The saddest words : William Faulkner's Civil War / Michael Gorra.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gorra, Michael Edward, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Faulkner, William.

Faulkner, William, 1897-1962--Characters--African Americans.

Faulkner, William, 1897-1962.

African Americans in literature.

Race relations in literature.

African Americans.

Criticism and interpretation.

Southern States--In literature.

Southern States.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Literature and the war.

United States.

History.

Yoknapatawpha County (Imaginary place).

Literature.

War and literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

x, 433 pages : maps ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2020]

Summary:

"How do we read William Faulkner in the twenty-first century? asks Michael Gorra, one of America's most preeminent literary critics. Should we still read William Faulkner in this new century? What can his works tell us about the legacy of slavery and the Civil War, that central quarrel in our nation's history? These are the provocative questions that Michael Gorra asks in this historic portrait of the novelist and his world. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such iconic novels as Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha County the richest gallery of characters in American fiction, his achievements culminating in the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. But given his works' echo of "Lost Cause" romanticism, his depiction of black characters and black speech, and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South, Faulkner demands a sobering reevaluation. Interweaving biography, absorbing literary criticism, and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words recontextualizes Faulkner, revealing a civil war within him, while examining the most plangent cultural issues facing American literature today"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: One. Gettysburg, At Not Yet Two

pt. ONE TWICE-TOLD TALES

Two. Old Man Falls

Three. The Family And The Town

Four. Postage Stamps

Five. Inventing Yoknapatawpha

pt. TWO YOKNAPATAWPHA's WAR

Six. The Precipice

Seven. The Real War

Eight. Freedom

Nine. The Stillness

pt. THREE DARK HOUSE

Ten. The Shooting At The Gates

Eleven. A Legacy

Twelve. A New South

Thirteen. The Saddest Words

Fourteen. The Human Heart Against Itself.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [381]-407) and index.

ISBN:

9781631491702

1631491709

OCLC:

1120089363