On William Faulkner / Eudora Welty.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Welty, Eudora, 1909-2001.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Faulkner, William, 1897-1962--Criticism and interpretation.

Faulkner, William.

Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.

Criticism and interpretation.

Mississippi--In literature.

Mississippi.

Physical Description:

96 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Other Title:

Eudora Welty on William Faulkner

Place of Publication:

[Jackson] : University Press of Mississippi, [2003]

Summary:

Eudora Welty (1909-2001) and William Faulkner (1897-1962) were Mississippi's foremost literary lions of the twentieth century. Their influence on American literature is immeasurable. As Faulkner's compatriot and as a fellow writer, Welty had a unique view of his work. For her comprehensive vision and for her understanding discussions of his art she is one of the most astute critics of the Faulknerian legacy. They were not close friends but literary neighbors, for Welty's Jackson and Faulkner's Oxford were some 150 miles apart. The two writers remained independent of each other and rarely ever had meetings. Early in her career the remote, taciturn Faulkner offered her praise and encouragement in a warm note that came to Welty out of the blue. "You're doing all right," he wrote from Hollywood, having read her first two books. Welty, secure in her own work, felt no Faulknerian influence or any sense of competition. Throughout her long career, her speeches, interviews, and critical writings acknowledged him as a great literary master. She relished his sense of time, place, character, comedy, and tragedy.

On William Faulkner, a record of her admiration, brings together Welty's essays, lectures, and musings on Faulkner. These include such gems as her reviews of Intruder in the Dust and The Selected Letters of William Faulkner, her impassioned defense of Faulkner's work (published as a letter to the New Yorker), her comments when she presented the Gold Medal for Fiction to Faulkner at the National Institute of Arts and Letters awards ceremony in 1962, an excerpt from a letter she wrote to the novelist Jean Stafford, telling of meeting Faulkner and of going sailing with him, and the obituary of the Nobel laureate that Welty wrote for the Associated Press. In addition, this collection reprints the cryptic postcard Faulkner wrote to Welty from Hollywood and publishes for the first time a caricature of Faulkner that Welty drew in the 1930s, about fifteen years before she met him. In a lengthy afterword that comments on the place of both writers in contemporary literature, the noted scholar Noel Polk connects their work, puts it in context, and offers assessment and appreciation of their achievements.

Contents:

Caricature of William Faulkner 18

Postcard from Hollywood, 1943 20

Meeting Faulkner, 1949 21

Review of Intruder in the Dust, 1949 23

Letter in Defense of Faulkner, 1949 28

Faulkner's "The Bear," 1949 32

Presentation Speech: The Gold Medal for Fiction, 1962 39

Memorial Tribute: Author Gave Life to Fictional County, 1962 43

Keynote Speech: Southern Literary Festival, 1965 45

On Faulknerian Time, 1965 57

Review of Selected Letters of William Faulkner, 1977 63

Speech in Celebration of the William Faulkner Postal Stamp, 1987 72

Afterword: Welty and Faulkner and the Southern Literary Tradition / Noel Polk 75.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

1578065704

OCLC:

52031432