William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was born on the 25th of September 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He grew up in Oxford, a town where his family lived for most of their lives after moving there in 1902. His father established a livery stable and hardware store before becoming the business manager at the University of Mississippi. The elder Falkner, William Clark Falkner, was a Confederate colonel who became a near legendary figure in North Mississippi. This great-grandfather was tried twice for murder but acquitted both times. He later joined the Mississippi House and co-owned a railroad before being murdered by a partner. Young William absorbed stories about this man and the history of the Civil War and slavery from elders around him. These tales shaped his sense of humor and his view of the tragic position of black and white Americans. He wrote about fiercely intelligent people hiding behind facades of simpletons. The decline of his school performance began somewhere between fourth and fifth grade when he became quieter and more withdrawn. He skipped classes and eventually repeated eleventh and twelfth grades without graduating high school.
At age seventeen, Faulkner met Phil Stone, an older man with bachelor's degrees from Yale and the University of Mississippi. Stone read Faulkner's early poetry and encouraged his talent. In spring 1918, Faulkner traveled to New Haven to live with Stone at Yale. Through this connection, he met writers like Sherwood Anderson, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound. His first novel Soldiers' Pay appeared in 1925 after he moved to New Orleans. During that time, his style shifted from Victorian to modernist prose. The Times-Picayune published several of his short works while he lived in the French Quarter. Anderson helped get Soldiers' Pay published by recommending it to his own publisher. A miniature house at 624 Pirate's Alley in New Orleans now serves as headquarters for the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society. Faulkner dropped out of the University of Mississippi in November 1920 after three semesters. He worked odd jobs including carpentry and postmaster before resigning with a declaration about not being at the beck and call of every scoundrel. His poem Portrait was published in Double Dealer magazine in 1922.
In autumn 1928, just after turning thirty-one, Faulkner began work on The Sound and the Fury. He started by writing three short stories about children named Compson but soon realized they belonged in a full-length novel. This novel became part of a fictional setting called Yoknapatawpha County based on Lafayette County where Oxford sits. The county served as a mental landscape for most of his major novels. Three books known collectively as the Snopes trilogy document the town of Jefferson and its environs. Flem Snopes leads an extended family that insinuates itself into the lives of the general populace. Critics consider this body of work one of the most monumental fictional creations in literary history. Flags in the Dust was originally written in summer 1927 but rejected by publishers until edited by Ben Wasson. The original manuscript had almost a fourth cut to meet publisher demands. A new edition restored the text and title in 1973. Another version by Noel Polk later replaced Day's work and is considered definitive by Random House. The Sound and the Fury remains a cornerstone of American modernism with its experimental narrative structure.
Faulkner arrived in Culver City, California in May 1932 seeking money from MGM Studios. He worked on around fifty films between 1932 and 1954 despite reservations about the movie industry. His first screenplay Today We Live received mixed responses while another adaptation of Sartoris never got produced. In early 1944 he wrote To Have and Have Not which starred Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. That film became the only one featuring contributions from two Nobel laureates since Hemingway also contributed. Faulkner lived a vagrant lifestyle staying at hotels like the Garden of Allah Hotel and frequenting bars such as the Musso & Frank Grill. He developed a friendship with director Howard Hawks who enjoyed drinking and hunting. An extramarital affair occurred with Meta Carpenter, Hawks' secretary and script girl. Letters written during this period painted a miserable portrait of a literary artist imprisoned in cultural Babylon. Despite creative struggles, he earned a consistent salary to support his family back home in Oxford. World War II drained his enthusiasm for writing but he continued working through the 1940s and 1950s.
The Swedish Academy awarded Faulkner the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for his powerful contribution to the modern American novel. The ceremony took place in Stockholm in December 1950 where he met Else Jonsson, widow of journalist Thorsten Jonsson. Their affair lasted until late 1953. At the banquet publisher Tor Bonnier introduced Else as the widow responsible for introducing Faulkner's works to Swedish readers. His acceptance speech stated the award was not made to him as a man but to his life's work created out of human spirit agony and sweat. He donated part of the prize money to establish the William Faulkner Foundation which supported new fiction writers from 1960 to 1970. His daughter Jill learned about the Nobel only when called to her principal's office at age seventeen. Controversially, he once stated television was for niggers reflecting complex views on race relations. In 1951 France honored him with the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur medal. He served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia from February to June 1957 and again in 1958.
Faulkner used stream of consciousness techniques frequently unlike minimalist contemporaries like Ernest Hemingway. His writing style has been described as impenetrably convoluted yet meticulously attentive to diction and cadence. The New York Times noted early critics regarded his work as raw slabs of pseudorealism with little merit. In a 1956 Paris Review interview he advised young writers to teach themselves through mistakes rather than follow theories. The title The Sound and the Fury comes from Macbeth's soliloquy about life being a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. As I Lay Dying takes its name from Homer's Odyssey spoken by Agamemnon in past tense while Faulkner narrates in present tense. Go Down Moses draws from an African American spiritual dedicated to Mammy Caroline Barr who was born into slavery. Critics have applied feminist and psychoanalytic methods to analyze his works alongside traditional approaches. French philosopher Albert Camus praised Faulkner for importing classical tragedy into the twentieth century through unwinding spirals of words leading to suffering buried in the past.
Gabriel García Márquez created fictional worlds like Macondo very much in the vein of Yoknapatawpha County. Juan Carlos Onetti's Santa Maria followed similar patterns while Carlos Fuentes cited As I Lay Dying as essential to The Death of Artemio Cruz. Mario Vargas Llosa claimed he learned more from Yoknapatawpha during student years than from actual classes. Jorge Luis Borges translated The Wild Palms into Spanish though Douglas Day suggests Borges' mother may have done it instead. Cormac McCarthy has been described as a disciple of Faulkner whose influence extends globally across Latin America and Europe. Claude Simon and António Lobo Antunes also drew heavily from his prose style. After death Estelle and daughter Jill lived at Rowan Oak until her passing in 1972 when property sold to University of Mississippi. Manuscripts correspondence personal papers and over three hundred books now reside at Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at University of Virginia. Southeast Missouri State University houses additional materials including first editions manuscripts letters photographs artwork and Hollywood-era files donated by Louis Daniel Brodsky in 1989. A 22-cent postage stamp honored him on the 3rd of August 1987 issued by United States Postal Service.
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Common questions
When was William Faulkner born and where did he grow up?
William Cuthbert Faulkner was born on the 25th of September 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He grew up in Oxford, a town where his family lived for most of their lives after moving there in 1902.
What major literary works did William Faulkner write during the 1930s and 1940s?
William Faulkner began work on The Sound and the Fury in autumn 1928 and wrote around fifty films between 1932 and 1954 while working at MGM Studios. His screenplay To Have and Have Not released in early 1944 starred Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart as the only film featuring contributions from two Nobel laureates since Hemingway also contributed.
Why did William Faulkner receive the Nobel Prize in Literature and when was it awarded?
The Swedish Academy awarded William Faulkner the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for his powerful contribution to the modern American novel. The ceremony took place in Stockholm in December 1950 where he met Else Jonsson, widow of journalist Thorsten Jonsson.
How did William Faulkner influence Latin American literature and which authors were inspired by him?
Gabriel García Márquez created fictional worlds like Macondo very much in the vein of Yoknapatawpha County while Mario Vargas Llosa claimed he learned more from Yoknapatawpha during student years than from actual classes. Cormac McCarthy has been described as a disciple of Faulkner whose influence extends globally across Latin America and Europe.
What happened to William Faulkner's estate after his death and where are his papers kept today?
After death Estelle and daughter Jill lived at Rowan Oak until her passing in 1972 when property sold to University of Mississippi. Manuscripts correspondence personal papers and over three hundred books now reside at Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at University of Virginia.