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William Faulkner

ウィリアム・フォークナー

Uiriamu Fōkunā

Aliases: William C. Faulkner / W. C. Faulkner
Pen Names:

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1897-09-25 （New Albany, Mississippi, U.S.）
Died
1962-07-06 （Byhalia, Mississippi, U.S.） age 64
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Residence History
New Albany (birth) → Oxford, Mississippi (primary residence) → New Orleans (period in the 1920s) → Hollywood / California (screenwriting periods) → Byhalia, Mississippi (place of death)

Career

Occupations
novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, poet
Active Years
1920-1962
Influenced By
William Clark Falkner (great-grandfather), Sherwood Anderson, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Shakespeare
Influenced
Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Eudora Welty (mentoring/encouragement)

Education

University of Mississippi
Period: 1919–1920
Country: United States
Attended three semesters then dropped out (no degree)

Awards

Nobel Prize in Literature
1949
Organization: The Swedish Academy (Nobel Foundation)
Result: 受賞
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1955
Work: A Fable
Organization: Pulitzer Prize Board (Columbia University)
Result: 受賞
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1963
Work: The Reivers
Organization: Pulitzer Prize Board (Columbia University)
Result: 受賞（没後）
National Book Award
1951
Work: Collected Stories
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 受賞
National Book Award
1955
Work: A Fable
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 受賞
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
1951
Organization: Government of France
Result: 叙勲

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Sound and the Fury

1929 Modernist novel 326 pages

A multi-perspective, experimental novel centered on the Compson family; deals with time, memory and the decline of a Southern family.

memorytimefamily decaydecline of the South

As I Lay Dying

1930 Experimental novel / Modernist 256 pages

Narrated by multiple members of the Bundren family as they transport their matriarch for burial; explores death, family and varied perspectives.

deathmultiperspectivityfamily obligation

Light in August

1932 Southern Gothic 400 pages

A novel intertwining several characters' stories dealing with race, identity and isolation; portrays the torments of Southern society.

raceisolationreligious themes

A Fable

1954 Allegorical novel 512 pages

An ambitious allegorical novel merging the Unknown Soldier of World War I with motifs of the Passion of Christ.

warreligious allegorysacrifice

The Reivers

1962 Nostalgic novel / Comedy-drama 192 pages

A nostalgic novel in which an elderly narrator recounts a youthful adventure involving a stolen car; a lighter portrait of the South.

nostalgiaadventurecoming-of-age
Adaptations
  • [Film] The Reivers / Mark Rydell (1969)

Bibliography

  • Soldiers' Pay (1925)
  • Mosquitoes (1927)
  • Sartoris / Flags in the Dust (1929; original title restored 1973)
  • The Sound and the Fury (1929)
  • As I Lay Dying (1930)
  • Sanctuary (1931)
  • Light in August (1932)
  • Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
  • If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem / The Wild Palms (1939)
  • The Hamlet (1940)
  • Go Down, Moses (1942)
  • Intruder in the Dust (1948)
  • A Fable (1954)
  • The Town (1957)
  • The Mansion (1959)
  • The Reivers (1962)

Adaptations

  • The Reivers (1969 film, dir. Mark Rydell)
  • To Have and Have Not (1944, contributed to screenplay)
  • The Big Sleep (1946, contributed to screenplay)

Translations of Works

  • The Sound and the Fury (Japanese translations)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
experimental prosestream of consciousnessmultiperspectivitySouthern Gothic
Recurring Motifs
memory and timefamily and legacyrace and classsin and redemption

Health

  • thrombosis from a fall / heart attack
    1962年（晩年）
    Suffered a serious fall from a horse in June 1962 leading to thrombosis and died of a heart attack in July 1962.

Legacy

Faulkner is a towering figure of 20th-century American literature, especially Southern literature. His experimental style and the fictional Yoknapatawpha County influenced many writers. After winning the Nobel Prize he supported emerging writers and his legacy includes the lineage leading to the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Museums

  • Rowan Oak (Faulkner's home) Oxford, Mississippi, U.S. Opened in 1972

Academic Societies

  • Faulkner studies collections (University of Virginia)
  • Center for Faulkner Studies (Southeast Missouri State University)

Archives

  • Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
  • Harry Ransom Center
  • University of Mississippi archives (Rowan Oak materials)

In Popular Culture

  • The 1969 film The Reivers is adapted from Faulkner's novel
  • U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honor in 1987

Quotes

  • I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work—a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit.
    Source: Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1950)
  • As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.
    Source: Resignation letter as university postmaster (1923) (1923)

Trivia

  • His original family name was spelled 'Falkner'; a typesetter's change and later use fixed the form 'Faulkner'.
  • Enlisted in the Royal Air Force (Canada) during World War I but did not see combat.
  • Donated part of his Nobel Prize money to support new fiction writers, leading to the William Faulkner Foundation.
  • Served briefly as a postmaster at the University of Mississippi and resigned with a famously blunt letter in 1923.