William Faulkner: Lives and Legacies (Lives and Legacies Series)

In this newest volume in Oxford's Lives and Legacies series, Carolyn Porter, a leading authority on William Faulkner, offers an insightful account of Faulkner's life and work, with special focus on the breathtaking twelve-year period when he wrote some of the finest novels in American literature. Porter ranges from Faulkner's childhood in Mississippi to his abortive career as a poet, his sojourn in New Orleans (where he met a sympathetic Sherwood Anderson and wrote his first novel Soldier's Pay ), his short but strategically important stay in Paris, his "rescue" by Malcolm Crowley in the late 1940s, and his winning of the Nobel Prize. But the heart of the book illuminates the formal leap in Faulkner's creative vision beginning with The Sound and the Fury in 1929, which sold poorly but signaled the arrival of a major new literary talent. Indeed, from 1929 through 1942, he would produce, against formidable odds—physical, spiritual, and financial—some of the greatest fictional works of the twentieth century, including As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses . Porter shows how, during this remarkably sustained burst of creativity, Faulkner pursued an often feverish process of increasingly ambitious narrative experimentation, coupled with an equally ambitious thematic expansion, as he moved from a close-up study of the white nuclear family, both lower and upper class, to an epic vision of southern, American, and ultimately Western culture. Porter illuminates the importance of Faulkner's legacy not only for American literature, but also for world literature, and reveals how Faulkner lives on so powerfully, both in the works of his literary heirs and in the lives of readers today. "In this newest volume in Oxford's Lives and Legacies series, Carolyn Porter, a leading authority on William Faulkner, offers an account of Faulkner's life and work, with special focus on the twelve-year period when he wrote some of the finest novels in American literature. Porter illuminates the importance of Faulkner's legacy not only for American literature, but also for world literature, and reveals how Faulkner lives on so powerfully, both in the works of his literary heirs and in the lives of readers today."--Jacket Contents......Page 8 One: YOUTH AND APPRENTICESHIP: THE SOUND AND THE FURY......Page 10 Two: THE MAJOR PHASE, PART 1: AS I LAY DYING, SANCTUARY, AND LIGHT IN AUGUST......Page 64 Three: THE MAJOR PHASE, PART 2: ABSALOM, ABSALOM! AND GO DOWN, MOSES......Page 113 Four: SNOPES AND BEYOND: THE HAMLET......Page 172 A FINAL NOTE TO NEW READERS: BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 196 Abbreviations......Page 201 Notes......Page 202 F......Page 206 M......Page 207 Y......Page 208 Contents 8 One: YOUTH AND APPRENTICESHIP: THE SOUND AND THE FURY 10 Two: THE MAJOR PHASE, PART 1: AS I LAY DYING, SANCTUARY, AND LIGHT IN AUGUST 64 Three: THE MAJOR PHASE, PART 2: ABSALOM, ABSALOM! AND GO DOWN, MOSES 113 Four: SNOPES AND BEYOND: THE HAMLET 172 A FINAL NOTE TO NEW READERS: BIBLIOGRAPHY 196 Abbreviations 201 Notes 202 Index 206 A 206 B 206 C 206 D 206 F 206 G 207 H 207 K 207 M 207 O 208 P 208 S 208 T 208 W 208 Y 208 A concise and illuminating introduction to the life and work of the seminal American writer provides important insights into the fictional world of William Faulkner's novels, examining his Mississippi childhood, his sojourn in New Orleans and Paris, his winning of the Nobel Prize, and his seminal works, including As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Go Down, Moses.