William Faulkner (1897-1962)

A selective list of online literary criticism for William Faulkner, favoring signed articles by known scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Web Sites

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"Faulkner Link to Plantation Diary Discovered." NY Times10 Feb., 2010.

Literary Criticism

Ceylan, Deniz Tarba"Blurred Action, Blurred Narration: Three Scenes Of Hurry From William Faulkner." On unreliable narrators in Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom! Journal of American Studies in Turkey 7 (1998).

Dimino, Andrea. "Why Did the Snopeses Name Their Son 'Wallstreet Panic'? Depression Humor in Faulkner's The Hamlet." Studies in American Humor.

Fowler, Doreen . Faulkner and Race. (UP of Mississippi 2007), preview at Google Books.

Llewellyn, Dara. Waves of time in Faulkner's Go Down, Moses. "Readers of William Faulkner must sort through complex chronological developments when reading his stories." Studies in Short Fiction, Fall 1996.

Martin, Reginald. Faulkner's Southern reflections: the black on the back of the mirror in "Ad Astra." "William Faulkner's black characters are considered the strongest characters in his narratives." African American Review, Spring 1993.

Miles, Caroline. A review of Faulkner and the Great Depression by Ted Atkinson (U of Georgia P 2006). Reviewed in The Mississippi Quarterly, Winter 2005.

Ozdemir, Erinc. "The Thematic and Structural Function of Time in William Faulkner's 'The Bear.'" Journal of American Studies in Turkey 3 (1996).

Shiffman, Smadar. "Romantic, radical, and ridiculous: Faulkner's hero as an oxymoron." Style, Spring 1995.

Singal, Daniel J. Brief description of Singal's William Faulkner: The Making of a Modernist, (U of North Carolina P), with chapter excerpts.

Peek, Charles A. "That Evening Sun(g)": Blues Inscribing Black Space in White Stories. Southern Quarterly, Spring 2004.

Wainwright, Michael. "Coordination Problems in the Work of William Faulkner." Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 2007.

Teaching Guides

Atsma, Helen R. Calvinistic Visions of Time and Humanity in The Sound and the Fury, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Baker, Charles R. "A Certain Slant of Light: Teaching Light in August Through Hightower’s Epiphany." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Oct. 2004.

Banerjee, Supurna. "Black vs. White and New vs. Old in Go Down, Moses." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Barloon, Jim. "A Rose for Homer? The Limitations of a Reader-Response Approach to Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily.'" When the student-reader contends that Homer Barron is gay. Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Oct. 2004.

Byrne, Mary Ellen. "Town and Time: Teaching Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily.'" Assisting students on their "first foray into Yoknapatawpha." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Oct. 2004.

Byrne, Mary Ellen. "'Barn Burning': A Story from the '30s." "Barn Burning" as a story of the Great Depression, and of poor whites in the South. Contrasted to the vision of the Fugatives in "I'll Take My Stand." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Carvill, Caroline. Narrative Complexity, Voice, and Paper Assignments. Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Cass, Barbara Ann. "The Right Tools for the Job: Cash Bundren’s Tool Box in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Flaum, Morna. Elucidating Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Friesen, Faye and Charles Peek. "What's in a Name? Etymology and As I Lay Dying." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter (9/30/2004).

Frye, Allen. "Faulkner's Distorted Crucifix: Wood Imagery in Light in August Teaching Faulkner Newsletter (10/8/2004).

Hahn, Stephen. "Life Is Motion": Keats and Faulkner in the Classroom Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Hamblin, Robert. "Faulkner's Map of Yoknapatawpha: The End of Absalom, Absalom!" Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Hamblin, Robert W. Did you ever have a sister?": Salinger's Holden Caulfield and Faulkner's Quentin Compson, [J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye] Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Hamblin, Robert W. "A Casebook on Mankind": Faulkner’s Use of Shakespeare, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Hearn, Pamela. Teaching Faulkner: Meaning through Metaphor, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Heyde, William A. "Tragi-Comedy and Comi-Tragedy in "Pantaloon in Black" Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Holtz, Dan. Faulkner as a Framework for Studying the Civil War, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Kinney, Arthur F. "Faulkner and Racism." Connotations 3 (1993-94).

Kirkland, Karl. "He Could Do So Much for Me if He Just Would": Teaching Faulkner to Medical Students, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Lester, Cheryl. Fifteen Ways of Looking at the Bundrens, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Linnemann, Amy E.C. "The Decomposing Archetypes of Thomas Sutpen and Mr. Kurtz in the Motley Flag of Modernism." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Longe, Laurel. "Lucas Beauchamp, Joe Christmas, and the Color of Humanity." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Oct. 2004.

Makowsky, Veronica. A Review of MLA Volume on The Sound and the Fury, Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Peek, Charles A. "'Because if there is a God What the Hell is He for?': Frenchman's Bend and Its Piety in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying." On whether religious sentiments in As I Lay Dying were hypocritical. Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Peek, Charles A. "Teaching Faulkner's Go Down Moses." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Powell, Janice A. "Changing Portraits in 'A Rose for Emily'" Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Oct. 2004.

Saur, Pamela S. "Property, wealth, and the 'American Dream' in 'Barn Burning.'" Teaching Faulkner Newsletter Sept. 2004.

Seaber, Ruth K. The Four of the Apocalypse: Addie and Cora, Sula and Nel and the Collapse of the Mythic. Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Street, Anna J. "Untimely Loss: Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Vanderwerken, David. "Faulkner’s Underworld Communities in Light in August and Sanctuary." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Wannamaker, Annette. "Viewing Addie Bundren Through a Feminist Lens." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, Sept. 2004.

Williams, John. "Dilsey, Shegog's Sermon, and the Meaning of Time." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

"Teaching One Hundred Years of Solitude with The Sound and the Fury." [Gabriel Garcia Marquez] Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

A Teacher's Guide to William Faulkner, acknowledges students' difficulties with Faulkner, and recommends approaching him as interpreter of history, in the sense of the history of modernism and southern and American history, and exploring his portrayals of sex, social class, and especially race. From textbook publisher Heath.

Resources for teaching William Faulkner from C-Span's American Writers series.

Teaching Faulkner Newsletter, published by the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State U. Some of the articles are indexed here.

Discussion questions for As I Lay Dying from Random House.

Discussion questions for Absalom, Absalom! from Random House.

Discussion questions for The Sound and the Fury from Random House.

Introduction, Web Sites, & Lighter reading

William Faulkner's speech on accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.

Blotner, Joseph. Writing William Faulkner's Biography." Teaching Faulkner Newsletter.

Kartiganer, Donald. "Remembering Faulkner." Transcript of a 1997 program on William Faulkner, with Professor Kartiganer and author Lee Smith. Faulkner is discussed as both an innovative modernist and as a southern regionalist and the creator of Yoknapatawpha county. PBS.

Short appreciation of The Sound and the Fury, by Joan Smith in salon.com.

About Oxford, Mississippi's two hometown authors, William Faulkner and John Grisham, in salon.com.

An electronic chronology of Absalom, Absalom! by professor Stephen Railton at U of Virginia. "Our goal is to take as much advantage as we can of the capacities of electronic technology to help first-time readers orient themselves inside the stories William Faulkner is telling in Absalom, Absalom! while preserving some aspect of the experience of reading it."

A web site on William Faulkner from U of Mississippi has some useful resources, such as an annotated summary of the major critical treatments of some works.

Editions

Novels 1926–1929: Soldiers' Pay (1926); Mosquitoes (1927); Flags in the Dust (Sartoris) (1929); The Sound and the Fury (1929).

Novels 1930–1935: As I Lay Dying (1930); Sanctuary (1931); Light in August (1932); Pylon. Library of America.

Novels 1936–1940: Absalom, Absalom! (1936); The Unvanquished (1938); If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (The Wild Palms)(1939); The Hamlet (1940). Library of America.

Novels 1942–1954: Go Down, Moses (1942); Intruder in the Dust (1948); Requiem for a Nun (1951); A Fable (1954). Library of America.

Novels 1957–1962: The Town (1957); The Mansion (1959); The Reivers: A Reminiscence (1962). Library of America.

Removed Articles

Argiro, Thomas. "As though we were kin": Faulkner's black-Italian chiasmus. Melus, Fall 2003 "A telling if scandalous revelation offered by Joel Williamson relates a significant feature of William Faulkner's ambivalent relationship to his deeply conflicted personal and cultural history" (removed).

Gautreaux, Tim. A writer opines on what is means to be a Southern author, from the Atlantic Monthly, 14 March 1997 (removed).

Schwartz, Benjamin. An article takes up the topic of the desire of readers to undersand the American South and of writers to explain it, in a review of three books on the subject. Atlantic Monthly, December 1997 (removed).

http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/mcquien/htmlfils/faulkner2.htm On Faulkner's literary references to Texas. From Literary San Antonio by Paul McQuien and Kim G. Hochmeister, at San Antonio College (removed).

http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/faulkner_william A biography of William Faulkner, with pictures, from the U of Mississippi writers page (removed).

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