E-Book Overview
This succinct, yet comprehensive account of William Faulkner’s literary career, novels, and key short stories offers an imaginative topography of his efforts to reckon with his Southern past, to acknowledge its modernization, and to develop his own modernist method. Provides a brief but comprehensive account of Faulkner’s literary career, through discussion of his novels and key short stories Offers an imaginative topography of Faulkner’s efforts to reckon with his Southern past, to acknowledge its modernization, and to develop his own modernist method Draws on various specialized critical approaches including psychoanalytic, post-structuralist, feminist, and post-colonial theory Provides a coherent interpretation of the author’s career, emphasizing Faulkner’s receptivity to change, not just his critical resistance to it Places Faulkner’s art in context while concentrating on textual detail, technique, and thematic preoccupations across his career
E-Book Content
John Matthews’s new book on the fiction of William Faulkner is a lively and accessible discussion that offers fresh readings and new insights for everyone. While providing rich historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts for reading Faulkner’s fiction, William Faulkner: Seeing Through the South is a pleasure to read; it is the best available discussion of the reach of Faulkner’s fiction we have now and will have for many years to come. Patrick O’Donnell, Michigan State University William Faulkner: Seeing Through the South is an introduction written by a major Faulkner scholar which both “introduces” and transforms its subject (a difficult trick) . . . The study unfailingly requires that in seeing Faulkner clear, we see him in new and necessary ways. Richard Godden, University of California Irvine Matthews lays out brilliantly the ideological systems that solicit Faulkner’s fiction. No troubled apologist for the Old South, Matthews’s Faulkner engages the challenges of modernity, taking on the disfigurements of colonialism and capitalism. Thanks to Matthews, we have a Faulkner for our time: one who sees through the South – demystifying its collective fantasies – even as he labors to see his region through. Philip Weinstein, Swarthmore College William Faulkner: Seeing Through the South. John T. Matthews © 2009 John T. Matthews. ISBN: 978-1-405-12481-2 Blackwell Introductions to Literature This series sets out to provide concise and stimulating introductions to literary subjects. It offers books on major authors (from John Milton to James Joyce), as well as key periods and movements (from Old English literature to the contemporary). Coverage is also afforded to such specific topics as “Arthurian Romance.” All are written by outstanding scholars as texts to inspire newcomers and others: nonspecialists wishing to revisit a topic, or general readers. The prospective overall aim is to ground and prepare students and readers of whatever kind in their pursuit of wider reading. Published 1. John Milton 2. Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales 3. Arthurian Romance 4. James Joyce 5. Mark Twain 6. The Modern Novel 7. Old Norse-Icelandic Literature 8. Old English Literature 9. Modernism 10. Latin American Fiction 11. Re-Scripting Walt Whitman 12. Renaissance and Reformations 13. The Art of Twentieth-Century American Poetry 14. American Drama 1945–2000 15. Reading Middle English Literature 16. American Literature and Culture 1900–1960 17. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 18. Tragedy 19. Herman Melville 20. William Faulkner Roy Flannagan John Hirsh Derek Pearsall Michael Seidel Stephen Railton Jesse Matz Heather O’Donoghue Daniel Donoghue David Ayers Philip Swanson Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price Michael Hattaway Charles Altieri David Krasner Thorlac Turville-Petre Gail McDonald Dympna Callaghan Rebecca Bushnell Wyn Kelley John T. Matthews William Faulkner Seeing Throug