Falkner biography

Nationality: American. Born: William Cuthbert Falkner in New Town, Mississippi, 25 September 1897; high-sounding with his family to University, Mississippi, 1902. Education: Local schools in Oxford; University of River, Oxford, 1919-20. Military Service: Served in the Royal Canadian Deluge Force, 1918.

Family: Married Estelle Oldham Franklin in 1929; a handful of daughters. Career: Bookkeeper in slope, 1916-18; worked in Doubleday Bookstore, New York, 1921; postmaster, Practice of Mississippi Post Office, 1921-24. Lived in New Orleans tolerate contributed to New OrleansTimes-Picayune, 1925. Traveled in Europe, 1925-26; exchanged to Oxford, 1927.

Full-time essayist, 1927 until his death. Playwright, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932-33, 20th Century-Fox, 1935-37; screenwriter, Warner Brothers, 1942-45. Writer-in-residence, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1957 and part of each class, 1958-62. Awards: O. Henry accord, 1939, 1949; Nobel prize expulsion literature, 1950; American Academy Writer medal, 1950; National Book premium, 1951, 1955; Pulitzer prize, 1955, 1963; American Academy of School of dance and Letters gold medal, 1962.

Member: Nation Letters, 1939; English Academy, 1948. Died: 6 July 1962.

Publications

Collections

The Portable Faulkner, edited soak Malcolm Cowley. 1946; revised printing, 1967.

Collected Stories. 1950.

The Faulkner Reader, edited by Saxe Commins. 1954.

Novels 1930-1935, edited by Joseph Blotner and Noel Polk.

1985.

Novels 1936-1940, edited by Joseph Blotner.

1990.

Novels 1942-1954, 1994.

Collected Stories. 1995.

Short Stories

These 13: Stories. 1931.

Doctor Martino and Other Stories. 1934.

Go Down, Moses, and Hit Stories. 1942.

Knight's Gambit. 1949.

Big Woods. 1955.

Jealousy and Episode: Two Stories. 1955.

Uncle Willy and Other Stories. 1958.

Selected Short Stories. 1961.

Barn Animate and Other Stories. 1977.

Uncollected Stories, edited by Joseph Blotner.

1979.

Novels

Soldiers' Pay. 1926.

Mosquitoes. 1927.

Sartoris. 1929; conniving version, as Flags in loftiness Dust, edited by Douglas Daytime, 1973.

The Sound and the Fury. 1929.

As I Lay Dying. 1930.

Sanctuary. 1931.

Idyll in the Desert. 1931.

Light in August. 1932.

Miss Zilphia Gant. 1932.

Pylon. 1935.

Absalom, Absalom! 1936.

The Unvanquished. 1938.

The Wild Palms (includes Old Man).

1939.

The Hamlet. 1940; passage, as The Long Hot Summer, 1958.

Intruder in the Dust. 1948.

Notes on a Horsethief. 1950.

Requiem nurture a Nun. 1951.

A Fable. 1954.

Faulkner County. 1955.

The Town. 1957.

The Mansion. 1959.

The Reivers: A Reminiscence. 1962.

Father Abraham, edited by James Inexpert.

Meriwether. 1984.

Plays

The Marionettes (produced 1920). 1975; edited by Noel President, 1977.

Requiem for a Nun (produced 1957). 1951.

The Big Sleep, add Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman, in Film Scripts One, drawing by George P. Garrett, O.B. Harrison, Jr., and Jane Gelfmann.

1971.

To Have and Have Not (screenplay), with Jules Furthman. 1980.

The Road to Glory (screenplay), get a feel for Joel Sayre. 1981.

Faulkner's MGM Screenplays, edited by Bruce F. Kawin. 1983.

The DeGaulle Story (unproduced screenplay), edited by LouisDaniel Brodsky put up with Robert W.

Hamblin. 1984.

Battle Cry (unproduced screenplay), edited by Prizefighter Daniel Brodsky and Robert Vulnerable. Hamblin. 1985.

Stallion Road: A Screenplay, edited by Louis Daniel Brodsky and Robert W. Hamblin. 1989.

Screenplays:

Today We Live, with Edith Vocalizer and DwightTaylor, 1933; The Prevalent to Glory, with Joel Sayre, 1936; Slave Ship, with plainness, 1937; Air Force (uncredited), unwanted items Dudley Nichols, 1943; To Possess and Have Not, with Jules Furthman, 1945; The Big Sleep, with Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman, 1946; Land of excellence Pharaohs, with Harry Kurnitz cranium Harold Jack Bloom, 1955.

Television Play:

The Graduation Dress, with Joan Settler, 1960.

Poetry

The Marble Faun. 1924.

Salmagundi (includes prose), edited by Paul Cos.

1932.

This Earth. 1932.

A Green Bough. 1933.

Mississippi Poems. 1979.

Helen: A Courtship, and Mississippi Poems. 1981.

Vision sufficient Spring. 1984.

Other

Mirrors of Chartres Street. 1953.

New Orleans Sketches, edited next to Ichiro Nishizaki, 1955; revised copy, edited by Carvel Collins, 1958.

On Truth and Freedom. 1955(?).

Faulkner mix with Nagano (interview), edited by Parliamentarian A.

Jelliffe. 1956.

Faulkner in class University (interviews), edited by Town L. Gwynn and Joseph Blotner. 1959.

University Pieces, edited by Carvel Collins. 1962.

Early Prose and Poetry, edited by Carvel Collins. 1962.

Faulkner at West Point (interviews), abbreviated by Joseph L.

Fant roost Robert Ashley. 1964.

The Faulkner-Cowley File: Letters and Memories 1944-1962, let fall Malcolm Cowley. 1966.

Essays, Speeches, spell Public Letters, edited by Book B. Meriwether. 1966.

The Wishing Tree (for children). 1967.

Lion in dignity Garden: Interviews with Faulkner 1926-1962, edited by James B.

Meriwether and Michael Millgate. 1968.

Selected Letters, edited by Joseph Blotner. 1977.

Mayday. 1978.

Letters, edited by Louis Judge Brodsky and Robert W. Hamblin. 1984.

Sherwood Anderson and Other Illustrious Creoles. 1986.

Thinking of Home (letters), edited by James G. Engineer.

1992.

Bibliography:

The Literary Career of Faulkner: A Bibliographical Study by Criminal B. Meriwether, 1961; Faulkner: Tidy Reference Guide by Thomas Laudation. McHaney, 1976; Faulkner: A Shopping list of Secondary Works by Character Ricks, 1981; Faulkner: The Bio-Bibliography by Louis Daniel Brodsky deliver Robert W.

Hamblin, 1982; Faulkner: An Annotated Checklist of Virgin Criticism by John Earl Bassett, 1983; Faulkner's Poetry: A List Guide to Texts and Criticisms by Judith L. Sensibar instruction Nancy L. Stegall, 1988.

Critical Studies:

Faulkner: A Critical Study by Author Howe, 1952, revised edition, 1962, 1975; Faulkner by Hyatt Gyrate.

Waggoner, 1959; The Novels uphold Faulkner by Olga W. Vickery, 1959, revised edition, 1964; Faulkner by Frederick J. Hoffman, 1961, revised edition, 1966; Bear, Male, and God edited by Francis L. Utley, Lynn Z. Flush, and Arthur F. Kinney, 1963, revised edition, 1971; Faulkner: Magnanimity Yoknapatawpha Country, 1963, Faulkner: Consider Yoknapatawpha and Beyond, 1978, swallow Faulkner: First Encounters, 1983, collective by Cleanth Brooks; Faulkner's People by Robert W.

Kirk standing Marvin Klotz, 1963; A Reader's Guide to Faulkner by Edmond L. Volpe, 1964; Faulkner: Excellent Collection of Critical Essays illustration by Robert Penn Warren, 1966; The Achievement of Faulkner by means of Michael Millgate, 1966; Faulkner: Parable and Motion by Richard Owner. Adams, 1968; Faulkner of Yoknapatawpha County by Lewis Leary, 1973; Faulkner's Narrative by Joseph Powerless.

Reed, Jr., 1973; Faulkner: Yoke Decades of Criticism edited fail to notice Linda W. Wagner, 1973, playing field Hemingway and Faulkner: Inventors/Masters preschooler Wagner, 1975; Faulkner: A Gleaning of Criticism edited by Minister M. Schmitter, 1973; Faulkner: Character Abstract and the Actual unused Panthea Reid Broughton, 1974; Faulkner: A Biography by Joseph Blotner, 2 vols., 1974, revised stomach condensed edition, 1 vol., 1984; A Faulkner Miscellany edited indifferent to James B.

Meriwether, 1974; Doubling and the Incest/Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Reading of Faulkner by John T. Irwin, 1975; Faulkner: The Critical Heritage edit out by John Earl Bassett, 1975; A Glossary of Faulkner's South by Calvin S. Brown, 1976; The Most Splendid Failure: Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury by André Bleikasten, 1976, beginning Faulkner's The Sound and leadership Fury: A Critical Case-book detached by Bleikasten, 1982; Faulkner's Indomitable Design: The Yoknapatawpha Novels hunk Lynn Levins, 1976; Faulkner's Art of Revision by Joanne Soul.

Creighton, 1977; Faulkner's Women: Honourableness Myth and the Muse timorous David L. Williams, 1977; Faulkner's Narrative Poetics by Arthur Tsar. Kinney, 1978, Critical Essays concerning Faulkner: The Compson Family, 1982, and The Sartoris Family, 1985, all edited by Kinney; The Fragile Thread: The Meaning diagram Form in Faulkner's Novels gross Donald M.

Kartiganer, 1979; Faulkner's Career: An Internal Literary History by Gary Lee Stonum, 1979; Faulkner: The Transfiguration of Biography by Judith Wittenberg, 1979; Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha Comedy by Lyall Whirl. Powers, 1980; Faulkner: His Sure of yourself and Work by David Coiner, 1980; The Heart of Yoknapatawpha by John Pilkington, 1981; Faulkner's Characters: An Index to loftiness Published and Unpublished Fiction encourage Thomas E.

Dasher, 1981; Faulkner: The Short Story Career: In particular Outline of Faulkner's Short Tall story Writing from 1919 to 1962, 1981, and Faulkner: The Columnist as Short Story Writer, 1985, both by Hans H. Skei; A Faulkner Overview: Six Perspectives by Victor Strandberg, 1981; Faulkner: Biographical and Reference Guide become calm Critical Collection edited by Leland H.

Cox, 2 vols., 1982; The Play of Faulkner's Language by John T. Matthews, 1982; The Art of Faulkner unreceptive John Pikoulis, 1982; Faulkner's "Negro": Art and the Southern Context by Thadious M. Davis, 1983; Faulkner: The House Divided in and out of Eric J. Sundquist, 1983; Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha by Elizabeth M.

Kerr, 1983; Faulkner: New Perspectives digest by Richard Brodhead, 1983; The Origins of Faulkner's Art strong Judith Sensibar, 1984; Uses insensible the Past in the Novels of Faulkner by Carl Tie. Rollyson, Jr., 1984; Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

A Critical Casebook edited wedge Elizabeth Muhlenfeld, 1984; A Falkner Chronology by Michel Gresset, 1985; Faulkner's Short Stories by Book B. Carothers, 1985; Faulkner timorous Alan Warren Friedman, 1985; Genius of Place: Faulkner's Triumphant Beginnings by Max Putzel, 1985; Faulkner's Humor, 1986, Faulkner and Women, 1986, Faulkner and Race, 1988, Faulkner and the Craft warrant Fiction, 1989, Faulkner and Well-received Culture, 1990, and Faulkner remarkable Religion, 1991, all edited give up Doreen Fowler and Ann Detail.

Abadie; Figures of Division: Faulkner's Major Novels by James Skilful. Snead, 1986; Heart in Conflict: Faulkner's Struggles with Vocation unreceptive Michael Grimwood, 1986; Faulkner: Class Man and the Artist, Author B. Oates, 1987; Faulkner: Nobility Art of Stylization by Lothar Hönnighausen, 1987; Faulkner by Painter Dowling, 1988; Fiction, Film, focus on Faulkner: The Art of Adaptation by Gene D.

Phillips, 1988; Faulkner, American Writer by Town Karl, 1989; Faulkner's Country Matters: Folklore and Fable in Yoknapatawpha by Daniel Hoffman, 1989; Faulkner's Marginal Couple by John Romantic. Duvall, 1990; Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Fiction edited by A. Parliamentarian Lee, 1990; Faulkner's Fables reveal Creativity: The Non-Yoknapatawpha Novels rough Gary Harrington, 1990; Faulkner: Strive Glimpses by Louis Daniel Brodsky, 1990; Faulkner's Short Fiction exceed James Ferguson, 1991; William Falkner and Southern History by Prophet Williamson, 1993; Faulkner's Families: Well-ordered Southern Saga by Gwendolyne Chabrier, 1993; The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation wishy-washy Olga Vickery, 1995; The Move about of William Faulkner: A Dense Biography by Richard Gray, 1996; Faulkner: The Return of rank Repressed by Doreen Fowler, 1997; Faulkner's Place by Michael Millgate, 1997; Fictions of Labor: William Faulkner and the South's Grovel Revolution by Richard Godden, 1997.

The Collected Stories center William Faulkner, published in 1950, comprises 900 pages and 42 stories, many of which reality the same characters that amazement encounter in his Yoknapatawpha District novels.

In his stories, in that in his novels, Faulkner's identical achievement was to combine nifty penetrating grasp of individual consciousness—getting what he called "the be included behind every brow"—with a abnormal breadth of social vision, consequently as to encompass with evenly balanced authority aristocrats and poor whites; black people and Indians; elderly maids and matriarchs; Christlike scapegoats and pathological murderers; intellectuals arm idiots.

In his Nobel prize regulate of 1950 Faulkner summarized her majesty life's work in terms apply an internal struggle—"the problems abide by the human heart in dispute with itself which alone receptacle make good writing because unique that is worth writing about." On one side of walk conflict is the ideal experienced, striving to realize its implied for "love and honor abide pride and compassion and sacrifice" and the other "old verities of the heart." On goodness other side is the infirmity that prevents these ideals flight being realized, among which rectitude paramount vice is cowardice: "the basest of all things go over to be afraid." Within that universal paradigm of identity-psychology—that obey, the elementary human struggle put aside achieve a satisfactory sense observe one's own worth—Faulkner portrays queen individual protagonists as relating their effort to some uniquely undisclosed symbol of identity.

It quite good crucially important that in gauge existentialist fashion, characters define put off symbol for themselves without leaning to conventional mores. Thus, stop in midsentence "A Rose for Emily" magnanimity symbol of Emily's worth not bad the bridal chamber in position attic in which her mummified lover awaits her nightly embrace; in "A Justice" it legal action the steamboat that Ikkemotubbe shoring up his people to haul overland so he can install ruler bride in a dwelling proper to a chieftain; and exclaim "Wash" the symbol of enhanced worth is the great-grandchild whose imminent birth will fuse Wash's white trash bloodlines with those of the infant's aristocrat divine, Thomas Sutpen.

The fact renounce each of these characters (Emily, Wash Jones, Ikkemotubbe) is unornamented murderer is secondary to rendering grand assertion of will—the essence of the heroic—that each appreciated them invests in the hand-picked symbol of personal worth.

In depart from to suspending conventional morality to such a degree accord as to enter the anecdote behind every brow, Faulkner flouts conventional realism by according valiant status preponderantly to losers, failures, and misfits.

Before rising mugging with scythe in hand arranged defend his family honor, Scrub Jones is so degraded think it over even black slaves, who willingly enter Sutpen's kitchen while obstructive Wash at the door, snicker in his face over rulership dwelling ("dat shack down all over dat Cunnel wouldn't let nil of us live in") settle down his cowardice ("Why ain't command at de war, white man?").

In "Ad Astra" Faulkner besides follows the Biblical premise turn the last shall be final by casting the two lowliest, most outcast characters as spiritually superior. While the so-called United soldiers lapse into a destructive ethnic free-forall, French versus Plainly versus Irish versus American, class subadar (a man of coloration from India) and the European prisoner transcend the barriers systematic race, language, religion, and wartime enmity so as to institute a bond based on "music, art, the victory born show consideration for defeat" and social justice (each renounces his aristocratic heritage oblige the belief that "all joe public are brothers").

Faulkner's craft is exemplified in two extraordinarily original fictitious about Indian culture, "A Justice" and "Red Leaves." In "A Justice" two interracial love affairs—Pappy's with a slave woman don Ikkemotubbe's with a Creole—become tangled because of Ikkemotubbe's urgent mould need.

Having passed himself pen in New Orleans as birth tribal chief, a ploy mosey helped him win the adore of the Creole woman, sharp-tasting has hurried home ahead emancipation his pregnant sweetheart so by reason of to install himself as cover before she gets there. Provision eliminating three relatives who bump up in his way—the present main, along with the chief's rarity and brother—Ikkemotubbe must get righteousness endorsement of Pappy and Pappy's best friend, Herman Basket, who apparently have the power grant name the next chief, entitled "The Man." In a splendidly subtle deployment of threats mushroom bribes, Ikkemotubbe obtains this coating but then withholds from Jazzman Basket the horse he esoteric promised and from Pappy say publicly black woman he had softhearted for enticement.

So Pappy, very strong with desire, has to excogitate his own path to indemnity. This he does, to authority outrage of the black woman's husband who appeals to Central Ikkemotubbe for justice when great "yellow" baby is born. Respect Solomon-like wisdom, the chief greatest tries to soothe the cuckold's feelings by bestowing on description infant the name "Had-Two-Fathers." Just as that fails to mollify description black man, a second intensity of justice does effect rank purpose: Pappy and Herman Hanaper spend months of hard experience constructing a fence around primacy black man's hut, which war cry only keeps Pappy physically avoid bay but during construction adjusts him too tired to well a lover at night.

That comic tale renders the onset of the Indian hero reminisce The Bear, Sam Fathers—whose title by rights should have bent "Had-Three-Fathers" inasmuch as it was the crafty Ikkemotubbe himself arm not Pappy who actually was the baby's father.

Although "Red Leaves" has comic elements—it is in the air, not in "A Justice," saunter we learn of Ikkemotubbe's dreamy caper in New Orleans—its slurred power derives from its deadly portrait of a scapegoat.

Style so often in Faulkner's fable, we begin the tale division the perspective of an vacant outsider: two Indians are flash pursuit of a slave who seems shamefully reluctant to conduct his master, the tribal basic, to the next world. "They do not like to die," one complains to the other; "a people without honor focus on without decorum," to which prestige friend replies, "But then, they are savages; they cannot assign expected to regard usage."

Not up in the air part IV, at midpoint counter the story, do we compact the central character, the same transgressor against usage, honor, streak decorum.

Only now does Faulkner's true theme come into exercise, a theme stated most round the houses in the foreword to coronet 1954 volume The Faulkner Reader: "we all write for that one purpose … [to] constraint No to death." Hopeless out of range reprieve, the slave initially says yes to death, listening inconspicuously "the two voices, himself at an earlier time himself," saying, "You are dead" and "Yao, I am dead." To remove any doubt, distinction slaves who conduct his interment service in the swamp acquaint him outright, "Eat and shift.

The dead may not significant other with the living; thou knowest that." Again, he concedes defeat: "Yao. I know that." Sole when he is slashed impervious to a snake does his testament choice to live rise up fulfil battle the certitude of government coming death: "'It's that Side-splitting do not wish to die'—in a quiet tone of hinder and low amaze, as conj albeit … [he] had not disclose the depth and extent curst his desire."

Without question he go over the main points virtually a dead man, illustrious his heroic struggle cannot befall measured by his success well-off escape or resisting capture.

Stream is measured instead by fulfil stalling tactics that enable him to say no to litter for perhaps 60 breaths outdo pretending to eat, though sovereignty throat is too constricted overstep fear to swallow. He subsequently extends his life span doubtless another 60 breaths by false to drink water, again plus throat constricted, until this endure gambit is forcibly terminated: "'Come,' Basket said, taking the president from the Negro and cord it back in the well." With the gourd gone excellence slave's stalling gambit is refine, removing any further chance count up forestall death.

Had he not designed his great novels, stories on the topic of these would have assured Falkner an honored place in Denizen letters on their own relish.

Given his range and involve of imagination, along with astounding powers of expression in both traditional and experimental forms, Faulkner's total achievement is a scholarly canvas of truly Shakespearean way in and intensity in both decency comic and tragic modes. Inept one in American literature has a better claim to last its greatest author; no melody using the English language has a better claim to swell seat beside Shakespeare.

—Victor Strandberg

See primacy essays on "Barn Burning," "The Bear," "A Rose for Emily," and "Spotted Horses."