The Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner

This collection of essays explores Faulkner’s widespread cultural import. Drawing on a wide range of cultural theory and written in accessible English, ten major Faulkner scholars examine the enduring whole of Faulkner’s oeuvre. Bringing into focus the broader cultural context which lent its resonance to his work, the collection will be particularly useful for the student seeking critical introduction to Faulkner, while also serving the dedicated scholar interested in recent trends in Faulkner criticism. Together these essays map Faulkner’s contemporary meaning by exploring his relation to modernism and postmodernism, to twentieth-century mass culture, to European and Latin American fiction, to issues of gender difference, and, above all, to the conflicted scene of United States race relations. Neither assuming in advance his literary ‘greatness’ nor insisting that his canonical status be revoked, they instead pose the question: what is at stake today in reading Faulkner?

• Faulkner’s contemporary cultural importance, explained in jargon-free English • Faulkner’s place in current US debates about race relations and representations • What is at stake in reading Faulkner in the 1990s

Introduction Philip M. Weinstein; Part I. The Texts in the World: 1. Faulkner and modernism Richard Moreland; 2. Faulkner and postmodernism Patrick O’Donnell; 3. Faulkner and the culture industry John T. Matthews; 4. Faulkner from a European perspective André Bleikasten; 5. Looking for a master plan: Faulkner, Paredes, and the colonial and postcolonial subject Ramón Saldívar; Part II. The World in the Texts: 6. Racial awareness and arrested development: The Sound and the Fury and The Great Migration (1915–1928) Cheryl Lester; 7. Race in Light in August: word symbols and obverse reflections Judith Bryant Wittenberg; 8. Absalom, Absalom!: (Un)making the father Carolyn Porter; Conclusion: the stakes of reading Faulkner: discerning reading Warwick Wadlington; Index.