Faulkner and Modernism: Revision and Rewriting - Softcover

Moreland, Richard C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299125041 ISBN 13: 9780299125042

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990

Synopsis

Throughout his career Faulkner retold some of the same stories about some of the same events and characters, but retold them differently. For many years now these rewritings and revisions have been judged failures of craft. But Faulkner knew they were there and defended his discrepancies, associating them with learning about human character. Richard Moreland argues that these revisionary repetitions in fact constitute Faulkner's conscious critique of modernism. Moreland's readings of "Absalom! Absalom!", "The Hamlet", "Go Down, Moses" "Requiem for a Nun" and other works reveal Faulkner's explorations of both the motivations and consequences of modernism in the context of America's dominant discourses of class, race, gender and sexuality. The "revisionary repetitions" provided Faulkner with options, possibilities for change, permitting his fiction to articulate alternative models of writing, character and emotion, and permitting his readers to hear the previously excluded voices of "white trash", women and blacks. Through a combination of theoretical sophistication and attention to the nuances of Faulkner's texts, Moreland revises and rewrites the direction of Faulkner criticism.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299125041
• ISBN 13: 9780299125042
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270