Early Life

• William Cuthbert Falkner (he added the u later)

• Born in New Albany, Mississippi on Sept. 25, 1897 to Murry and Maud

• Around age 5, his family moved to Oxford, MS. • At age 13, he began writing poetry• Dropped out of high school to work at a bank

MILITARY• Rejected from US Army

because he was too short (5’5’’)

• Joined the Royal Air Force in Canada

• WWI ended before he finished training

• Lied about wartime military service- he told people that he received injuries that left him in constant pain and with a silver plate in his head.

• He used his brief service in the RAF in his written fiction, particularly in his first published novel, Soldiers’ Pay, in 1926.

After WWI…

• 1919-enrolled at University of Mississippi• Published several poems• Dropped out in 1920• He also served as a scoutmaster for the Oxford

Boy Scout troop, but he was asked to resign for “moral reasons” (probably drinking).

Paris! • In 1925 he went to Paris

from August until December

• Went to the same café as James Joyce but was always too shy to speak to him

• He described himself as a “failed poet”

• Continued writing to get published from 1926 to 1929– Failed novels:

• Soldier’s Pay (1926)…lost generation, WWI• Mosquitoes (1927)… “worst novel”, New Orleans• Sartoris (1929)…First novel set in Yoknapatawpha (Yawknaw-

puh-toff-uh) County

– “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”

• Believed his career as an author was over…so he began to write strictly for pleasure

The Sound and the Fury1929

• After several attempts to write for publication, he decided to write a novel for pleasure

• Revolutionary novel-form, characters, etc.

Estelle• Estelle Oldham divorced her first husband

in April of 1929 and married Faulkner in June

• Faulkner’s childhood sweetheart

•Bought in 1930•Decrepit antebellum house in Oxford•Place of comfort for Faulkner for the rest of his life

Rowan Oak

As I Lay Dying1930

• Faulkner said it was a “tour de force” and he wrote it “in six weeks, without changing a word”

• Lower-class farmers from Yoknapatawpha County• Bundren Family, 15 different speakers

• “A twisted tail of prostitutes, lawyers, families, lusts, and betrayal” –reviewer

• Rape-shocked readers• Best selling novel until 1939

Sanctuary1931

Alabama and Light in August• 1931- Estelle gave birth to a girl

named Alabama…she died within a few days

• Shortly after her death, Faulkner began writing a novel called Dark House about a man named Joe Christmas.

• Faulkner’s first real exploration of race…history and how it influences us now

• This novel was published as Light in August in 1932.

Pylon and Absalom, Absalom!• Pylon-not set in Y. County, takes place at an air show (a few

months later, Faulkner’s brother Dean is killed in the airplane William bought)

• Absalom, Absalom!-tells the story of the Sutpen family…ties in Quentin Compson

• He published several more novels before his death

• He became a screenwriter in Hollywood for extra money-To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and The

Southerner were his biggest screenplay adaptations

•Estelle gave birth to Faulkner’s only surviving child, Jill, in 1933.

Faulkner and Hemingway• Faulkner on Hemingway: “he has no courage, has never

climbed out on a limb ... has never used a word where the reader might check his usage by a dictionary”

•Faulkner had several affairs while he was married to EstelleFaulkner and Women

Faulkner and Booze•He would stay at a sanatorium after his drinking binges…he wasn’t really an alcoholic…he planned when he would have his binges (usually when he finished writing a book)

Nobel Prize for Literature• 1949• Famous acceptance speech

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

FAULKNER AT UVA…

He liked Virginia because…

“Virginians are all snobs and I like snobs.”

First writer in residence at UVA

• According to legend, after Faulkner outlined the seven-day plot of his Pulitzer Prize winner, A Fable, on the walls of his home (he kept a bed in his office), his wife demanded the text be painted over. Outraged, Faulkner rewrote it and shellacked the wall, where the writing remains today.

• Pulitzer Prize

Oprah likes Faulkner

Disturbing…

• Somebody in the world has a tattoo of William Faulkner

Songs

• Had a heart attack at age 64

• Died July 6th, 1962• Buried in Oxford,

Mississippi

• WFotW: http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html

• http://www.biblio.com/author_biographies/2024262/William_Faulkner.html