William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: A CasebookFred Hobson Absalom, Absalom! has long been seen as one of William Faulkner's supreme creations, as well as one of the leading American novels of the twentieth century. In this collection Fred Hobson has brought together eight of the most stimulating essays on Absalom, essays written over a thirty-year span which approach the novel both formally and historically. Here are critical responses by Cleanth Brooks, John Irwin, Thadious Davis, and Eric Sundquist, as well as four essays published in the last decade. The casebook concludes with Faulkner's own remarks on the novel, delivered in a discussion with students at the University of Virginia. What emerges from all the selections is a rich and suggestive treatment of a work which Faulkner himself called "the best novel yet written by an American" and a less biased critic has called "the greatest American novel of the century... joining Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn at the pinnacle of American fiction." |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 58
Page 4
... narrative complexity (The Sound and the Fury shares these, after all) but also because of its keen historical sense. Absalom is the Faulkner novel that (along with Go Down, Moses) deals most centrally with what C. Vann Woodward called ...
... narrative complexity (The Sound and the Fury shares these, after all) but also because of its keen historical sense. Absalom is the Faulkner novel that (along with Go Down, Moses) deals most centrally with what C. Vann Woodward called ...
Page 7
... narrative complexity of the work, the multiple tellers of what is, among other things, a great detective story. Such richness explains why Absalom has attracted the attention of literally hundreds of critics and scholars in the past ...
... narrative complexity of the work, the multiple tellers of what is, among other things, a great detective story. Such richness explains why Absalom has attracted the attention of literally hundreds of critics and scholars in the past ...
Page 9
... narrative technique, particularly Quentin's and Shreve's roles in telling the story. Absalom, Absalom! is a “wonderful detective story,” Brooks writes, and most of all, the novel is “a persuasive commentary upon the thesis that much of ...
... narrative technique, particularly Quentin's and Shreve's roles in telling the story. Absalom, Absalom! is a “wonderful detective story,” Brooks writes, and most of all, the novel is “a persuasive commentary upon the thesis that much of ...
Page 11
... narrative authority; he, Quentin's grandfather, Sutpen, Shreve, and Quentin himself speak “the grand narrative of white patriarchy.” They all, quite literally, speak the same language, and they judge Rosa's narrative “illegitimate ...
... narrative authority; he, Quentin's grandfather, Sutpen, Shreve, and Quentin himself speak “the grand narrative of white patriarchy.” They all, quite literally, speak the same language, and they judge Rosa's narrative “illegitimate ...
Page 13
... narrative technique, the figures of Sutpen and Quentin, and several other subjects—is that the author himself, viewing his novel nearly a quarter century after he wrote it, seems to be another interested but at times confused reader of ...
... narrative technique, the figures of Sutpen and Quentin, and several other subjects—is that the author himself, viewing his novel nearly a quarter century after he wrote it, seems to be another interested but at times confused reader of ...
Contents
3 | |
17 | |
Repetition and Revenge | 47 |
Reading the Negro in Absalom Absalom | 69 |
Absalom Absalom and the House Divided | 107 |
The Silencing of Rosa Coldfield | 151 |
Sutpens Design | 189 |
Nationalism and the Color Line in Absalom Absalom | 219 |
Reading Unreadable Revolutions | 251 |
Remarks on Absalom Absalom | 283 |
Suggested Reading | 293 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Absalom American attempt authority become believe blood body Bon’s brother called castration character Charles Bon child Clytie Coldfield complete Compson construction course create creole critics cultural desire difference door dynasty existence face fact father Faulkner fear female figure finally Henry human imaginative incest innocence Judith killed labor less living looking madness male marriage master meaning mind miscegenation Miss Rosa Mississippi narrative narrators nature Negro never nigger novel once original past plantation possible presence Quentin question race racial reader relation represents revenge rhetoric Rosa’s scene seems sense Shreve sister slave slavery social Sound South southern speaks story suggests Sutpen Sutpen’s design Sutpen’s Hundred tell thing Thomas turn University Press voice wanted wife woman women writes York