Wiliam Faulkner: More Than a Strong Author
Faulkner: More Than a Strong Author
“Absalom, Absalom!” was my first experience reading William Faulkner and is surely will not be my last. I know that I will be forever mesmerized and indebted to Faulkner for the way that his writing has intrigued and informed me. The only time I have ever been so confounded by the way an artist could imagine, conceptualize and execute such and articulate and stimulating piece of work was when I first got a chance to delve into the sonnets of William Shakespeare. What Faulkner has accomplished in this work leaves him on a level that could possibly rival that of the Bard himself. An invention of language, storytelling, history, and reality itself is what William Faulkner has accomplished in this novel. There are several ways in which this book is mystical and mystifying which I will, in the course of this paper and in the course of my life, try to hash out what they have meant to me. William Cuthbert Falkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25th 1897. After a course of moves around Mississippi, due to his father’s search for suitable occupation, his family settled in Oxford, Mississippi in September of 1902. Oxford is where William Faulkner would be raised through his adolescents and would continue to live on and off for the rest of his life. Faulkner’s father would teach him how to hunt which became a favorite pastime for his entire life. His art, however, was most greatly influenced by his mother Maud, maternal grandmother Lelia, and a black woman who raised him “Mammy” Callie. Maud and Lelia were accomplished readers, painters, and photographers, while Callie was the story teller in William’s life who shared stories of the civil war, slavery, and the Ku Klux Klan. These three women fostered Faulkner’s artistic imagination and pushed him to excel in education; which he did for the first five years of elementary school (skipping the second grade) until he began to loaf off and play hooky. Faulkner
“Absalom, Absalom!” was my first experience reading William Faulkner and is surely will not be my last. I know that I will be forever mesmerized and indebted to Faulkner for the way that his writing has intrigued and informed me. The only time I have ever been so confounded by the way an artist could imagine, conceptualize and execute such and articulate and stimulating piece of work was when I first got a chance to delve into the sonnets of William Shakespeare. What Faulkner has accomplished in this work leaves him on a level that could possibly rival that of the Bard himself. An invention of language, storytelling, history, and reality itself is what William Faulkner has accomplished in this novel. There are several ways in which this book is mystical and mystifying which I will, in the course of this paper and in the course of my life, try to hash out what they have meant to me. William Cuthbert Falkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25th 1897. After a course of moves around Mississippi, due to his father’s search for suitable occupation, his family settled in Oxford, Mississippi in September of 1902. Oxford is where William Faulkner would be raised through his adolescents and would continue to live on and off for the rest of his life. Faulkner’s father would teach him how to hunt which became a favorite pastime for his entire life. His art, however, was most greatly influenced by his mother Maud, maternal grandmother Lelia, and a black woman who raised him “Mammy” Callie. Maud and Lelia were accomplished readers, painters, and photographers, while Callie was the story teller in William’s life who shared stories of the civil war, slavery, and the Ku Klux Klan. These three women fostered Faulkner’s artistic imagination and pushed him to excel in education; which he did for the first five years of elementary school (skipping the second grade) until he began to loaf off and play hooky. Faulkner
Cited: Chesney, Duncan McColl. "Shakespeare, Faulkner, And The Expression Of The Tragic." College literature 36.3 (2009): 137-164. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Dec. 2012. Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Random House. 1936 Miller, Max. “Absalom, Absalom” Union. [San Diego] 15 Nov. 1936. P. 7 Stein, Jane. “William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12.” The Paris Review. Spring. 1956.