William Faulkner
literary Allusion Mini-Project
Background About William Failkner
William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning novelist of the American South who wrote challenging prose and created the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He is known for novels like The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying.
An excerpt by William Faulkner
why william faulkner is famous/respected.
Faulkner became known for his faithful and accurate dictation of Southern speech. He also boldly illuminated social issues that many American writers left in the dark, including slavery, the good old boys club and Southern aristocracy.Faulkner published Sanctuary,It shocked and appalled some readers, but it was a commercial success and a critical breakthrough for his career.
Interesting quote
“I decline to accept the end of man... I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
― William Faulkner
Connection
Faulkner became known for his faithful and accurate dictation of Southern speech. He also boldly illuminated social issues that many American writers left in the dark, including slavery, the good old boys club and Southern aristocracy. In 1931, after much deliberation, Faulkner decided to publish Sanctuary, a story that focused on the rape and kidnapping of a young woman at Ole Miss. It shocked and appalled some readers, but it was a commercial success and a critical breakthrough for his career. Years later, in 1950, he published a sequel that was a mix of conventional prose and play forms, Requiem for a Nun.
William Faulkner wrote about slavery and the emotional trauma African Americans had suffered through. By doing so, he went against what every believed and did not care for their disapprovement , and continue to write about things the audience would frown upon