William Faulkner: Literature Giant Essay, Research Paper
William Faulkner: Literature Giant
?The man himself never stood taller than five feet, six inches tall, but in the realm of American literature, William Faulkner was a giant? (?Faulkner,? American 101). The background and early years of Faulkner?s life sets the stage for his outstanding success in literature. He is unique in his works due to the various types and styles of literature including: ?A Rose for Emily.? These various forms of work landed Faulkner outstanding awards and honors. As an American giant, Faulkner?s novels have been recognized as among the greatest novels ever written by an American (?Faulkner,? American 101).
William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897 to Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Faulkner. He was born into a genteel Southern family in New Albany, Mississippi. ?An indifferent student, he dropped out of high school in 1915 to work as a clerk in his grandfather?s bank, began writing poetry, and submitted drawings to the University of Mississippi?s yearbook? (?William,? Discovering 1). When World War I began, Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Air Force in Canada; he never saw action. Following the war he returned to Mississippi and briefly attended the University of Mississippi. Later, in 1925, he moved to New Orleans where he met Sherwood Anderson, who encouraged his development and helped secure his first novel (?William,? Masterplots 1). Over the next few years, Faulkner wrote reviews, poems, and prose pieces for ?The Mississippian? and worked several odd jobs. At the recommendation of Stark Young, a novelist in Oxford, in 1921 Faulkner took a job in New York City as an assistant in a bookstore managed by Elizabeth Prall, who later became the wife of Sherwood Anderson. Faulkner?s most notorious job during this time was the position as a postmaster in the university post office from the spring of 1922 to October 31, 1924. By all accounts, he was a terrible postmaster, spending much of his time misplacing or losing mail, and failing to serve customers. When a postal inspector came to investigate, Faulkner agreed to resign. During this time, he also served as a scoutmaster for the Oxford Boy Scout troop, but he was asked to resign for ?moral reasons? (probably drinking) (Thompson 4-5).
William Faulkner is considered by many readers to have been America?s greatest modern writer (?William,? Masterplots 1). He was always the artist, always concerned to provide a work of the imagination (?Faulkner,? American 103). ?His fiction satisfies the critical demands that writing be inventive and invigorating, as ready to release the imagination as it is to channel it? (?William,? Masterplots 2). Faulkner had humor, often ironic and bitter, in the series of dramas and tragedies he wrote about the Old South (Thompson 5). The sheer bulk of his life-work was impressive. Faulkner?s publications include approximately fifty poems, ninety short stories, seventeen novels, and a three-act drama which was produced on Broadway (Thompson 5). In, 1930, starting with ?A Rose for Emily,? William Faulkner began publishing short stories in national magazines. In the short story ?A Rose for Emily,? Faulkner writes about an old woman named Emily Grierson who o
William Faulkner received many outstanding awards in his literary career. In January 1955, Faulkner?s novel A Fable earned the National Book Award for Fiction and in May a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, although this was considered one of his weaker novels. In 1930, Faulkner received word that the Swedish Academy had voted to award him and Bertrand Russell as corecipients of the Nobel Prize for literature, Russell for 1950 and Faulkner for the previous year. At first Faulkner refused to go to Stockholm to receive the award, but pressured by the U.S. State Department, the Swedish Ambassador to the United States, and finally by his own family, he agreed to go (Thompson 8). Among other awards received by Faulkner were the O. Henry Memorial Short Story Award in 1939, 1940 and 1949; the William Dean Howells Medal; and the acceptance to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1950 (?William,? Discovering 2).
Since William Faulkner?s death, his work has been examined thoroughly and is more appreciated now than ever before. He created a body of work that is distinctly American yet reflects, on a larger scale, the universal values of life. From the beginning of Faulkner?s life, to his renowned works created, to his unpresidented honors and rewards; William Faulkner stood as such a wee little man but will forever stand tall as an American literature giant.