Joel Williamson
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195101294
- eISBN:
- 9780199854233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195101294.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
In the Faulknerian universe, there is no problem with community in nature. Difficulties develop as man moves out of nature, as he seeks to dominate and destroy the natural order. In Yoknapatawpha, it ...
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In the Faulknerian universe, there is no problem with community in nature. Difficulties develop as man moves out of nature, as he seeks to dominate and destroy the natural order. In Yoknapatawpha, it began with the Indians who imagined wrongly that they owned the land and sold it to the white men. Then the white men divided all the land neatly into squares, which they proceeded to sell and buy among themselves as if they really owned those fragments of earth. In the modern world, the prime mover in the process was the industrial revolution and its technological, commercial, and financial concomitants. Faulkner's stories are replete with trees and forests that tore them violently away. Again and again, he traced the story of — as he so eloquently called it — “the slain wood.” His characters suffered the fate of the wood. Cut away from their roots, torn and shaped by machines, they met the plight of life in the modern world.Less
In the Faulknerian universe, there is no problem with community in nature. Difficulties develop as man moves out of nature, as he seeks to dominate and destroy the natural order. In Yoknapatawpha, it began with the Indians who imagined wrongly that they owned the land and sold it to the white men. Then the white men divided all the land neatly into squares, which they proceeded to sell and buy among themselves as if they really owned those fragments of earth. In the modern world, the prime mover in the process was the industrial revolution and its technological, commercial, and financial concomitants. Faulkner's stories are replete with trees and forests that tore them violently away. Again and again, he traced the story of — as he so eloquently called it — “the slain wood.” His characters suffered the fate of the wood. Cut away from their roots, torn and shaped by machines, they met the plight of life in the modern world.
Jay Watson, Annette Trefzer, and James G., Jr. Thomas (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496818096
- eISBN:
- 9781496818133
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496818096.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
With the rise of new scholarly paradigms in the study of Native American histories and cultures, and the emergence of the Native South as a key concept in US southern studies, the time is more than ...
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With the rise of new scholarly paradigms in the study of Native American histories and cultures, and the emergence of the Native South as a key concept in US southern studies, the time is more than ripe for a critical reassessment of Native sites, characters, communities, customs, narratives, ways of knowing, and other indigenous elements in the writings of William Faulkner—and of Faulkner’s significance for Native American writers, artists, and intellectuals.
From new insights into the Chickasaw sources and far-reaching implications of Faulkner’s fictional place-name “Yoknapatawpha,” to discussions that reveal the potential for indigenous land-, family-, and story-based worldviews to deepen understanding of Faulkner’s fiction (including but not limited to the novels and stories he devoted explicitly to Indian topics), the eleven essays of this volume take the critical analysis of Faulkner’s Native South and the Native South’s Faulkner beyond no-longer generative assessments of the historical accuracy of his Native representations or the colonial hybridity of his Indian characters, turning instead to indigenous intellectual culture for new models, problems, and questions to bring to Faulkner studies. Along the way, readers are treated to illuminating comparisons between Faulkner’s writings and the work of a number of Native American authors, filmmakers, tribal leaders, and historical figures.
Faulkner and the Native South brings together Native and non-Native scholars in a stimulating and often surprising critical dialogue about the indigenous wellsprings of Faulkner’s creative energies and about Faulkner’s own complicated presence in Native American literary history.Less
With the rise of new scholarly paradigms in the study of Native American histories and cultures, and the emergence of the Native South as a key concept in US southern studies, the time is more than ripe for a critical reassessment of Native sites, characters, communities, customs, narratives, ways of knowing, and other indigenous elements in the writings of William Faulkner—and of Faulkner’s significance for Native American writers, artists, and intellectuals.
From new insights into the Chickasaw sources and far-reaching implications of Faulkner’s fictional place-name “Yoknapatawpha,” to discussions that reveal the potential for indigenous land-, family-, and story-based worldviews to deepen understanding of Faulkner’s fiction (including but not limited to the novels and stories he devoted explicitly to Indian topics), the eleven essays of this volume take the critical analysis of Faulkner’s Native South and the Native South’s Faulkner beyond no-longer generative assessments of the historical accuracy of his Native representations or the colonial hybridity of his Indian characters, turning instead to indigenous intellectual culture for new models, problems, and questions to bring to Faulkner studies. Along the way, readers are treated to illuminating comparisons between Faulkner’s writings and the work of a number of Native American authors, filmmakers, tribal leaders, and historical figures.
Faulkner and the Native South brings together Native and non-Native scholars in a stimulating and often surprising critical dialogue about the indigenous wellsprings of Faulkner’s creative energies and about Faulkner’s own complicated presence in Native American literary history.
Dorothy Parker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496803382
- eISBN:
- 9781496806789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496803382.003.0023
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
In this chapter, Dorothy Parker discusses William Faulkner's novel The Town, which she declares the best fiction of 1957. Parker says she wishes to sendThe Town to those she most loves and respects. ...
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In this chapter, Dorothy Parker discusses William Faulkner's novel The Town, which she declares the best fiction of 1957. Parker says she wishes to sendThe Town to those she most loves and respects. According to Parker, she cannot consider The Town as Faulkner's finest work because his books are so variegated that comparisons among them are not possible. The Town comes after The Hamlet in Faulkner's triptych of the horrible, evil, greedy, irresistible Snopes family, on their way to taking over full power in Yoknapatawpha County. Parker once said that 1957 was no banner year for American novels, but admits that The Town made her a fool and a liar.Less
In this chapter, Dorothy Parker discusses William Faulkner's novel The Town, which she declares the best fiction of 1957. Parker says she wishes to sendThe Town to those she most loves and respects. According to Parker, she cannot consider The Town as Faulkner's finest work because his books are so variegated that comparisons among them are not possible. The Town comes after The Hamlet in Faulkner's triptych of the horrible, evil, greedy, irresistible Snopes family, on their way to taking over full power in Yoknapatawpha County. Parker once said that 1957 was no banner year for American novels, but admits that The Town made her a fool and a liar.
Jorge Luis Borges
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496803382
- eISBN:
- 9781496806789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496803382.003.0033
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter discusses the work of William Faulkner, describing him as a man of genius, although a willfully and perversely chaotic one. Faulkner was born in Oxford, Mississippi; in his vast work the ...
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This chapter discusses the work of William Faulkner, describing him as a man of genius, although a willfully and perversely chaotic one. Faulkner was born in Oxford, Mississippi; in his vast work the provincial and dusty town, surrounded by the shanties of poor whites and Negroes, is the center of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. During World War I, Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He then became a poet, a journalist connected with New Orleans publications, and the author of famous novels and movie scenarios. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Faulkner represents in American letters that feudal and agrarian South which lost in the Civil War. Among his works are The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Intruder in the Dust.Less
This chapter discusses the work of William Faulkner, describing him as a man of genius, although a willfully and perversely chaotic one. Faulkner was born in Oxford, Mississippi; in his vast work the provincial and dusty town, surrounded by the shanties of poor whites and Negroes, is the center of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. During World War I, Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He then became a poet, a journalist connected with New Orleans publications, and the author of famous novels and movie scenarios. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Faulkner represents in American letters that feudal and agrarian South which lost in the Civil War. Among his works are The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Intruder in the Dust.
Joseph R. Urgo and Ann J. Abadie (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617037122
- eISBN:
- 9781604731637
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617037122.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Photographs, lumber, airplanes, hand-hewn coffins—in every William Faulkner novel and short story, worldly material abounds. This book provides a fresh understanding of the things Faulkner brought ...
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Photographs, lumber, airplanes, hand-hewn coffins—in every William Faulkner novel and short story, worldly material abounds. This book provides a fresh understanding of the things Faulkner brought from the world around him to the one he created. It surveys his representation of terrain and concludes, contrary to established criticism, that to Faulkner, Yoknapatawpha was not a microcosm of the South but a very particular and quite specifically located place. The book works with literary theory, philosophy, the history of woodworking and furniture-making, and social and intellectual history to explore how Light in August is tied intimately to the region’s logging and woodworking industries. Other chapters in the book include Kevin Railey’s on the consumer goods that appear in Flags in the Dust. Miles Orvell discusses the Confederate Soldier monuments installed in small towns throughout the South and how such monuments enter Faulkner’s work. Katherine Henninger analyzes Faulkner’s fictional representation of photographs and the function of photography within his fiction, particularly in The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!Less
Photographs, lumber, airplanes, hand-hewn coffins—in every William Faulkner novel and short story, worldly material abounds. This book provides a fresh understanding of the things Faulkner brought from the world around him to the one he created. It surveys his representation of terrain and concludes, contrary to established criticism, that to Faulkner, Yoknapatawpha was not a microcosm of the South but a very particular and quite specifically located place. The book works with literary theory, philosophy, the history of woodworking and furniture-making, and social and intellectual history to explore how Light in August is tied intimately to the region’s logging and woodworking industries. Other chapters in the book include Kevin Railey’s on the consumer goods that appear in Flags in the Dust. Miles Orvell discusses the Confederate Soldier monuments installed in small towns throughout the South and how such monuments enter Faulkner’s work. Katherine Henninger analyzes Faulkner’s fictional representation of photographs and the function of photography within his fiction, particularly in The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!
Willie Morris
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496803382
- eISBN:
- 9781496806789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496803382.003.0039
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter comments on William Faulkner's imaginative, intuitive world known as Yoknapatawpha County—which it considers one of the most convincing ever conceived by a writer. Faulkner's own “little ...
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This chapter comments on William Faulkner's imaginative, intuitive world known as Yoknapatawpha County—which it considers one of the most convincing ever conceived by a writer. Faulkner's own “little postage stamp of native soil,” as he called it, was a spiritual kingdom that he transformed into a microcosm not only of the South but also of the human race. More than any other major American novelist, with the possible exception of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Faulkner stayed close to home. Despite his later sojourns in Hollywood and in Charlottesville, Virginia, his physical and emotional fidelity to Oxford and to Mississippi, to the land and the people that shaped him, was at the core of his being. The chapter also discusses Faulkner's stand on racism and poverty, which had forever been his native state's twin burdens.Less
This chapter comments on William Faulkner's imaginative, intuitive world known as Yoknapatawpha County—which it considers one of the most convincing ever conceived by a writer. Faulkner's own “little postage stamp of native soil,” as he called it, was a spiritual kingdom that he transformed into a microcosm not only of the South but also of the human race. More than any other major American novelist, with the possible exception of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Faulkner stayed close to home. Despite his later sojourns in Hollywood and in Charlottesville, Virginia, his physical and emotional fidelity to Oxford and to Mississippi, to the land and the people that shaped him, was at the core of his being. The chapter also discusses Faulkner's stand on racism and poverty, which had forever been his native state's twin burdens.
Peter Lurie
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617030208
- eISBN:
- 9781621033202
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617030208.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter explores how the act of cinema-going in the racially organized and coded space of the southern Jim Crow movie house worked to construct and consolidate a white racial identity for ...
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This chapter explores how the act of cinema-going in the racially organized and coded space of the southern Jim Crow movie house worked to construct and consolidate a white racial identity for economically and/or spatially peripheral whites sampling the new goods, services, and pleasures available in modernizing, urbanizing environments. Drawing on recent scholarship on the social history of film viewership in the segregation-era South, it looks at the connections between white film spectatorship and the racializing activity of “consuming” racial violence in the form of spectacle lynching. The chapter examines these connections in William Faulkner’s fictions such as “Dry September” and Light in August in the context of viewership that is simultaneously inside and outside the operation of normative whiteness in Yoknapatawpha.Less
This chapter explores how the act of cinema-going in the racially organized and coded space of the southern Jim Crow movie house worked to construct and consolidate a white racial identity for economically and/or spatially peripheral whites sampling the new goods, services, and pleasures available in modernizing, urbanizing environments. Drawing on recent scholarship on the social history of film viewership in the segregation-era South, it looks at the connections between white film spectatorship and the racializing activity of “consuming” racial violence in the form of spectacle lynching. The chapter examines these connections in William Faulkner’s fictions such as “Dry September” and Light in August in the context of viewership that is simultaneously inside and outside the operation of normative whiteness in Yoknapatawpha.
Don H. Doyle
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617033032
- eISBN:
- 9781617033056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617033032.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the themes covered in William Faulkner’s work. It considers a place he invented, Yoknapatawpha County, the setting of a multitude of novels and short stories over the course of ...
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This chapter explores the themes covered in William Faulkner’s work. It considers a place he invented, Yoknapatawpha County, the setting of a multitude of novels and short stories over the course of more than three decades. He filled this place with fictional characters, most of which were either historically accurate or plausible. It is argued that Faulkner’s writing is historical because so many of the people and events, the language and customs, could only be found in this part of the world and in the particular time in which Faulkner set them.Less
This chapter explores the themes covered in William Faulkner’s work. It considers a place he invented, Yoknapatawpha County, the setting of a multitude of novels and short stories over the course of more than three decades. He filled this place with fictional characters, most of which were either historically accurate or plausible. It is argued that Faulkner’s writing is historical because so many of the people and events, the language and customs, could only be found in this part of the world and in the particular time in which Faulkner set them.
Jean W. Cash
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604739800
- eISBN:
- 9781604739862
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604739800.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter focuses on the publication of Brown’s first few stories, which won him an audience nationwide as well as in Mississippi. It tells the story of how Brown was invited to read at ...
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This chapter focuses on the publication of Brown’s first few stories, which won him an audience nationwide as well as in Mississippi. It tells the story of how Brown was invited to read at Yoknapatawpha County Arts Festival hosted by the Center for Southern Studies at Ole Miss. Glennray Tutor, an Oxford artist whom Brown had met earlier, attended the public reading. Tutor believed that Brown pursued their friendship because he wanted someone from a similar background with whom he could discuss the nature of artistic expression. The connection between the two men was not merely artistic but also social. Tutor and his son, Zach, often fished with Larry, and Tutor and his first wife, Barb, became frequent visitors to the Brown home in Yocona. Tutor also became one of Brown’s correspondents.Less
This chapter focuses on the publication of Brown’s first few stories, which won him an audience nationwide as well as in Mississippi. It tells the story of how Brown was invited to read at Yoknapatawpha County Arts Festival hosted by the Center for Southern Studies at Ole Miss. Glennray Tutor, an Oxford artist whom Brown had met earlier, attended the public reading. Tutor believed that Brown pursued their friendship because he wanted someone from a similar background with whom he could discuss the nature of artistic expression. The connection between the two men was not merely artistic but also social. Tutor and his son, Zach, often fished with Larry, and Tutor and his first wife, Barb, became frequent visitors to the Brown home in Yocona. Tutor also became one of Brown’s correspondents.
Manuel Broncano
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604732115
- eISBN:
- 9781604733549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604732115.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter argues that the kinship between Faulkner and Miguel de Cervantes is not primarily a question of European “influence” but of dense cultural intertextuality and translatability. Spanish ...
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This chapter argues that the kinship between Faulkner and Miguel de Cervantes is not primarily a question of European “influence” but of dense cultural intertextuality and translatability. Spanish readers of Faulkner’s time found in his fictional treatment of the American Civil War a way of dealing with their own civil war (1936–39). In that sense, Faulkner was crucial to the readers and writers of Spain. But Spain, too, provided inspiration for Faulkner, many of whose works, from Pylon (1935) to The Mansion (1959), were inspired by Don Quixote, a novel he admired and reread on a regular basis. The chapter identifies the many surprising connections between Renaissance Spain and the post-Civil War South to show that the characters of La Mancha share a number of social concerns with those of Yoknapatawpha.Less
This chapter argues that the kinship between Faulkner and Miguel de Cervantes is not primarily a question of European “influence” but of dense cultural intertextuality and translatability. Spanish readers of Faulkner’s time found in his fictional treatment of the American Civil War a way of dealing with their own civil war (1936–39). In that sense, Faulkner was crucial to the readers and writers of Spain. But Spain, too, provided inspiration for Faulkner, many of whose works, from Pylon (1935) to The Mansion (1959), were inspired by Don Quixote, a novel he admired and reread on a regular basis. The chapter identifies the many surprising connections between Renaissance Spain and the post-Civil War South to show that the characters of La Mancha share a number of social concerns with those of Yoknapatawpha.