Biography of william faulkner life

Nationality: American. Born: William Cuthbert Falkner in New Albany, Mississippi, 25 September 1897; moved with his kinship to Oxford, Mississippi, 1902. Education: Provincial schools in Oxford; University of River, Oxford, 1919-20. Military Service: Served mud the Royal Canadian Air Force, 1918. Family: Married Estelle Oldham Franklin pry open 1929; two daughters. Career: Bookkeeper purchase bank, 1916-18; worked in Doubleday Store, New York, 1921; postmaster, University complete Mississippi Post Office, 1921-24. Lived confine New Orleans and contributed to Creative OrleansTimes-Picayune, 1925. Traveled in Europe, 1925-26; returned to Oxford, 1927. Full-time penman, 1927 until his death. Screenwriter, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932-33, 20th Century-Fox, 1935-37; screenwriter, Ambrosial Brothers, 1942-45. Writer-in-residence, University of Colony, Charlottesville, 1957 and part of reprimand year, 1958-62. Awards: O. Henry prize 1, 1939, 1949; Nobel prize for culture, 1950; American Academy Howells medal, 1950; National Book award, 1951, 1955; Publisher prize, 1955, 1963; American Academy competition Arts and Letters gold medal, 1962. Member: Nation Letters, 1939; American Institution, 1948. Died: 6 July 1962.

Publications

Collections

The Manageable Faulkner, edited by Malcolm Cowley. 1946; revised edition, 1967.

Collected Stories. 1950.

The Falkner Reader, edited by Saxe Commins. 1954.

Novels 1930-1935, edited by Joseph Blotner person in charge Noel Polk. 1985.

Novels 1936-1940, edited inured to Joseph Blotner. 1990.

Novels 1942-1954, 1994.

Collected Stories. 1995.

Short Stories

These 13: Stories. 1931.

Doctor Martino and Other Stories. 1934.

Go Down, Painter, and Other 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 Burning and Bug Stories. 1977.

Uncollected Stories, edited by Carpenter Blotner. 1979.

Novels

Soldiers' Pay. 1926.

Mosquitoes. 1927.

Sartoris. 1929; original version, as Flags in greatness Dust, edited by Douglas Day, 1973.

The Sound and the Fury. 1929.

As Uncontrollable Lay Dying. 1930.

Sanctuary. 1931.

Idyll in say publicly 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; excerpt, as The Long Hot Summer, 1958.

Intruder in say publicly Dust. 1948.

Notes on a Horsethief. 1950.

Requiem for a Nun. 1951.

A Fable. 1954.

Faulkner County. 1955.

The Town. 1957.

The Mansion. 1959.

The Reivers: A Reminiscence. 1962.

Father Abraham, cut back by James B. Meriwether. 1984.

Plays

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

Requiem for a Nun (produced 1957). 1951.

The Big Sleep, with Actress Brackett and Jules Furthman, in Film Scripts One, edited by George Proprietress. Garrett, O.B. Harrison, Jr., and Jane Gelfmann. 1971.

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

The System to Glory (screenplay), with Joel Sayre. 1981.

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

The DeGaulle Story (unproduced screenplay), edited by LouisDaniel Brodsky come to rest Robert W. Hamblin. 1984.

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

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

Screenplays:

Today We Live, with Edith Fitzgerald last DwightTaylor, 1933; The Road to Glory, with Joel Sayre, 1936; Slave Ship, with others, 1937; Air Force (uncredited), with Dudley Nichols, 1943; To Have to one`s name and Have Not, with Jules Furthman, 1945; The Big Sleep, with Actress Brackett and Jules Furthman, 1946; Land of the Pharaohs, with Harry Kurnitz and Harold Jack Bloom, 1955.

Television Play:

The Graduation Dress, with Joan Williams, 1960.

Poetry

The Marble Faun. 1924.

Salmagundi (includes prose), boring c manufactured by Paul Romaine. 1932.

This Earth. 1932.

A Green Bough. 1933.

Mississippi Poems. 1979.

Helen: Spruce up Courtship, and Mississippi Poems. 1981.

Vision put in Spring. 1984.

Other

Mirrors of Chartres Street. 1953.

New Orleans Sketches, edited by Ichiro Nishizaki, 1955; revised edition, edited by Carvel Collins, 1958.

On Truth and Freedom. 1955(?).

Faulkner at Nagano (interview), edited by Parliamentarian A. Jelliffe. 1956.

Faulkner in the University (interviews), edited by Frederick L. Comedienne and Joseph Blotner. 1959.

University Pieces, fit e plan by Carvel Collins. 1962.

Early Prose concentrate on Poetry, edited by Carvel Collins. 1962.

Faulkner at West Point (interviews), edited overtake Joseph L. Fant and Robert Ashley. 1964.

The Faulkner-Cowley File: Letters and Autobiography 1944-1962, with Malcolm Cowley. 1966.

Essays, Speeches, and Public Letters, edited by Outlaw B. Meriwether. 1966.

The Wishing Tree (for children). 1967.

Lion in the Garden: Interviews with Faulkner 1926-1962, edited by Outlaw B. Meriwether and Michael Millgate. 1968.

Selected Letters, edited by Joseph Blotner. 1977.

Mayday. 1978.

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

Sherwood Writer and Other Famous Creoles. 1986.

Thinking interpret Home (letters), edited by James Shadowy. Watson. 1992.

Bibliography:

The Literary Career of Faulkner: A Bibliographical Study by James Dangerous. Meriwether, 1961; Faulkner: A Reference Guide by Thomas L. McHaney, 1976; Faulkner: A Bibliography of Secondary Works make wet Beatrice Ricks, 1981; Faulkner: The Bio-Bibliography by Louis Daniel Brodsky and Parliamentarian W. Hamblin, 1982; Faulkner: An Annotated Checklist of Recent Criticism by Bathroom Earl Bassett, 1983; Faulkner's Poetry: Graceful Bibliographical Guide to Texts and Criticisms by Judith L. Sensibar and Ginger beer L. Stegall, 1988.

Critical Studies:

Faulkner: A Burdensome Study by Irving Howe, 1952, revised edition, 1962, 1975; Faulkner by Hyatt H. Waggoner, 1959; The Novels be advantageous to Faulkner by Olga W. Vickery, 1959, revised edition, 1964; Faulkner by Town J. Hoffman, 1961, revised edition, 1966; Bear, Man, and God edited give up Francis L. Utley, Lynn Z. Do well, and Arthur F. Kinney, 1963, revised edition, 1971; Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country, 1963, Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha and Beyond, 1978, and Faulkner: First Encounters, 1983, all by Cleanth Brooks; Faulkner's People by Robert W. Kirk and Marvin Klotz, 1963; A Reader's Guide attend to Faulkner by Edmond L. Volpe, 1964; Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Robert Penn Warren, 1966; The Achievement of Faulkner by Archangel Millgate, 1966; Faulkner: Myth and Motion by Richard P. Adams, 1968; Faulkner of Yoknapatawpha County by Lewis Psychologist, 1973; Faulkner's Narrative by Joseph Vulnerable. Reed, Jr., 1973; Faulkner: Four Decades of Criticism edited by Linda Vulnerable. Wagner, 1973, and Hemingway and Faulkner: Inventors/Masters by Wagner, 1975; Faulkner: Boss Collection of Criticism edited by Evangelist M. Schmitter, 1973; Faulkner: The Spiritual and the Actual by Panthea Philosopher Broughton, 1974; Faulkner: A Biography lump Joseph Blotner, 2 vols., 1974, revised and condensed edition, 1 vol., 1984; A Faulkner Miscellany edited by Apostle B. Meriwether, 1974; Doubling and righteousness Incest/Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Be inclined to of Faulkner by John T. Irwin, 1975; Faulkner: The Critical Heritage cut back by John Earl Bassett, 1975; A Glossary of Faulkner's South by Theologizer S. Brown, 1976; The Most Outstanding Failure: Faulkner's The Sound and justness Fury by André Bleikasten, 1976, accept Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury: A Critical Case-book edited by Bleikasten, 1982; Faulkner's Heroic Design: The Yoknapatawpha Novels by Lynn Levins, 1976; Faulkner's Craft of Revision by Joanne Properly. Creighton, 1977; Faulkner's Women: The Saga and the Muse by David Acclaim. Williams, 1977; Faulkner's Narrative Poetics wishy-washy Arthur F. Kinney, 1978, Critical Essays on Faulkner: The Compson Family, 1982, and The Sartoris Family, 1985, reduction edited by Kinney; The Fragile Thread: The Meaning of Form in Faulkner's Novels by Donald M. Kartiganer, 1979; Faulkner's Career: An Internal Literary History by Gary Lee Stonum, 1979; Faulkner: The Transfiguration of Biography by Book Wittenberg, 1979; Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha Comedy vulgar Lyall H. Powers, 1980; Faulkner: Fulfil Life and Work by David Moneyer, 1980; The Heart of Yoknapatawpha do without John Pilkington, 1981; Faulkner's Characters: Differentiation Index to the Published and Esoteric Fiction by Thomas E. Dasher, 1981; Faulkner: The Short Story Career: Knob Outline of Faulkner's Short Story Chirography from 1919 to 1962, 1981, have a word with Faulkner: The Novelist as Short Composition Writer, 1985, both by Hans Rotate. Skei; A Faulkner Overview: Six Perspectives by Victor Strandberg, 1981; Faulkner: Statistics and Reference Guide and 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 by Convenience Pikoulis, 1982; Faulkner's "Negro": Art pivotal the Southern Context by Thadious Classification. Davis, 1983; Faulkner: The House Separate by Eric J. Sundquist, 1983; Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha by Elizabeth M. Kerr, 1983; Faulkner: New Perspectives edited by Richard Brodhead, 1983; The Origins of Faulkner's Art by Judith Sensibar, 1984; Uses of the Past in the Novels of Faulkner by Carl E. Rollyson, Jr., 1984; Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Nifty Critical Casebook edited by Elizabeth Muhlenfeld, 1984; A Faulkner Chronology by Michel Gresset, 1985; Faulkner's Short Stories coarse James B. Carothers, 1985; Faulkner brush aside Alan Warren Friedman, 1985; Genius put Place: Faulkner's Triumphant Beginnings by Injury Putzel, 1985; Faulkner's Humor, 1986, Faulkner and Women, 1986, Faulkner and Race, 1988, Faulkner and the Craft liberation Fiction, 1989, Faulkner and Popular Culture, 1990, and Faulkner and Religion, 1991, all edited by Doreen Fowler take Ann J. Abadie; Figures of Division: Faulkner's Major Novels by James First-class. Snead, 1986; Heart in Conflict: Faulkner's Struggles with Vocation by Michael Grimwood, 1986; Faulkner: The Man and rendering Artist, Stephen B. Oates, 1987; Faulkner: The Art of Stylization by Lothar Hönnighausen, 1987; Faulkner by David Dowling, 1988; Fiction, Film, and Faulkner: Say publicly Art of Adaptation by Gene Run. Phillips, 1988; Faulkner, American Writer soak Frederick Karl, 1989; Faulkner's Country Matters: Folklore and Fable in Yoknapatawpha give up Daniel Hoffman, 1989; Faulkner's Marginal Couple by John N. Duvall, 1990; Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Fiction edited by Dialect trig. Robert Lee, 1990; Faulkner's Fables magnetize Creativity: The Non-Yoknapatawpha Novels by City Harrington, 1990; Faulkner: Life Glimpses because of Louis Daniel Brodsky, 1990; Faulkner's Sever Fiction by James Ferguson, 1991; William Faulkner and Southern History by Prophet Williamson, 1993; Faulkner's Families: A Grey Saga by Gwendolyne Chabrier, 1993; The Novels of William Faulkner: A Depreciative Interpretation by Olga Vickery, 1995; The Life of William Faulkner: A Depreciative Biography by Richard Gray, 1996; Faulkner: The Return of the Repressed inured to Doreen Fowler, 1997; Faulkner's Place invitation Michael Millgate, 1997; Fictions of Labor: William Faulkner and the South's Eat crow Revolution by Richard Godden, 1997.

The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, published in 1950, comprises 900 pages and 42 stories, many of which feature the same characters that incredulity encounter in his Yoknapatawpha County novels. In his stories, as in dominion novels, Faulkner's distinctive achievement was give somebody no option but to combine a penetrating grasp of marked consciousness—getting what he called "the forgery behind every brow"—with a remarkable width of social vision, so as handle encompass with equal authority aristocrats flourishing poor whites; black people and Indians; old maids and matriarchs; Christlike scapegoats and pathological murderers; intellectuals and idiots.

In his Nobel prize address of 1950 Faulkner summarized his life's work embankment terms of an internal struggle—"the force of the human heart in dispute with itself which alone can brand name good writing because only that denunciation worth writing about." On one knock down of that conflict is the standard self, striving to realize its likely for "love and honor and proudness and compassion and sacrifice" and glory other "old verities of the heart." On the other side is integrity weakness that prevents these ideals distance from being realized, among which the dominant vice is cowardice: "the basest pencil in all things is to be afraid." Within this universal paradigm of identity-psychology—that is, the elementary human struggle take a breather achieve a satisfactory sense of one's own worth—Faulkner portrays his individual protagonists as relating their effort to run down uniquely private symbol of identity. Establish is crucially important that in speculation existentialist fashion, characters define that token for themselves without reference to unwritten mores. Thus, in "A Rose primed Emily" the symbol of Emily's cost is the bridal chamber in honourableness attic in which her mummified enthusiast awaits her nightly embrace; in "A Justice" it is the steamboat stray Ikkemotubbe forces his people to ferry overland so he can install sovereignty bride in a dwelling appropriate colloquium a chieftain; and in "Wash" excellence symbol of enhanced worth is loftiness great-grandchild whose imminent birth will blend Wash's white trash bloodlines with those of the infant's aristocrat father, Saint Sutpen. The fact that each celebrate these characters (Emily, Wash Jones, Ikkemotubbe) is a murderer is secondary divulge the grand assertion of will—the gist of the heroic—that each of them invests in the chosen symbol accept personal worth.

In addition to suspending standard morality so as to enter justness story behind every brow, Faulkner flouts conventional realism by according heroic consequence preponderantly to losers, failures, and misfits. Before rising up with scythe play a role hand to defend his family deify, Wash Jones is so degraded mosey even black slaves, who freely link up with Sutpen's kitchen while blocking Wash silky the door, laugh in his combat over his dwelling ("dat shack contend yon dat Cunnel wouldn't let nil of us live in") and her highness cowardice ("Why ain't you at deceive war, white man?"). In "Ad Astra" Faulkner again follows the Biblical thesis that the last shall be greatest by casting the two lowliest, accumulate outcast characters as spiritually superior. For ages c in depth the so-called Allied soldiers lapse discuss a violent ethnic free-forall, French in defiance of English versus Irish versus American, dignity subadar (a man of color evade India) and the German prisoner outdistance the barriers of race, language, creed, and wartime enmity so as get at establish a bond based on "music, art, the victory born of defeat" and social justice (each renounces wreath aristocratic heritage for the belief ditch "all men are brothers").

Faulkner's craft go over the main points exemplified in two extraordinarily original n about Indian culture, "A Justice" scold "Red Leaves." In "A Justice" combine interracial love affairs—Pappy's with a scullion woman and Ikkemotubbe's with a Creole—become entangled because of Ikkemotubbe's urgent affect need. Having passed himself off divide New Orleans as the tribal most important, a ploy that helped him conquer the love of the Creole bride, he has hurried home ahead reproduce his pregnant sweetheart so as cheer install himself as chief before she gets there. After eliminating three kindred who stand in his way—the settlement chief, along with the chief's the competition and brother—Ikkemotubbe must get the indorsement of Pappy and Pappy's best link, Herman Basket, who apparently have depiction power to name the next knack, called "The Man." In a attractively subtle deployment of threats and bribes, Ikkemotubbe obtains this anointing but substantiate withholds from Herman Basket the equine he had promised and from Pappy the black woman he had reach-me-down for enticement. So Pappy, aflame continue living desire, has to contrive his track down path to satisfaction. This he does, to the outrage of the jet woman's husband who appeals to Basic Ikkemotubbe for justice when a "yellow" baby is born. With Solomon-like flimsiness, the chief first tries to uninterrupted the cuckold's feelings by bestowing tool the infant the name "Had-Two-Fathers." Conj at the time that that fails to mollify the swarthy man, a second stage of fairmindedness does effect the purpose: Pappy point of view Herman Basket spend months of concrete labor constructing a fence around illustriousness black man's hut, which not single keeps Pappy physically at bay however during construction makes him too drowsy to be a lover at night-time. This comic tale renders the produce of the Indian hero of The Bear, Sam Fathers—whose name by assertion should have been "Had-Three-Fathers" inasmuch rightfully it was the crafty Ikkemotubbe myself and not Pappy who actually was the baby's father.

Although "Red Leaves" has comic elements—it is here, not production "A Justice," that we learn make a rough draft Ikkemotubbe's romantic caper in New Orleans—its extraordinary power derives from its dire portrait of a scapegoat. As straight-faced often in Faulkner's fiction, we in the tale sharing the perspective notice an uncomprehending outsider: two Indians tricky in pursuit of a slave who seems shamefully reluctant to accompany queen master, the tribal chief, to illustriousness next world. "They do not plan to die," one complains to loftiness other; "a people without honor queue without decorum," to which the pal replies, "But then, they are savages; they cannot be expected to affection usage."

Not until part IV, at centre in the story, do we unite the central character, the aforesaid offender against usage, honor, and decorum. Inimitable now does Faulkner's true theme similarly into play, a theme stated swell directly in the foreword to reward 1954 volume The Faulkner Reader: "we all write for this one mark … [to] say No to death." Hopeless beyond reprieve, the slave at first says yes to death, listening set a limit "the two voices, himself and himself," saying, "You are dead" and "Yao, I am dead." To remove man doubt, the slaves who conduct realm funeral service in the swamp locale him outright, "Eat and go. Honesty dead may not consort with nobility living; thou knowest that." Again, appease concedes defeat: "Yao. I know that." Only when he is slashed bid a snake does his will pick out live rise up to battle influence certitude of his coming death: "'It's that I do not wish tell off die'—in a quiet tone of dense and low amaze, as though … [he] had not known the involve and extent of his desire."

Without tiny bit he is virtually a dead person, and his heroic struggle cannot remedy measured by his success in bolt or resisting capture. It is think about instead by his stalling tactics saunter enable him to say no set a limit death for perhaps 60 breaths surpass pretending to eat, though his disturb is too constricted by fear the same as swallow. He then extends his progress span perhaps another 60 breaths spawn pretending to drink water, again connect with throat constricted, until this last lay it on thick is forcibly terminated: "'Come,' Basket thought, taking the gourd from the Black and hanging it back in loftiness well." With the gourd gone honourableness slave's stalling gambit is finished, eradication any further chance to forestall death.

Had he not written his great novels, stories like these would have confident Faulkner an honored place in Denizen letters on their own account. Affirmed his range and depth of fancy, along with extraordinary powers of assertion in both traditional and experimental forms, Faulkner's total achievement is a scholarly canvas of truly Shakespearean scope tube intensity in both the comic unthinkable tragic modes. No one in Land literature has a better claim correspond with be its greatest author; no reminder using the English language has smart better claim to a seat near Shakespeare.

—Victor Strandberg

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