginia professorDouglas Day about restoring the text. Almost a fourth of the original manuscript had been cut by Wasson to meet the demands of publishers Harcourt, Brace in 1929. Working from a surviving typescript, Day reinstated cut passages but also included at least one added section from the published text. This new edition, published in 1973, also restored Faulkner's original title,Flags in the Dust. A third version by Noel Polk has since replaced Day's and is considered the definitive text by Random House, the current publishers of Faulkner's fiction.[43]

The Sound and the Fury

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The Sound and the Fury (1929)

In autumn 1928, just after his 31st birthday, Faulkner began working onThe Sound and the Fury. He started by writing three short stories about a group of children with the last name Compson, but soon began to feel that the characters he had created might be better suited for a full-length novel. Perhaps as a result of disappointment in the initial rejection ofFlags in the Dust, Faulkner had now become indifferent to his publishers and wrote this novel in a much more experimental style. In describing the writing process for this work, Faulkner later said, "One day I seemed to shut the door between me and all publisher's addresses and book lists. I said to myself, 'Now I can write.'"[44] After its completion, Faulkner insisted that Wasson not do any editing or add any punctuation for clarity.[32]

1929–1931

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In 1929, Faulkner married Estelle Oldham, with Andrew Kuhn serving as best man at the wedding. Estelle brought with her two children from her previous marriage toCornell Franklin and Faulkner hoped to support his new family as a writer. Faulkner and Estelle had one child together, daughter Jill (1933—2008). He began writingAs I Lay Dying in 1929 while working night shifts at theUniversity of Mississippi Power House. The novel was published in 1930.[45]

Beginning in 1930, Faulkner sent some of his short stories to various national magazines. Several of these were published and brought him enough income to buy a house in Oxford for his family, which he namedRowan Oak.[46] Fueled by a desire to make money, Faulkner wroteSanctuary.[47] With limited royalties from his work, he published short stories in magazines such asThe Saturday Evening Post to supplement his income.[48]

Light in August and Hollywood years

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Light in August (1932)

By 1932, Faulkner was in need of money. He asked Wasson to sell the serialization rights for his newly completed novel,Light in August, to a magazine for $5,000, but none accepted the offer. ThenMGM Studios offered Faulkner work as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Faulkner was not an avid moviegoer and had reservations about working in the movie industry. As André Bleikasten comments, he "was in dire need of money and had no idea how to get it...So he went to Hollywood."[49] It has been noted that authors like Faulkner were not always hired for their writing prowess but "to enhance the prestige of the ...writers who hired them."[49] He arrived inCulver City, California, in May 1932. The job began a sporadic relationship with moviemaking and with California, which was difficult but he endured in order to earn "a consistent salary that supported his family back home."[50]

Initially, he declared a desire to work onMickey Mouse cartoons, not realizing that they were produced byWalt Disney Productions and not MGM.[51] His first screenplay was forToday We Live, an adaptation of his short story "Turnabout", which received a mixed response. He then wrote a screen adaptation ofSartoris that was never produced.[48] From 1932 to 1954, Faulkner worked on around 50 films.[52] In early 1944, Faulkner wrote a screenplay adaptation ofErnest Hemingway's novelTo Have and Have Not.[53] Thefilm was the first starringLauren Bacall andHumphrey Bogart. Bogart and Bacall would star in Hawks'sThe Big Sleep, another film Faulkner worked on.[54]

Faulkner was highly critical of what he found in Hollywood, and he wrote letters that were "scathing in tone, painting a miserable portrait of a literary artistimprisoned in a cultural Babylon."[55] Many scholars have brought attention to the dilemma he experienced and the predicament that caused him serious unhappiness.[56][50][57] In Hollywood he worked with directorHoward Hawks, with whom he quickly developed a friendship, as they both enjoyed drinking and hunting. Howard Hawks' brother,William Hawks, became Faulkner'sHollywood agent. Faulkner continued to find reliable work as a screenwriter from the 1930s to the 1950s.[40][46] While staying in Hollywood, Faulkner adopted a "vagrant" lifestyle, living in brief stints in hotels like theGarden of Allah Hotel and frequenting the bar at theRoosevelt Hotel and theMusso & Frank Grill where he was said to have regularly gone behind the bar to mix his own Mint Juleps.[58][59] He had an extramarital affair with Hawks' secretary andscript girl, Meta Carpenter.[60]

With the onset of World War II, in 1942, Faulkner tried to join theUnited States Air Force but was rejected. He instead worked on localcivil defense.[61] The war drained Faulkner of his enthusiasm. He described the war as "bad for writing".[62] Amid thiscreative slowdown, in 1943, Faulkner began work on a new novel that merged World War I'sUnknown Soldier with thePassion of Christ. Published over a decade later asA Fable, it won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize.[63][64] The award forA Fable was a controversial political choice. The jury had selectedMilton Lott'sThe Last Hunt for the prize, but Pulitzer Prize Administrator Professor John Hohenberg convinced the Pulitzer board that Faulkner was long overdue for the award, despiteA Fable being a lesser work of his, and the board overrode the jury's selection, much to the disgust of its members.[65]

By the time ofThe Portable Faulkner's publication, most of his novels had been out of print.[35]

Nobel Prize and later years

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Faulkner is pictured in a chair before a brick well. He looks to the left.
Faulkner in 1954

Faulkner was awarded the1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel".[66] It was awarded at the following year's banquet along with the 1950 Prize toBertrand Russell.[67]

When Faulkner visited Stockholm in December 1950 to receive the Nobel Prize, he met Else Jonsson (1912–1996), who was the widow of journalistThorsten Jonsson (1910–1950). Jonsson, a reporter forDagens Nyheter from 1943 to 1946, had interviewed Faulkner in 1946 and introduced his works to Swedish readers. Faulkner and Else had an affair that lasted until the end of 1953. At the banquet where they met in 1950, publisher Tor Bonnier introduced Else as the widow of the man responsible for Faulkner winning the Nobel Prize.[68]

Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech on the immortality of the artists, although brief, contained a number of allusions and references to other literary works.[69] However, Faulkner detested the fame and glory that resulted from his recognition. His aversion was so great that his 17-year-old daughter learned of the Nobel Prize only when she was called to the principal's office during the school day.[70] He began by saying: "I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work – a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin."[71] He donated part of his Nobel money "to establish a fund to support and encourage new fiction writers", eventually resulting in theWilliam Faulkner Foundation (1960–1970).

Controversially, he is noted to have once stated: "Television is forniggers". On the subject, it was noted that "for many white southerners nothing changed with the end of slavery except slavery."[72]

Faulkner's headstone located in St. Peter's Cemetery in Oxford, Mississippi, USA

In 1951, Faulkner received theChevalier de la Légion d'honneur medal from the government ofFrance.[73]

Faulkner served as the first Writer-in-Residence at theUniversity of Virginia atCharlottesville from February to June 1957 and again in 1958.[74][75]

In 1961, Faulkner began writing his nineteenth and final novel,The Reivers. The novel is a nostalgic reminiscence, in which an elderly grandfather relates a humorous episode in which he and two boys stole a car to drive to aMemphis bordello. In summer 1961, he finished the first draft.[76] During this time, he injured himself in a series of falls.[77]

On June 17, 1962, Faulkner suffered a serious injury in a fall from his horse, which led tothrombosis. He suffered a fatal heart attack on July 6, 1962, at the age of 64, at Wright's Sanatorium inByhalia, Mississippi.[7][12] Faulkner is buried with his family in St. Peter's Cemetery in Oxford.[78]

Writing

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One of Faulkner's typewriters

From the early 1920s to the outbreak of World War II, Faulkner published 13 novels and many short stories. This body of work formed the basis of his reputation and earned him the Nobel Prize at age 52. Faulkner's prodigious output include celebrated novels such asThe Sound and the Fury (1929),As I Lay Dying (1930),Light in August (1932), andAbsalom, Absalom! (1936). He was also a prolific writer ofshort stories.

Faulkner's first short story collection,These 13 (1931), includes many of his most acclaimed (and most frequentlyanthologized) stories, including "A Rose for Emily", "Red Leaves", "That Evening Sun", and "Dry September". He set many of his short stories and novels inYoknapatawpha County—which was based on and nearly geographically identical to Lafayette County (of which his hometown ofOxford, Mississippi, is the county seat). Yoknapatawpha was Faulkner's "postage stamp", and the bulk of work that it represents is widely considered by critics to amount to one of the most monumental fictional creations in the history of literature. Three of his novels,The Hamlet,The Town andThe Mansion, known collectively as theSnopes trilogy, document the town of Jefferson and its environs, as an extended family headed by Flem Snopes insinuates itself into the lives and psyches of the general populace.[79] Yoknapatawpha County has been described as a mental landscape.[80]

His short story "A Rose for Emily" was his first story published in a major magazine, theForum, but received little attention from the public. After revisions and reissues, it gained popularity and is now considered one of his best.

Faulkner wrote two volumes of poetry which were published in small printings,The Marble Faun (1924), andA Green Bough (1933), and a collection of mystery stories,Knight's Gambit (1949).

Style and technique

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The peacefullest words. Peacefullest words.Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum. Somewhere I heard bells once. Mississippi or Massachusetts. I was. I am not. Massachusetts or Mississippi. Shreve has a bottle in his trunk.Aren't you even going to open it Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson announce theThree times. Days. Aren't you even going to open it marriage of their daughter Candacethat liquor teaches you to confuse the means with the end I am. Drink. I was not. Let us sell Benjy's pasture so that Quentin may go to Harvard and I may knock my bones together and together. I will be dead in. Was it one year Caddy said.

— An example of Faulkner's prose inThe Sound and the Fury (1929)

Carl Rollyson has argued that, "as an artist," Faulkner believed "he should be above worldly concerns and even morality."[81] Faulkner was known for his experimental style with meticulous attention todiction andcadence. In contrast to theminimalist understatement of his contemporaryErnest Hemingway, Faulkner made frequent use ofstream of consciousness in his writing, and wrote often highly emotional, subtle, cerebral, complex, and sometimesGothic orgrotesque stories of a wide variety of characters including former slaves or descendants of slaves, poor white, agrarian, or working-class Southerners, and Southern aristocrats.

Faulkner's contemporary critical reception was mixed, withThe New York Times noting that many critics regarded his work as "raw slabs of pseudorealism that had relatively little merit as serious writing".[8] His style has been described as "impenetrably convoluted".[35]

In an interview withThe Paris Review in 1956, Faulkner remarked:

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

In that same interview,Jean Stein says "Some people say they can't understand your writing, even after they read it two or three times. What approach would you suggest for them?" Faulkner replies: "Read it four times."

When asked about his influences, Faulkner says "the books I read are the ones I knew and loved when I was a young man and to which I return as you do to old friends: theOld Testament,Dickens,Conrad,Cervantes,Don QuixoteI read that every year, as some do the Bible.Flaubert,Balzac—he created an intact world of his own, a bloodstream running through twenty books—Dostoyevsky,Tolstoy,Shakespeare. I readMelville occasionally and, of the poets,Marlowe,Campion,Jonson,Herrick,Donne,Keats, andShelley."[82]

Like his contemporariesJames Joyce andT. S. Eliot, Faulkner uses stories and themes from classic literature in a modern context. Joyce, inUlysses, modeled the journey of his heroLeopold Bloom on the adventures ofOdysseus. Eliot, in his essay "Ulysses, Order and Myth", wrote that "In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses the discoveries of anEinstein in pursuing his own, independent, further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history."[83] Faulkner's allusions to earlier authors are evidenced by his titles; the title ofThe Sound and the Fury comes fromMacbeth's soliloquy: "it is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing." The opening of the novel is told from the perspective of the intellectually disabled Benjy Compson. The title ofAs I Lay Dying comes fromHomer'sOdyssey, where it is spoken byAgamemnon in the past tense: "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades." Faulkner's novel, in contrast, is narrated in the present tense.[84] The title ofGo Down, Moses is from anAfrican American spiritual, and the book is dedicated "To Mammy / Caroline Barr / Mississippi / [1840–1940] Who was born in slavery and who gave to my family a fidelity without stint or calculation of recompense and to my childhood an immeasurable devotion and love."[85]

Themes and analysis

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Faulkner advocated a gradual abolition ofracial segregation[86] and made racial prejudices the subject of a number of his works includingIntruder in the Dust, but was critical of forced or fast-movingdesegregation. He argued thatcivil rights activists should "go slow" and be more moderate in their positions.[87] The essayist and novelistJames Baldwin was highly critical of Faulkner's views around integration, seeing him as part of a group of educated white Southeners who falsely believed that there could be a middle ground between segregationists and integrationists.[88]Ralph Ellison said that "No one in American fiction has done so much to explore the types of Negro personality as has Faulkner."[89]

TheNew Critics became interested in Faulkner's work, withCleanth Brooks writingThe Yoknapatawpha Country and Michael Millgate writingThe Achievement of William Faulkner. Since then, critics have looked at Faulkner's work using other approaches, such as feminist and psychoanalytic methods.[40][90] Faulkner's works have been placed within the literary traditions ofmodernism and theSouthern Renaissance.[91]

French philosopherAlbert Camus wrote that Faulkner successfully imported classicaltragedy into the 20th century through his "interminably unwinding spiral of words and sentences that conducts the speaker to the abyss of sufferings buried in the past".[92]

Legacy

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A white house set among trees
Faulkner's homeRowan Oak is maintained by theUniversity of Mississippi.
A Parisian street named for Faulkner

Influence

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Faulkner is widely considered a towering figure inSouthern literature;Flannery O'Connor wrote that "the presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do. Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track theDixie Limited is roaring down".[93] In 1943, while working at Warner Brothers, Faulkner wrote a letter of encouragement to a young Mississippi writer,Eudora Welty.[94] According to critic and translatorValerie Miles, Faulkner's influence onLatin American fiction is considerable, with fictional worlds created byGabriel García Márquez (Macondo) andJuan Carlos Onetti (Santa Maria) being "very much in the vein of" Yoknapatawpha, and that "Carlos Fuentes'sThe Death of Artemio Cruz wouldn't exist if not forAs I Lay Dying".[95] Fuentes himself cited Faulkner as one of the writers most important to him.[96] Faulkner had great influence onMario Vargas Llosa, particularly on his early novelsThe Time of the Hero,The Green House andConversation in The Cathedral. Vargas Llosa has claimed that during his student years he learned more from Yoknapatawpha than from classes.[97] Jorge Luis Borges is credited with the translation of Faulkner'sThe Wild Palms into Spanish, althoughDouglas Day believes it's not impossible that Borges' mother may have done the translation. Day also believes that Borges' deep immersion in and study ofThe Wild Palms may have influenced him to abandon the novel as his own writing form of choice.[98][99]

The works of William Faulkner are a clear influence on the French novelistClaude Simon,[100] and the Portuguese novelistAntónio Lobo Antunes.[101]Cormac McCarthy has been described as a "disciple of Faulkner".[102]

InThe Elements of Style,E. B. White cites Faulkner: "If the experiences ofWalter Mitty, ofDick Diver, ofRabbit Angstrom have seemed for the moment real to countless readers, if in reading Faulkner we have almost the sense of inhabiting Yoknapatawpha County during the decline of the South, it is because the details used are definite, the terms concrete." Later, Faulkner's style is contrasted with that ofHemingway.[103]

After his death, Estelle and their daughter, Jill, lived at Rowan Oak until Estelle's death in 1972. The property was sold to theUniversity of Mississippi that same year. The house and furnishings are maintained much as they were in Faulkner's day. Faulkner's scribblings are preserved on the wall, including the day-by-day outline covering a week he wrote on the walls of his small study to help him keep track of the plot twists in his novelA Fable.[104] Some of Faulkner's Nobel Prize winnings went to establish theWilliam Faulkner Foundation. It gave an Award for Notable First Novel; winners includedJohn Knowles'sA Separate Peace,Thomas Pynchon'sV.,Cormac McCarthy'sThe Orchard Keeper,Robert Coover'sThe Origin of the Brunists andFrederick Exley'sA Fan's Notes. Starting in 1981, this became thePEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, founded by, among others,Mary Lee Settle as an alternative to the National Book Award.[105]

Some of Faulkner's works have been adapted into films. They have received a polarized response, with many critics contending that Faulkner's works are "unfilmable".[106] Faulkner's final work,The Reivers, was adapted into a1969 film starringSteve McQueen.[107]Tommy Lee Jones's neo-Western filmThe Three Burials of Melquiades Estada was partly based on Faulkner'sAs I Lay Dying.[108]

During theNazi Occupation of France in World War II, the German occupiers banned American literature. A black-market of American books emerged, and reading works by Hemingway and Faulkner became an act of defiance.[109] Faulkner remains especially popular in France, where a 2009 poll found him the second most popular writer (after onlyMarcel Proust). ContemporaryJean-Paul Sartre stated that "for young people in France, Faulkner is a god", andAlbert Camus made a stage adaptation of Faulkner'sRequiem for a Nun.[110] InJean-Luc Godard'sBreathless, Patricia (Jean Seberg) quotesThe Wild Palms: "Between grief and nothing, I will take grief."[111]

He also won the U.S.National Book Award twice, forCollected Stories in 1951[112] andA Fable in 1955.[113]

TheUnited States Postal Service issued a 22-cent postage stamp in his honor on August 3, 1987.[114] Faulkner had once served as Postmaster at the University of Mississippi, and in his letter of resignation in 1923 wrote:

As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.This, sir, is my resignation.[115]

On October 10, 2019, aMississippi Writers Trail historical marker was installed atRowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi honoring the contributions of William Faulkner to the American literary landscape.[116]

Faulkner has a tribute on Mississippi's float for the 137thRose Parade.[117]

Collections

[edit]

The manuscripts of most of Faulkner's works, correspondence, personal papers, and over 300 books from his working library reside at theAlbert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at theUniversity of Virginia, where he spent much of his time in his final years. The library also houses some of the writer's personal effects and the papers of major Faulkner associates and scholars, such as his biographerJoseph Blotner, bibliographer Linton Massey, and Random House editor Albert Erskine.

Southeast Missouri State University, where theCenter for Faulkner Studies is located, also owns a generous collection of Faulkner materials, including first editions, manuscripts, letters, photographs, artwork, and many materials pertaining to Faulkner's time in Hollywood. The university possesses many personal files and letters kept byJoseph Blotner, along with books and letters that once belonged to Malcolm Cowley. The university achieved the collection due to a generous donation by Louis Daniel Brodsky, a collector of Faulkner materials, in 1989.

Further significant Faulkner materials reside at theUniversity of Mississippi, theHarry Ransom Center, and theNew York Public Library.

The Random House records at Columbia University also include letters by and to Faulkner.[118][119]

In 1966, theUnited States Military Academy dedicated a William Faulkner Room in its library.[61]

Selected list of works

[edit]
Main article:William Faulkner bibliography

Filmography

[edit]

Notes and references

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^He proposed marriage to her before Faulkner did. Her parents insisted she marry Franklin for various reasons: he was an Ole Miss law graduate, had recently been commissioned as a major in theHawaii Army National Guard, and came from a respectable family with whom they were old friends.[17]
  2. ^The original version was issued asFlags in the Dust in 1973.

Citations and references

[edit]
  1. ^The Straits Times, Singapore. November 21, 1968. "The Bartered Bride, with Marjorie in the Lead".
  2. ^"Faulkner, William".Lexico.com. Archived fromthe original on September 24, 2021.
  3. ^"Faulkner".Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster.
  4. ^Phillips (1980), p. 50.
  5. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 1949".NobelPrize.org.Archived from the original on June 2, 2020. RetrievedJanuary 4, 2023.
  6. ^Minter (1980), p. 1.
  7. ^abcdeMWP: William Faulkner (1897–1962)Archived November 1, 2015, at theWayback Machine, OleMiss.edu; accessed September 26, 2017.
  8. ^ab"Faulkner's Home, Family and Heritage Were Genesis of Yoknapatawpha County".The New York Times. July 7, 1962.Archived from the original on December 18, 2020. RetrievedJune 17, 2021.
  9. ^Minter (1980), p. 7.
  10. ^abMinter (1980), p. 8.
  11. ^O'Connor (1959), p. 4.
  12. ^abWilliam Faulkner on Nobelprize.orgEdit this at Wikidata
  13. ^abMinter, David L.William Faulkner, His Life and Work. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980;ISBN 0-8018-2347-1
  14. ^"William Faulkner's Demons".The New Yorker. November 18, 2020. RetrievedMarch 3, 2023.
  15. ^O'Connor (1959), pp. 4–5.
  16. ^Parini (2004), pp. 22–29.
  17. ^abParini (2004), pp. 36–37.
  18. ^abCoughlan, Robert.The Private World of William Faulkner, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953ISBN 0-8154-0424-7
  19. ^Zeitlin (2016), p. 15.
  20. ^abO'Connor (1959), p. 5.
  21. ^Zeitlin (2016), pp. 17–18.
  22. ^Zeitlin (2016), pp. 15–17.
  23. ^Zeitlin (2016), pp. 17, 20.
  24. ^"Attestation Form: William Faulkner".Fold3.com. National Archives: War Office. 1919. RetrievedMarch 23, 2025.
  25. ^Watson, James G. (2002).William Faulkner: Self-Presentation and Performance. Austin: University of Texas Press.ISBN 978-0-292-79151-0.
  26. ^"Attestation Form: William Faulkner".Fold3.com. National Archives: War Office. 1919. RetrievedMarch 23, 2025.
  27. ^Zeitlin (2016), pp. 24–25.
  28. ^Zeitlin (2016), pp. 26–27.
  29. ^Nelson, Randy F.The Almanac of American Letters Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: pp. 63–64.ISBN 0-86576-008-X
  30. ^"University of Mississippi: William Faulkner". Olemiss.edu.Archived from the original on September 22, 2010. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2010.
  31. ^Messenger, Christian K. (1983).Sport and the Spirit of Play in American Fiction: Hawthorne to Faulkner. Columbia University Press. p. 219.ISBN 978-0-231-51661-7.Archived from the original on March 2, 2022. RetrievedMarch 2, 2022.
  32. ^abcPorter, Carolyn.William FaulknerArchived December 2, 2020, at theWayback Machine, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007;ISBN 0-19-531049-7
  33. ^Koch (2007), p. 57.
  34. ^O'Connor (1959), p. 6.
  35. ^abcPikoulis (1982), p. ix.
  36. ^Koch (2007), pp. 55–56.
  37. ^Koch (2007), pp. 56, 58.
  38. ^Koch (2007), p. 58.
  39. ^McKay (2009), pp. 119–121.
  40. ^abcdHannon, Charles. "Faulkner, William".The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Jay Parini (2004), Oxford University Press, Inc. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Pressdoi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.484
  41. ^"Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Featuring Words & Music". Wordsandmusic.org.Archived from the original on June 28, 2012. RetrievedAugust 13, 2012.
  42. ^McKay (2009), p. 119.
  43. ^Padgett, John; Railton, Stephen, eds. (2012)."Flags in The Dust".The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project. Charlottesville VA: The University of Virginia. RetrievedFebruary 23, 2025.
  44. ^Porter, Carolyn.William FaulknerArchived December 2, 2020, at theWayback Machine, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007;ISBN 0-19-531049-7, p. 37
  45. ^Parini (2004), p. 142.
  46. ^abWilliamson, Joel.William Faulkner and Southern HistoryArchived 2017-03-05 at theWayback Machine, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993;ISBN 0-19-510129-4.
  47. ^"'The Most Horrific Tale I Could Imagine'".Washington Post. March 8, 1981. RetrievedMarch 3, 2023.
  48. ^abBartunek (2017), p. 98.
  49. ^abBleikasten (2017), p. 218.
  50. ^abSolomon, Stefan (2017).William Faulkner in Hollywood: Screenwriting for the Studios. Athens: University of Georgia. p. 1.ISBN 9780820351148.Archived from the original on May 29, 2021. RetrievedMay 29, 2020.
  51. ^"Literary Daybook, May 7".Salon. May 7, 2002.Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. RetrievedJune 4, 2022.
  52. ^Bartunek (2017), p. 100.
  53. ^Minter (1980), p. 201.
  54. ^Crowther, Bosley (June 4, 2022)."' To Have and Have Not,' With Humphrey Bogart, at the Hollywood – Arrival of Other New Films at Theatres Here".The New York Times.Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. RetrievedJune 4, 2022.
  55. ^Solomon, Stefan (2017).William Faulkner in Hollywood: Screenwriting for the Studios. Athens: University of Georgia. p. 1.ISBN 9780820351148.Archived from the original on May 29, 2021. RetrievedMay 29, 2020.
  56. ^Bleikasten (2017), pp. 215–220.
  57. ^Leitch, Thomas (2016). "Lights! camera! author! authorship as Hollywood performance".Journal of Screenwriting.7 (1):113–127.doi:10.1386/josc.7.1.113_1.
  58. ^Spano, Susan (September 16, 2011)."William Faulkner's Hollywood".Smithsonian Magazine.Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. RetrievedJune 4, 2022.
  59. ^"The Fascinating History of the Mint Julep".Town & Country. April 10, 2017.Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. RetrievedOctober 14, 2022.
  60. ^Parini (2004), pp. 198–199.
  61. ^abCapps (1966), p. 3.
  62. ^Minter (1980), pp. 198–200.
  63. ^Minter (1980), p. 198.
  64. ^"Fiction".The Pulitzer Prizes. Columbia University.Archived from the original on April 2, 2019. RetrievedJune 4, 2022.
  65. ^Hohenberg, John.John Hohenberg: The Pursuit of Excellence, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1995, pp. 162–163
  66. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 1949".Nobelprize.org.Archived from the original on June 2, 2020. RetrievedJuly 25, 2009.
  67. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 1949: Documentary".Nobelprize.org. Archived fromthe original on August 31, 2009. RetrievedJuly 25, 2009.
  68. ^"En kärlekshistoria i Nobelprisklass",Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish), Sweden, January 9, 2010,archived from the original on April 10, 2010, retrievedApril 22, 2010
  69. ^Rife (1983), pp. 151–152.
  70. ^Gordon, Debra. "Faulkner, William". In Bloom, Harold (ed.)William Faulkner, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002ISBN 0-7910-6378-X
  71. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 1949".NobelPrize.org. RetrievedMarch 18, 2023.
  72. ^Powers, Thomas (April 20, 2017)."The Big Thing on His Mind".The New York Review of Books. Vol. 64, no. 7.ISSN 0028-7504. RetrievedMay 9, 2025.
  73. ^"William Faulkner archival material to be sold at auction".Today.com. March 28, 2013.
  74. ^Ringle, Ken (September 25, 1997)."Faulkner, Between the Lines".The Washington Post.Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. RetrievedJune 18, 2021.
  75. ^Blotner, J. and Frederick L. Gwynn, (eds.) (1959)Faulkner in the University: Conferences at the University of Virginia, 1957–1958OCLC 557743504
  76. ^Minter (1980), pp. 246−247.
  77. ^Minter (1980), pp. 247−248.
  78. ^Jennifer Ciotta."Touring William Faulkner's Oxford, Mississippi". Literarytraveler.com. Archived fromthe original on July 21, 2011. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2010.
  79. ^Charlotte Renner, "Talking and Writing in Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy",The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, Fall 1982.
  80. ^Pikoulis (1982), p. 2.
  81. ^Rollyson, Carl (2020).The Life of William Faulkner. University of Virginia.ISBN 978-0813944401.
  82. ^Stein, Jean (1956)."The Art of Fiction No. 12".Paris Review. Spring 1956 (12).
  83. ^"T. S. Eliot, 'Ulysses, Order, and Myth"' in The Dial (Nov 1923)".www.ricorso.net. RetrievedMarch 27, 2023.
  84. ^Brooks, Cleanth.William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country.
  85. ^Simon, Julia (2017)."Repudiation and Redemption in Go Down, Moses: Accounting, Settling, Gaming the System, and Justice".The Southern Quarterly.55 (1):30–54.ISSN 2377-2050.
  86. ^"Racism and rethinking integration".LA Progressive. June 8, 2025. RetrievedSeptember 6, 2025.
  87. ^Cep, Casey (November 23, 2020)."William Faulkner's Demons".The New Yorker. RetrievedJune 11, 2024.
  88. ^Cep, Casey (November 23, 2020)."William Faulkner's Demons".The New Yorker.Archived from the original on January 22, 2021. RetrievedFebruary 12, 2021.
  89. ^Mikics, David (August 3, 2021)."Ellison's Invisible Man and Faulkner's Light in August: An Argument in Black and White".Literary Imagination.23 (2):194–201.doi:10.1093/litimag/imab027.
  90. ^Wagner-Martin, Linda.William Faulkner: Six Decades of Criticism. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2002ISBN 0-87013-612-7.
  91. ^Abadie, Ann J. and Doreen Fowler.Faulkner and the Southern RenaissanceArchived March 6, 2017, at theWayback Machine. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1982ISBN 1-60473-201-6.
  92. ^Camus (1970), pp. 313–314.
  93. ^Levinger, Larry (2000)."The Prophet Faulkner".The Atlantic.
  94. ^St. C. Crane, Joan (1989)."William Faulkner to Eudora Welty: A Letter".The Mississippi Quarterly.42 (3):223–227.ISSN 0026-637X.JSTOR 26475181.
  95. ^Kan, Elianna (April 9, 2015)."The Forest of Letters: An Interview with Valerie Miles".The Paris Review.Archived from the original on April 14, 2015. RetrievedApril 16, 2015.
  96. ^The Latin MasterArchived June 24, 2021, at theWayback Machine The Guardian 5 May 2001
  97. ^"The masters who influenced the Latin American Boom: Vargas Llosa and García Márquez took cues from Faulkner". El Pais. November 21, 2012.Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. RetrievedJune 22, 2021.
  98. ^Day, Douglas (1980)."Borges, Faulkner, and The Wild Palms".Virginia Quarterly Review.56 (1). University of Virginia.JSTOR 26436092.
  99. ^Vegh, Beatriz (1995)."The Wild Palms and Las palmeras salvajes: The Southern Counterpoint Faulkner/Borges".The Faulkner Journal.11 (1/2):165–179.JSTOR 24907724.
  100. ^Duncan, Alistair B.Claude Simon and William Faulkner Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. IX, Issue 3, July 1973, pp. 235–252
  101. ^Bucaioni, Marco,A Huge Debt to 20th Century Modernism? António Lobo Antunes's Prose Style and his Models, Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa, 2019, pp. 477–497
  102. ^Prescott, Orville (May 12, 1965)."Still Another Disciple of William Faulkner".The New York Times.Archived from the original on May 23, 2022. RetrievedJune 12, 2022.
  103. ^White, E. B. (1975).The Elements of Style (3rd ed.). p. 22.
  104. ^Block, Melissa (February 13, 2017)."William Faulkner's Home Illustrates His Impact On The South".NPR.org.Archived from the original on August 11, 2018. RetrievedAugust 11, 2018.
  105. ^"Our History | The PEN/Faulkner Foundation".www.penfaulkner.org. RetrievedMarch 3, 2023.
  106. ^Bartunek (2017), p. 97.
  107. ^Ebert, Roger (December 29, 1969)."The Reivers".RogerEbert.com.Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. RetrievedJuly 2, 2021.
  108. ^Mills, Warren (June 15, 2006)."As Melquiades Lay Dying".Indiana Daily Student.
  109. ^Blotner (1974), p. 1222.
  110. ^Dugdale, John (March 19, 2009)."France's strange love affair with William Faulkner".The Guardian.Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. RetrievedJune 4, 2022.
  111. ^Breathless (1960) – IMDb, retrievedMarch 16, 2023
  112. ^"National Book Awards – 1951"Archived October 28, 2018, at theWayback Machine.National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-31. (With essays byNeil Baldwin and Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 50- and 60-year anniversary publications.)
  113. ^"National Book Awards – 1955"Archived April 22, 2019, at theWayback Machine.National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-31. (With acceptance speech by Faulkner and essays by Neil Baldwin and Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 50- and 60-year anniversary publications.)
  114. ^Scott catalogue #2350.
  115. ^"William Faulkner Quits His Post Office Job in Splendid Fashion with a 1924 Resignation Letter". Openculture. September 30, 2012.Archived from the original on March 25, 2015. RetrievedFebruary 5, 2014.
  116. ^Thompson, Jake (October 11, 2019)."William Faulkner marker added to Mississippi Writers Trail".The Oxford Eagle.Archived from the original on June 17, 2020. RetrievedJune 16, 2020.
  117. ^Staff, WXXV (September 14, 2025)."Visit Mississippi unveils float for 137th Rose Parade".wxxv25.com.WXXV-TV. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2025.
  118. ^"Random House records, 1925–1999".Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. RetrievedMay 25, 2018.
  119. ^Jaillant (2014)

"Oppression and Its Effects on the Individual and Society in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily'", El-Ruha 5th International Conference on Social Sciences Proceedings Book, Eds. Fethi Demir&Mehmet Recep Taş.ISBN 978-605-80857-7-0. 2019. Tunisia. pp. 31–38. www.elruha.org.

Works cited

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Further reading

[edit]
  • Meriwether, James B., ed. (1980).Lion in the Garden: Interviews with William Faulkner, 1926–1962. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.ISBN 978-0803230682.

External links

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