a Paul Verlaine.
Scaramouches and Pucinella
Cast one shadow on the mellow
Night, and kiss against the sky
And the doctor of Bogona
In his skull cap and kimono
Seeks for simples with pale avid eye
While his daughter half naked
Glides trembling from her narrow bed
To meet her lover waiting in the moon
Her lover from the Spanish Main
Whose passion thrills her with a strain
La lune ne garde aucune rancune
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Naid's Song - William Faulkner
Come ye sorrowful and keep
Tryst with us here in wedded sleep,
The silent noon lies over us
And shaken ripples cover us,
Our arms are soft as is the stream.
Come keep with us our slumbrous dream
Disheartened ones, if ye are sad,
If ye are in a garment clad
Of sorrow, come with us to sleep
In undulations dim and deep;
Where sunlight spreads and quivering lies
To draw in golden reveries
Its fingers through our glistered hair,
Finding profound contentment there.
Come ye sorrowful and weep
No more in waking, come and steep
Yourselves in us as does the bee
Plunge in the rose that, singing, he
Has opened. Here our mouths unfold
As does a flower bare its gold;
Our mouths are soft as any rose
That in a high walled garden grows,
A garden level as a cup
With the sunlight that fills it up.
Come ye sorrowful and sleep
Within our arms beneath the sweep
Of winds that whisper in the trees,
And boughs that whisper to the breeze
In a sad extravagance
Of dancers in a hushed dance;
When Pan sighs and his pipes doth blow
While sky above and earth below
Stand still and hearken to his strain,
And sigh also as does the rain
Through woodland lanes remote and cool
To dream upon a leafed pool.
Come ye sorrowful and keep
Tryst with us here in wedded sleep,
Our eyes are soft as twilit streams,
Our breasts are soft as silken dreams
And white at dusk; our breasts the beds
On which we soothe all aching heads,
Binding each in a scented tress
Till glides he in forgetfulness,
While the night sighs and whispers by
Sowing stars across the sky.
Come ye sorrowful and keep
Here in unmeasured dream and sleep.
Tryst with us here in wedded sleep,
The silent noon lies over us
And shaken ripples cover us,
Our arms are soft as is the stream.
Come keep with us our slumbrous dream
Disheartened ones, if ye are sad,
If ye are in a garment clad
Of sorrow, come with us to sleep
In undulations dim and deep;
Where sunlight spreads and quivering lies
To draw in golden reveries
Its fingers through our glistered hair,
Finding profound contentment there.
Come ye sorrowful and weep
No more in waking, come and steep
Yourselves in us as does the bee
Plunge in the rose that, singing, he
Has opened. Here our mouths unfold
As does a flower bare its gold;
Our mouths are soft as any rose
That in a high walled garden grows,
A garden level as a cup
With the sunlight that fills it up.
Come ye sorrowful and sleep
Within our arms beneath the sweep
Of winds that whisper in the trees,
And boughs that whisper to the breeze
In a sad extravagance
Of dancers in a hushed dance;
When Pan sighs and his pipes doth blow
While sky above and earth below
Stand still and hearken to his strain,
And sigh also as does the rain
Through woodland lanes remote and cool
To dream upon a leafed pool.
Come ye sorrowful and keep
Tryst with us here in wedded sleep,
Our eyes are soft as twilit streams,
Our breasts are soft as silken dreams
And white at dusk; our breasts the beds
On which we soothe all aching heads,
Binding each in a scented tress
Till glides he in forgetfulness,
While the night sighs and whispers by
Sowing stars across the sky.
Come ye sorrowful and keep
Here in unmeasured dream and sleep.
Une Ballade des Femmes Perdues - William Faulkner
'Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan'
I sing in the green dusk
Fatuously
Of ladies that I have loved — £a ne fait rien! Helas, vraiment, vraiment
Gay little ghosts of loves in silver sandals
They dance with quick feet on my lute strings
With the abandon of boarding school virgins
While unbidden moths
Amorous of my white seraglio
Call them with soundless love songs
A sort of ethereal seduction
They hear, alas
My women
And brush my lips with little ghostly kisses
Stealing away
Singly, their tiny ardent faces
Like windflowers from some blown garden of dreams
To their love nights among the roses
I am old, and alone
And the star dust from their wings
Has dimmed my eyes
I sing in the green dusk
Of lost ladies — Si vraiment charmant, charmant.
I sing in the green dusk
Fatuously
Of ladies that I have loved — £a ne fait rien! Helas, vraiment, vraiment
Gay little ghosts of loves in silver sandals
They dance with quick feet on my lute strings
With the abandon of boarding school virgins
While unbidden moths
Amorous of my white seraglio
Call them with soundless love songs
A sort of ethereal seduction
They hear, alas
My women
And brush my lips with little ghostly kisses
Stealing away
Singly, their tiny ardent faces
Like windflowers from some blown garden of dreams
To their love nights among the roses
I am old, and alone
And the star dust from their wings
Has dimmed my eyes
I sing in the green dusk
Of lost ladies — Si vraiment charmant, charmant.
Saphics - William Faulkner
So it is : sleep comes not on my eyelids.
Nor in my eyes, with shaken hair and white
Aloof pale hands, and lips and breasts of iron,
So she beholds me.
And yet though sleep comes not to me, there comes
A vision from the full smooth brow of sleep,
The white Aphrodite moving unbounded
By her own hair.
In the purple beaks of the doves that draw her,
Beaks straight without desire, necks bent backward
Toward Lesbos and the flying feet of Loves
Weeping behind her.
She looks not back, she looks not back to where
The nine crowned muses about Apollo
Stand like nine Corinthian columns singing
In clear evening.
She sees not the Lesbians kissing mouth
To mouth across lute strings, drunken with singing,
Nor the white feet of the Oceanides
Shining and unsandalled.
Before her go cryings and lamentations
Of barren women, a thunder of wings,
While ghosts of outcast Lethean women, lamenting,
Stiffen the twilight.
Nor in my eyes, with shaken hair and white
Aloof pale hands, and lips and breasts of iron,
So she beholds me.
And yet though sleep comes not to me, there comes
A vision from the full smooth brow of sleep,
The white Aphrodite moving unbounded
By her own hair.
In the purple beaks of the doves that draw her,
Beaks straight without desire, necks bent backward
Toward Lesbos and the flying feet of Loves
Weeping behind her.
She looks not back, she looks not back to where
The nine crowned muses about Apollo
Stand like nine Corinthian columns singing
In clear evening.
She sees not the Lesbians kissing mouth
To mouth across lute strings, drunken with singing,
Nor the white feet of the Oceanides
Shining and unsandalled.
Before her go cryings and lamentations
Of barren women, a thunder of wings,
While ghosts of outcast Lethean women, lamenting,
Stiffen the twilight.
Cathay - William Faulkner
Sharp sands, those blind desert horsemen, sweep
Where yesterday tall shining carvels
Swam in thy golden past. What Fate foretells
That now the winds go lightly, lest thy sleep
Be broken? Where once thy splendors rose,
And cast their banners bright against the sky,
Now go the empty years infinitely
Rich with thy ghosts. So is it: who sows
The seed of Fame, makes the grain for Death to reap.
Wanderers, with faces sharp as spears,
And flocks and herds on aimless muffled feet
Drift where glittering kings went through each street
Of thy white vanished cities, and the years
Have closed like walls behind them. Still
Through the spawn of lesser destinies,
We stare, where once thy stars burned, lest like these,
We lose faith. They know thee not, nor will
To see thy magic empire when the Hand
Thrusts back the curtain of the shifting sand,
On singing stars and lifting golden hill.
Where yesterday tall shining carvels
Swam in thy golden past. What Fate foretells
That now the winds go lightly, lest thy sleep
Be broken? Where once thy splendors rose,
And cast their banners bright against the sky,
Now go the empty years infinitely
Rich with thy ghosts. So is it: who sows
The seed of Fame, makes the grain for Death to reap.
Wanderers, with faces sharp as spears,
And flocks and herds on aimless muffled feet
Drift where glittering kings went through each street
Of thy white vanished cities, and the years
Have closed like walls behind them. Still
Through the spawn of lesser destinies,
We stare, where once thy stars burned, lest like these,
We lose faith. They know thee not, nor will
To see thy magic empire when the Hand
Thrusts back the curtain of the shifting sand,
On singing stars and lifting golden hill.
L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune - William Faulkner
I follow through the singing trees
Her streaming clouded hair and face
And lascivious dreaming knees
Like gleaming water from some place
Of sleeping streams, or autumn leaves
Slow shed through still, love-wearied air.
She pauses: and as one who grieves
Shakes down her blown and vagrant hair
To veil her face, but not her eyes —
A hot quick spark, each sudden glance,
Or like the wild brown bee that flies
Sweet winged, a sharp extravagance
Of kisses on my limbs and neck.
She whirls and dances through the trees
That lift and sway like arms and fleck
Her with quick shadows, and the breeze
Lies on her short and circled breast.
Now hand in hand with her I go,
The green night in the silver west
Of virgin stars, pale row on row
Like ghostly hands, and ere she sleep
The dusk will take her by some stream
In silent meadows, dim and deep —
In dreams of stars and dreaming dream.
I have a nameless wish to go
To some far silent midnight noon
Where lonely streams whisper and flow
And sigh on sands blanched by the moon,
And blond limbed dancers whirling past,
The senile worn moon staring through
The sighing trees, until at last,
Their hair is powdered bright with dew.
And their sad slow limbs and brows
Are petals drifting on the breeze
Shed from the fingers of the boughs;
Then suddenly on all of these,
A sound like some great deep bell stroke
Falls, and they dance, unclad and cold —
It was the earth's great heart that broke
For springs before the world grew old.
Her streaming clouded hair and face
And lascivious dreaming knees
Like gleaming water from some place
Of sleeping streams, or autumn leaves
Slow shed through still, love-wearied air.
She pauses: and as one who grieves
Shakes down her blown and vagrant hair
To veil her face, but not her eyes —
A hot quick spark, each sudden glance,
Or like the wild brown bee that flies
Sweet winged, a sharp extravagance
Of kisses on my limbs and neck.
She whirls and dances through the trees
That lift and sway like arms and fleck
Her with quick shadows, and the breeze
Lies on her short and circled breast.
Now hand in hand with her I go,
The green night in the silver west
Of virgin stars, pale row on row
Like ghostly hands, and ere she sleep
The dusk will take her by some stream
In silent meadows, dim and deep —
In dreams of stars and dreaming dream.
I have a nameless wish to go
To some far silent midnight noon
Where lonely streams whisper and flow
And sigh on sands blanched by the moon,
And blond limbed dancers whirling past,
The senile worn moon staring through
The sighing trees, until at last,
Their hair is powdered bright with dew.
And their sad slow limbs and brows
Are petals drifting on the breeze
Shed from the fingers of the boughs;
Then suddenly on all of these,
A sound like some great deep bell stroke
Falls, and they dance, unclad and cold —
It was the earth's great heart that broke
For springs before the world grew old.
The Race's Splendor
The race's splendor lifts her lip, exposes
Amid her scarlet smile her little teeth;
The years are sand the wind plays with; beneath
The prisoned music of her deathless roses.
Within frostbitten rock she's fixed and glassed;
Now man may look upon her without fear.
But her contemptuous eyes back through him stare
And shear his fatuous sheep when he has passed.
Amid her scarlet smile her little teeth;
The years are sand the wind plays with; beneath
The prisoned music of her deathless roses.
Within frostbitten rock she's fixed and glassed;
Now man may look upon her without fear.
But her contemptuous eyes back through him stare
And shear his fatuous sheep when he has passed.
After Fifty Years - William Faulkner
Her house is empty and her heart is old,
And filled with shades and echoes that deceive
No one save her, for still she tries to weave
With blind bent fingers, nets that cannot hold.
Once all men’s arms rose up to her, ‘tis told,
And hovered like white birds for her caress:
A crown she could have had to bind each tress
Of hair, and her sweet arms the Witches’ Gold.
Her mirrors know her witnesses, for there
She rose in dreams from other dreams that lent
Her softness as she stood, crowned with soft hair.
And with his bound heart and his young eyes bent
And blind, he feels her presence like shed scent,
Holding him body and life within its snare.
Love Song - William Faulkner
Shall I walk, then, through a corridor of profundities
Carefully erect ( I am taller that [than?] I look)
To a certain door – - – and shall I dare
To open it? I smoothe my mental hair
With an oft changed phrase that I revise again
Until I have forgotten what it was at first;
Settle my tie with: I have brought a book,
Then seat myself with: We have passed the worst.
Then I shall sit among careful cups of tea,
Aware of a slight perspiring as to brow,
(The smell of scented cigarettes will always trouble me);
I shall sit, so patently at ease,
Stiffly erect, decorous as to knees
Among toy balloons of dignity on threads of talk.
And do I dare
(I once more stroke my hand across my hair )
But the window of my mind flies shut, I am in a room
Of surcharged conversation, and of jewelled hands;
- – -Here one slowly strips a flower stalk.
It is too close in here, I rise and walk,
Firmly take my self-possession by the hand.
Now, do I dare,
Who sees the light gleam on her intricate hair?
Shall I assume a studied pose, or shall I stand —–
Oh, Mr. . . .? You are so kind . . ..
Again the door slams inward on my mind.
Not at all….
Replace a cup,
Return and pick a napkin up.
My tongue, a bulwark where a last faint self-possession hides,
Fails me: I withdraw, retreat,
Conscious of the glances on my feet,
And feel as if I trod in sand.
Yet I may raise my head a little while.
The world revolves behind a painted smile.
And now, while evening lies embalmed upon the west
And a last faint pulse of life fades down the sky,
We will go alone, my soul and I,
To a hollow cadence down this neutral street;
To a rhythm of feet
Now stilled and fallen. I will walk alone,
The uninvited one who dares not go
Whither the feast is spread to friend and foe,
Whose courage balks the last indifferent gate,
Who dares not join the beggars at the arch of stone.
Change and change: the world revolves to worlds,
To minute whorls
And particles of soil on careless thumbs.
Now I shall go alone,
I shall echo streets of stone, while evening comes
Treading space and beat, space and beat.
The last left seed of beauty in my heart
That I so carefully tended, leaf and bloom,
Falls in darkness.
But enough. What is all beauty? What, that I
Should raise my hands palm upward to the sky,
That I should weakly tremble and fall dumb
At some cryptic promise or pale gleam; – -
A sudden wing, a word, a cry?
Evening dies, and now that night has come
Walking still streets, monk-like, grey and dumb;
Then softly clad in grey, lies down again;
I also rise and walk, and die in dream,
For dream is death, and death but fathomed dream.
And shall I walk these streets while passing time
Softly ticks my face, my thinning hair?
I should have been a priest in floorless halls
Wearing his eyes thin on a faded manuscript.
The world revolves. High heels and scented shawls,
Painted masks, and kisses mouth and mouth:
Gesture of a senile pantaloon
To make us laugh.
I have measured time, I measured time
With span of thumb and finger
As one who seeks a bargain: sound enough
I think, but slightly worn;
There’s still enough to cover me from cold,
Momentous indecisions, change
And loneliness. Does not each fold
Repeat – - the while I measure time, I measure time -
The word, the thought, the soundless empty gesture
Of him that it so bravely once arrayed?
Spring . . . shadowed walls, and kissing in the dark.
I, too; was young upon a time, I too; have felt
All life, at one small word, within me melt;
And strange slow swooning wings I could not see
Stirring the beautiful silence over me.
I grow old, I grow old.
Could I walk within my garden while the night
Comes gently down,
And see the garden maidens dancing, white
And dim, across the flower beds?
I would take cold: I dare not try,
Nor watch the stars again born in the sky
Eternally young.
I grow old, I grow old.
Submerged in the firelight’s solemn gold
I sit, watching the restless shadows, red and brown
Float there till I disturb them, then they drown.
I measure time, I measure time.
I see my soul, disturbed, awake and climb
A sudden dream, and fall
And whimpering, crowd near me in the dark.
And do I dare, who steadily builds a wall
Of hour on hour, and day, then lifts a year
That heavily falls in place, while time
Ticks my face, my thinning hair, my heart
In which a faint last long remembered beauty hides?
I should have been a priest in floorless halls
Whose hand, worn thin by turning endless pages,
Lifts, and strokes his face, and falls
And stirs a dust of time heaped grain on grain,
Then gropes the book, and turns it through again;
Who turns the pages through, who turns again,
While darkness lays soft fingers on his eyes
And strokes the lamplight from his brow, to wake him, and he dies.
Carefully erect ( I am taller that [than?] I look)
To a certain door – - – and shall I dare
To open it? I smoothe my mental hair
With an oft changed phrase that I revise again
Until I have forgotten what it was at first;
Settle my tie with: I have brought a book,
Then seat myself with: We have passed the worst.
Then I shall sit among careful cups of tea,
Aware of a slight perspiring as to brow,
(The smell of scented cigarettes will always trouble me);
I shall sit, so patently at ease,
Stiffly erect, decorous as to knees
Among toy balloons of dignity on threads of talk.
And do I dare
(I once more stroke my hand across my hair )
But the window of my mind flies shut, I am in a room
Of surcharged conversation, and of jewelled hands;
- – -Here one slowly strips a flower stalk.
It is too close in here, I rise and walk,
Firmly take my self-possession by the hand.
Now, do I dare,
Who sees the light gleam on her intricate hair?
Shall I assume a studied pose, or shall I stand —–
Oh, Mr. . . .? You are so kind . . ..
Again the door slams inward on my mind.
Not at all….
Replace a cup,
Return and pick a napkin up.
My tongue, a bulwark where a last faint self-possession hides,
Fails me: I withdraw, retreat,
Conscious of the glances on my feet,
And feel as if I trod in sand.
Yet I may raise my head a little while.
The world revolves behind a painted smile.
And now, while evening lies embalmed upon the west
And a last faint pulse of life fades down the sky,
We will go alone, my soul and I,
To a hollow cadence down this neutral street;
To a rhythm of feet
Now stilled and fallen. I will walk alone,
The uninvited one who dares not go
Whither the feast is spread to friend and foe,
Whose courage balks the last indifferent gate,
Who dares not join the beggars at the arch of stone.
Change and change: the world revolves to worlds,
To minute whorls
And particles of soil on careless thumbs.
Now I shall go alone,
I shall echo streets of stone, while evening comes
Treading space and beat, space and beat.
The last left seed of beauty in my heart
That I so carefully tended, leaf and bloom,
Falls in darkness.
But enough. What is all beauty? What, that I
Should raise my hands palm upward to the sky,
That I should weakly tremble and fall dumb
At some cryptic promise or pale gleam; – -
A sudden wing, a word, a cry?
Evening dies, and now that night has come
Walking still streets, monk-like, grey and dumb;
Then softly clad in grey, lies down again;
I also rise and walk, and die in dream,
For dream is death, and death but fathomed dream.
And shall I walk these streets while passing time
Softly ticks my face, my thinning hair?
I should have been a priest in floorless halls
Wearing his eyes thin on a faded manuscript.
The world revolves. High heels and scented shawls,
Painted masks, and kisses mouth and mouth:
Gesture of a senile pantaloon
To make us laugh.
I have measured time, I measured time
With span of thumb and finger
As one who seeks a bargain: sound enough
I think, but slightly worn;
There’s still enough to cover me from cold,
Momentous indecisions, change
And loneliness. Does not each fold
Repeat – - the while I measure time, I measure time -
The word, the thought, the soundless empty gesture
Of him that it so bravely once arrayed?
Spring . . . shadowed walls, and kissing in the dark.
I, too; was young upon a time, I too; have felt
All life, at one small word, within me melt;
And strange slow swooning wings I could not see
Stirring the beautiful silence over me.
I grow old, I grow old.
Could I walk within my garden while the night
Comes gently down,
And see the garden maidens dancing, white
And dim, across the flower beds?
I would take cold: I dare not try,
Nor watch the stars again born in the sky
Eternally young.
I grow old, I grow old.
Submerged in the firelight’s solemn gold
I sit, watching the restless shadows, red and brown
Float there till I disturb them, then they drown.
I measure time, I measure time.
I see my soul, disturbed, awake and climb
A sudden dream, and fall
And whimpering, crowd near me in the dark.
And do I dare, who steadily builds a wall
Of hour on hour, and day, then lifts a year
That heavily falls in place, while time
Ticks my face, my thinning hair, my heart
In which a faint last long remembered beauty hides?
I should have been a priest in floorless halls
Whose hand, worn thin by turning endless pages,
Lifts, and strokes his face, and falls
And stirs a dust of time heaped grain on grain,
Then gropes the book, and turns it through again;
Who turns the pages through, who turns again,
While darkness lays soft fingers on his eyes
And strokes the lamplight from his brow, to wake him, and he dies.
William Faulkner Works
The following list of William Faulkner works sooner will be avaliable in this blog for reading. If you are a real William Faulkner fan as I am, You are going do "Read, read, read everything" as Mr. Faulkner said.
Padgett, John B. “William Faulkner: Primary Sources.” William Faulkner on the Web. 02 August 2006. 19 December 2012 <http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/
NOVELS
- Soldier's Pay (1926)
- Mosquitoes (1927)
- Sartories (1929) - Flags in the Dust (1973)
- The Sound and the Fury (1929)
- As I lay Dying (1930)
- Sanctuary (1931)
- Light in August (1932)
- Pylon (1935)
- Absalom, Absalom (1936)
- The Unvanquished (1938)
- The wild Palms (1939)
- The Hamlet (1940)
- Go down, Moses, and other Stories (1942)
- Intruder in the Dust (1948)
- Requiem for a Num (1951)
- A fable (1954)
- The Town (1957)
- The Mansion (1959)
- The Reivers, a Reminiscence (1962)
POETRY
- Vision in Spring (1921)
- The Marble faun (1924)
- This Earth, a Poem (1932)
- A green Bough (1933)
- William Faulkner: Early Prose and Poetry (1962)
- Mississippi Poems (1979)
- Helen, a Courtship (1981)
SHORT STORIES
- New Orleans Skechtes (1925)
- These 13 (1931)
- Idyll in the Desert (1931)
- Miss Zilphia Gant (1932)
- Doctor Martino and other stories (1934)
- Go down, Moses, and other stories (1942)
- Three famous short novels (1942)
- The Portable Faulkner (1946)
- Knight's Gambit (1949)
- Collected Stories (1950)
- Notes on a Horsethief (1950)
- Mirrors of Chater Streets (1953)
- jealousy and Episode (1955)
- Big Woods (1955)
- Selected Short Stories (1961)
- Bearm Man, and God: Sever approaches to William Faulkner's "The Bear" (1964)
- The wishing tree (1964)
- A Rose for Emily (1970)
- A Faulkner Mescellany (1974)
- Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner (1979)
- Rose of Lebanon (1995)
- Lucas Beauchamp (1999)
PLAYS
- Marionettes (1921)
- Requiem for a Num (1951)
ESSAYS
Salmagundi (contains
poem by Ernest M. Hemingway), limited edition, Casanova
Press (Milwaukee), 1932.
William Faulkner’s Speech
of Acceptance upon the Award of the Nobel Prize
for Literature, Delivered in Stockholm on the Tenth
of December, 1950, [New York], 1951.
(And author of foreword) The
Faulkner Reader: Selections from the Works of William
Faulkner, Random House, 1954.
Faulkner on Truth and Freedom:
Excerpts from Tape Recordings of Remarks Made by
William Faulkner during His Recent Manila Visit, Philippine
Writer’s Association (Manila), 1956, reprinted,
1978.
Faulkner at Nagano, edited
by Robert A. Jelliffe, Kenkyusha (Tokyo), 1956.
Faulkner in the University:
Class Conferences at the University of Virginia,
1957-1958 (interviews and conversations),
edited by Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph Blotner,
University Press of Virginia, 1959.
William Faulkner: Early Prose
and Poetry, compiled and introduced by
Carvel Collins, Little, Brown, 1962.
Faulkner’s University
of Mississippi Pieces, compiled and introduced
by Carvel Collins, Kenkyusha (Tokyo), 1962; Folcroft
Press, 1970.
Faulkner at West Point (interviews),
edited by Joseph L. Fant III and Robert Ashley, Random
House, 1964; University Press of Mississippi, 2002.
The Faulkner-Cowley File: Letters
and Memories, 1944-1962, edited by Cowley,
Viking, 1966.
Essays, Speeches and Public
Letters, edited by James B. Merriwether,
Random House, 1966. Expanded edition, Modern Library,
2004.
The Best of Faulkner, Chosen
by the Author, special edition, World Books
Society, 1967.
Man, introduction by
Bernard H. Porter, limited edition, [Rockland, Me.],
1969.
Lion
in the Garden: Interviews with William Faulkner
1926-1962, edited by James B. Meriwether
and Michael Millgate, Random House, 1968.
The Faulkner Reader, Random
House, 1989.
Faulkner and Psychology, University
Press of Mississippi, 1994.
Conversations
with William Faulkner, edited by M. Thomas
Inge, University Press of Mississippi, 1999.Padgett, John B. “William Faulkner: Primary Sources.” William Faulkner on the Web. 02 August 2006. 19 December 2012 <http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/
Monday, December 17, 2012
William Faulkner
Although William Faulkner was bright, he felt no passion for his formal education. He dropped out of high school. Faulkner was employed in a bank in Oxford and began to write. In his early forays into writing, Faulkner emulated the poetic styling Edward FitzGerald, A. E. Housman, John Keats, and Algernon Swinburne. Faulkner addressed many of these early poems to a young woman, Estelle Oldham. Oldham’s parents disapproved of William Faulkner’s courtship. They wanted their daughter to marry someone who had better financial prospects.
In 1918 as the First World War was winding down, William Faulkner tried to become a pilot for the U.S. Army. Faulkner failed to meet the physical requirements. The military rejected his application. Faulkner traveled to Toronto, Canada. He posed as an English citizen and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. By the time Faulkner reached France, the conflict had ended.
After returning to the United States, William Faulkner attended the University of Mississippi from 1919 until 1921. The New Republic published his poem "L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune." Faulkner wrote for both the school newspaper and his hometown newspaper. Faulkner also drafted an experimental play that was presented by the University of Mississippi’s drama club.
Once again William Faulkner dropped out of school. He followed a theater reviewer Stark Young to New York. Faulkner’s attempted to generate interest in his writing. But publishers were not interested at this point. Faulkner returned to Oxford. He took a post as postmaster at the University of Mississippi. Faulkner used his work hours to continue writing. His superiors dismissed him in 1924.
The Marble Faun was William Faulkner’s first collection of poems. These poems were written in a pastoral style. Book sales were very poor. When Faulkner visited Sherwood Anderson in New Orleans, Anderson suggested that poetry was not Faulkner’s forte. Faulkner wrote short pieces of prose for the Times-Picayune and The Double Dealer. Faulkner submitted his manuscript Soldier’s Pay to Boni & Liveright.
In 1925, William Faulkner traveled throughout England, France and Italy. His relationship with members of the Lost Generation flavored his stay in Paris. His writing during this period was influenced by symbolism and impressionism. Soldier’s Paywas released during Faulkner’s European trip.
In Faulkner’s second novel, Mosquitoes, Faulkner satirized the New Orleans literary scene. Faulkner also made fun of his friend Sherwood Anderson. This was not the first time that Faulkner had lampooned Anderson, but it led to Anderson to sever ties with William Faulkner. However, Faulkner continued to have genuine admiration for Anderson at one point declaring, "the father of my generation of American writers and the tradition of American writing which our successors will carry on."
Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness novel The Sound and the Fury was published in 1929. This novel was ranked sixth on the Modern Library’s on the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century. (William Faulkner’s Light in August and As I Lay Dying are also on this list.)
William Faulkner would marry his former sweetheart Estelle Oldham in 1929. Oldham brought her two children from a previous marriage. The couple would also have two daughters over the next four years. The oldest one would die after only nine days. But Faulkner was still responsible for taking care of his new wife and young children. Faulkner’s family life did not hinder his pursuit of extra-marital affairs.
In 1931, William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily was published. This work is widely anthologized and is a masterpiece of narrative and communal point of view. The five sections build tension through their lack of direct chronological order. This story is classified as Southern Gothic for its use of the Southern milieu in the post-Civil War period.
In order to make money in 1931, Faulkner wrote the novel Sanctuary. The sensational subject captured the public’s attention. The financial success of Sanctuary drove sales to Faulkner’s earlier stream-of-consciousness novel, The Sound and The Fury. The film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hired William Faulkner in 1932. Faulkner was assigned to write screenplays. This position required Faulkner to move to California. He was well-paid, but never comfortable in his new surroundings. In part, this discomfort led to Faulkner’s excessive drinking. This period in his life would also set up the paradigm in which William Faulkner’s screenwriting would provide the money, which allowed him to write his fiction. Like many people, William Faulkner’s financial concerns were jeopardized by the uncertainty of the Great Depression.
In 1936, William Faulkner released Absalom, Absalom!. In this novel, he examined the way that the shadow of American slavery lingered over the modern South. He illustrated the way in which historical violations still have a destabilizing affect in the world.
In 1939, the National Institute of Arts and Letters selected William Faulkner to join its ranks. The same year Faulkner was awarded the O. Henry Memorial Short Story Award—a distinction he would earn the following year (1940) as well. Faulkner’s writing from this period was a skillful net of vivid narrative lines. His skill was also gaining Faulkner a reputation in which his work was worthy of scholarly study.
Howard Hawks reached out to William Faulkner for screenwriting help. Faulkner had a hand in creating the script for the film versions of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. During his sojourns to Hollywood, William Faulkner would also become an intimate to Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.
Despite his critical acclaim, William Faulkner book sales dwindled during World War II. As many of Faulkner’s books went out of print, he relied more heavily on his screenwriting as a means of support. In 1946, Viking Press published The Portable Faulkner. Malcolm Cowley wrote the introduction and helped rehabilitate Faulkner’s reputation.
In 1949, William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature. The prestige and monetary value of this award allowed Faulkner a greater degree of financial autonomy. He continued to gain recognition for his writing during this period. In 1950, Faulkner was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Howells Medal for Fiction and in 1951 Faulkner won the National Book Award for his collected stories. From 1957 until 1958, William Faulkner would serve as the writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia.
In the 1950s, William Faulkner would accept Howard Hawks invitation to travel to Egypt to help in the production of Land of the Pharaohs. Faulkner would also travel to Britain, Brazil, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, the Philippines and Venezuela on goodwill cultural exchanges for the U.S. State Department. His political interest involved acting in the Civil Rights movements. Faulkner was a supporter of nonviolent and moderate resistance.
Before his death in 1962, William Faulkner was awarded the National Institute’s Gold Medal for Fiction. He died of a heart attack.
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