Critical and Personal Interpretations

Critical and Personal Interpretations

Abadie, Ann J., and Donald M. Kartiganer, editors, Faulkner at One Hundred: Retrospect and Prospect, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2000.

This book discusses Even Faulkner seemed overwhelmed by his achievement. Toward the end of his life, he wrote to a friend: "And now I realize for the first time what an amazing gift I had: uneducated in every formal sense, without even very literate, let alone literary, companions, yet to have made the things I made. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why God or gods or whoever it was, elected me to be the vessel. Believe me, this is not humility, false modesty: it is simply amazement."

Arnold, Edwin T., and Dawn Trouard, Reading Faulkner. Sanctuary: Glossary and Commentary, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 1996.

This book discusses Faulkner hoped would be his masterpiece, allegory is used to convey a moral message, and few critics were happy with the book's general and abstract statements. Regardless, the book won two of the most prestigious literary awards, the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

While Faulkner sometimes failed greatly, he also succeeded mightily. Whatever the faults of his later books, few would dispute the general excellence of his canon.

Barbour, James, and Tom Quirk, editors, Writing the American Classics, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1990, pp. 156-176.

This book discusses Screenwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932-33, and for Warner Bros., 1942-45, 1951, 1953, and 1954. Chairman of Writer's Group People-to-People Program, 1956-57. Writer-in-residence, University of Virginia, 1957-62. Military Service: British Royal Air Force, cadet pilot, 1918; became honorary second lieutenant.

Bassett, John E., editor, William Faulkner, Routledge (New York, NY), 1997.

This book discusses "Faulkner performed a labor of imagination that has not been equaled in our time, and a double labor," Cowley asserted. ...