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WILLIAM FAULKNER
(1897-1962)
William Faulkner was born in New Albany in the family of impoverished aristocrats. He grew
up in Oxford, Mississippi. After education he joined the Royal Canadian Flying Corps and was
sent to France, where he was wounded in an air crash during a training flight. In 1918 he
returned home. After a short stay in Oxford he went to New Orleans where Faulkner published
his first book – a book of poems “The Marble Faun” 1924 and his war novels “Soldier’s Pay”
1926 (Солдатская награда) and “Mosquitoes” 1927. By the end of the 1920’s Faulkner went
back to Mississippi and spent the rest of his life in Oxford which became the background for
most of his books under the name of Jefferson.
The war topic is the central factor of Faulkner’s interest in the 1920’s but for a short period of
time. Very soon he passes on to the description of his native South and issues a series of books
dealing with the history of the city of Jefferson. These books reflect his hatred of contemporary
life and a kind of certain sympathy for the patriarchal way of life in the South. But for all his
attachment to the past he concentrated upon the decadence of the families representing the old
southern nobility. In “Sartoris” 1929, the first of the novels of this series Faulkner shows the
decay of a family of old southern aristocrats, while in the novel “The Sound and the Fury” (Шум
и ярость), published in the same year, he mercilessly exposes the moral and mental degradation
of another southern family.
The subsequent list of Faulkner’s works comprises “As I Lay Dying” 1930, (Насмертномодре),
“Sanctuary” 1931, (Святилище), “Light in August” 1932, “Absalom, Absalom!” 1936. The end
of the 1930’s witnesses the beginning of a change in the outlook of Faulkner. His opposition to
monopolistic capital becomes more pronounced and his main concern now is the policy of
money-grubbing that dominates the life of American society.
Faulkner’s books of the later period rank him among the great realists of modern America. In
1940 he writes “The Hamlet” (Деревушка), which opens a trilogy, subsequent parts of which are
“The Town” 1957 and “The Mansion” 1959. These books deal with the life of the family of the
Snopeses, former poor whites whom cunning, corruption and unscrupulousness elevated to a
ruling financial oligarchy.
In “Go Down, Moses” 1942, (Сойди, Моисей), a book of stories, in the novel “Intruder in the
Dust” 1948, (Осквернительпраха), Faulkner denounced racialism in the South. These books
were followed by two volumes of short stories. In 1954 he published “A Fable”, a novel
dedicated to WWI, where he voiced his protest against all kinds of military activities.
In 1950 William Faulkner got the Nobel Prize for literature.
Summary
The theme is devoted to the life and creative work of the best American realists –William
Faulkner – who wrote their best novels in the first half of the 20th century.
This part is devoted to the writers, who participated in the First World War and reflected in their
works the spirit and mode of life of the “lost generation”, a generation which was a witness and a
participant of that war. It gives a brief outline of life and work of Ernest Hemingway.
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