Faulkner

An accounting of Faulkner scholarship in 2011 in comparison with previous years indicates a recessionary trend that is a microcosmic reflection of the persistent macrocosmic hard times in academia as a whole. While the quality of scholarly output remains high, there is a noticeable downturn in the quantity. As for other general trends, the prevailing move away from single-author studies in academic publishing continues to register in Faulkner studies. In spite of the downturn, though, the scholarship demonstrates that Faulkner studies remains a vital site of critical discussion and debate in which remarkably diverse and compelling lines of inquiry converge to advance understanding of Faulkner’s fiction and, in so doing, to remind us why his work continues to matter to literary and cultural studies.

i Biography

Dean Faulkner Wells, the daughter and namesake of William Faulkner’s youngest brother, offers an illuminating, intimate, and often unflinching perspective on the author and his extended family in Every Day by the Sun: A Memoir of the Faulkners of Mississippi (Miss.). Faulkner biographers have documented the poignancy of the relationship between Wells and her famous uncle: William Faulkner assumed the role of surrogate father to his niece after Dean Faulkner died in a tragic plane crash in 1935. The plane he had been flying was a gift from William Faulkner. In her memoir, Wells paints a revealing portrait of William Faulkner as a father figure, eloquently expressing appreciation for his familial and financial support while not shying away from the disruptions caused by his notorious bouts of drinking and marital infidelities. The total effect of this portrait augments and confirms previous accounts of Faulkner as a complex family man who aspired to and often achieved demonstrations of ardent devotion but also experienced familial relations as ties of stressful financial obligation. Sadly, Dean Faulkner Wells passed away not long after the publication of her memoir, but thankfully she left behind a valuable contribution to Faulkner studies, sharing with great insight and depth what it was like to be a Faulkner—relative of and to the Faulkner.

In “Biography of William Faulkner,” pp. 26–32 in David Madden, ed., Critical Insights: “Absalom, Absalom!” (Salem), Lorie Watkins Fulton offers a concise and informative biographical overview of Faulkner, relying on Joseph Blotner’s definitive two-volume biography as well as other reliable sources to hit the high points of Faulkner’s life and work. In keeping with the aim of the collection, this article seeks to orient readers who are about to encounter Absalom or have recently done so. For this reason, general readers will find this biographical sketch useful; instructors would do well to take advantage of this potentially valuable resource as well. It would work nicely as background reading for an undergraduate or graduate course on Faulkner. (Assessments of other essays in the collection appear in the appropriate sections below.)

ii General Criticism, Novels and Short Stories

In recent years, Gavin Stevens, a Mississippi-born, Harvard-educated lawyer who has a recurring role in Faulkner’s fiction, keeps surfacing in American culture owing to his observation in Requiem for a Nun about how the powerful influence of the past makes it a fundamental component of the present, thus collapsing temporal boundaries intended to distinguish between now and then. Taking this development into account, Lorie Watkins Fulton’s William Faulkner, Gavin Stevens, and the Cavalier Tradition (Peter Lang) arrives with perfect timing. In this trenchant character study, Fulton weighs in on the longstanding debate over the extent to which Stevens serves as mouthpiece for Faulkner. Taking a balanced approach to the issue, Fulton allows for the affinity between author and character, troubling the facile conflation that has marred far too many critical approaches. Fulton asserts that the close proximity affords Faulkner a productive critical distance from which to examine people of his family, social class, and community with whom he shares much in common but also from whom he dramatically differs. Fulton’s study is an asset for the nuanced and instructive perspective that it affords on a signature Faulkner creation that continues to exert influence and to compel our thought and attention.

Faulkner’s...