When it appeared in the American Mercury in March 1931, the editor, H. L. Mencken, prevailed on William Faulkner to make changes in “That Evening Sun” (then entitled “That Evening Sun Go Down”) to make it more palatable to the… Read More ›
Search results for ‘William Faulkner’
Analysis of William Faulkner’s Shall Not Perish
At the height of World War II, William Faulkner wrote a pair of compelling stories exploring the viability and importance of America as a nation. Though the United States as a whole was his theme in these two wartime stories,… Read More ›
Analysis of William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses
Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner’s 12th novel, is generally ranked as one of his greatest—not least because it doubles as a unique collection of short stories. Most of these stories had been published separately between 1935 and 1942, in such… Read More ›
Analysis of William Faulkner’s Pantaloon in Black
The third of seven stories composing William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses (1942), “Pantaloon in Black” is the tragic and poignant story of Rider, a black sawmill worker who is made a widower when his young bride, Mannie, dies only six… Read More ›
Analysis of William Faulkner’s Stories
William Faulkner (1897-1962) has been credited with having the imagination to see, before other serious writers saw, the tremendous potential for drama, pathos, and sophisticated humor in the history and people of the South. In using this material and, in… Read More ›
Analysis of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily
Initially published in Forum on April 30, 1930, and collected in These Thirteen in 1931, “A Rose for Emily” remains one of William Faulkner’s most read, most anthologized, and most significant stories. From every imaginable perspective, critics have scrutinized the… Read More ›
American Literature
American Literature 84 Lectures on American Literature by Dr. Arnold Weinstein, the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor at Brown University. These lectures are from The Great Courses Explain the roles of self-reliance and the “self-made man” in the evolution of American… Read More ›
Lost Generation Short Stories
As part of the modernist imperative to “make it new,” writers of the 1920s and 1930s consistently wreaked havoc with existing genre conventions. “Poems” no longer rhymed and scanned predictably; essays and reviews had a subjective, even idiosyncratic, slant; plays… Read More ›
Analysis of Jill McCorkle’s Intervention
In an age of plastic surgery, stomach stapling, and laser treatments, American culture has placed its focus not on only hiding flaws but erasing them entirely in the quest for perfection. “Intervention,” by Jill McCorkle, was first published in Ploughshares… Read More ›
Analysis of Sherwood Anderson’s I’m a Fool
The myth about Sherwood Anderson—that in the middle of a successful advertising career he repudiated the moneymaking ethics and the regimentation of business in order to realize himself as a writer—has become part of our literary tradition, an ironic reversal… Read More ›
Modern Novels and Novelists
One way to understand the modern novel is to show its development in the work of writers such as Joseph Conrad, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and William Faulkner. This list is by no means exclusive, but… Read More ›
The Poetics of Modernism: Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Modernism comprised a broad series of movements in Europe and America that came to fruition roughly between 1910 and 1930. Its major exponents and practitioners included Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Luigi… Read More ›
Analysis of Louise Erdrich’s Stories
Just as fiction in general has opened up to a diverse ethnic spectrum of writers, so too has short fiction, and Louise Erdrich’s (born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) stories stand as excellent examples of contemporary Native American literature…. Read More ›
The Urban Neurotic Jew in Woody Allen’s Short Fiction
Woody Allen is one of the most prolific artists of the twentieth century. He is a highly praised director and scriptwriter, a successful actor, a dedicated clarinettist, an appreciated playwright, and an awarded short fiction writer. His entire work testifies… Read More ›
Analysis of James Thurber’s Stories
James Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) is best known as the author of humorous sketches, stories, and reminiscences dealing with urban bourgeois American life. To discuss Thurber as an artist in the short-story form is difficult, however,… Read More ›
Analysis of S. J. Perelman’s Stories
Parody, satire, and verbal wit characterize S. J. Perelman’s (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979) works. Most of them are very short and tend to begin as conversational essays that develop into narrative or mock dramatic episodes and sometimes… Read More ›
A Brief History of American Novels
America became a subject for literature after the Revolutionary War, when writers began the exploration of themes and motifs distinctly American. Continuing the Puritan belief in America as the New Eden, writers stressed the millennial nature of settlement and progress…. Read More ›
Analysis of William Faulkner’s Novels
When William Faulkner (1897-1962) accepted the Nobel Prize in December, 1950, he made a speech that has become a justly famous statement of his perception of the modern world and of his particular place in it. In the address, Faulkner speaks… Read More ›
Analysis of Robert Penn Warren’s Stories
Many of Robert Penn Warren’s (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) stories feature an adult protagonist’s introspective, guilty recollections of imperishable childhood events, of things done or left undone or simply witnessed with childish innocence. Blackberry Winter “Blackberry Winter”… Read More ›
Gothic Novels and Novelists
The gothic novel is a living tradition, a form that enjoys great popular appeal while provoking harsh critical judgments. It began with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1765), then traveled through Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Charles Robert Maturin,… Read More ›
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