William Faulkner And His Novels

William Faulkner (1897----1962), a ffobef Prize winner, is oneof the greatest modern writers of the twentieth century in America. Atthe same time, he is adrnittedly a represelltative of "SouthernLiterature," a literary group formed in the l920s. Faulkner not onlyprobes into the root of the destruction of Southern America, but alsoexplores the spintual crisis of the southerners and modern man. Hisexperiments --- in persPective or point of view, in handling time, andin revealing characters etc.---- have generated more and more criticalresponse. FaulAner'S international reputation received a significantboost since he won the Nobel Prize in 1949. It is estimated that thenumber of monographs, reviews, essays and dissertations onWilliam Fauhaer published in America since the l980s is next onlyto Stratford's William Shakespeare.OUside the Sollth and the United States, Faulkner's work andcareer first captured the attention of Europe. Early in the l930s, whenAmerican critics were not sure how to evaluate him, Jean-Paul Sartrehad already highly praised Faulkner. In a letter to Malc0lm Crowley,Sartre wrote, ',Pour les jeunes en France, FaulAner c'eSt na dieu."("For the youth of France, Faulkner is a God.") And it was due tQRichard Hughes that Faulkner was initially introduced into Britainand was considered as a sophisticated novelist there. While visitingthe United States in l9an, he read copies of Solders' Pty andthequitoes, and the galley-proofS for The Sound and the Anrysupplied by the publisher. Once home, he encouraged his ownpublisher to issue The SOund and the Fury for which he wrote anintroduction labeling Faulkner as "the most interesting novelist inAmerica," and paying tribute to his whting techniques. In Italy,some young writers started to imitate Faulkner after World War II. Inthe l950S. Faulkner went to Japan to offer lectures and set off aheated upsurge of Faulkner study. In the l960s, scholars in thefOrmer Soyiet Union and eastem EuroPe too quickened their steps ofthe tTanslation and interpretation of his works. What's more, Faulknerhas an even more profOund influence on the writers of Latin Ainerica.Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia claimed that he learned a lotfrom Faulkner f the creation of a fictional community to serve as amicrocosm of an entire society, as well as his experiments withsentence structure, the fragmentation of time, and multiple narrators.It is indeed argUable that his l967 masterPiece One Hundred Years OfSolitude could not have been possible withollt FaulAner's tiction toserve as inspiration and master instruction. That is why GarciaMarquez later stated, "FaulAner is fOtind in all the fiction of LatinAnerica. It@Since so much attention has been paid to Faulkner and hisfiction outside China, and Chinese scholars definitely did not ignoreFaulkner. Chinese scholars' introduction of Faulkner can be tracedback to the l930s. Faulkner scholarship, in my opinion, may bedivided into four stagest the initial stage, the developmental stage, themature stage, and the prosperous stage.The initial stage is from l934 to l936. It was Mr. Zhao Jiabiwho published the first review on Faulkner in l934. Thedevelopmental stage is from l958 to l962, during which two ofFaulkner's short stories ----- "Victory" and tf Death Drag" ----- weretranslated into Chinese. The mature stage began in l979 and ended inl99l. After continuous research, noticeable accomplishInents havebeen made on Faulkner stUdy. The first monograph on Faulkner ACollection of Critical Essay, edited by Li Wen jun, was published inl980; Faulkner'S masterpiece The Sound and the Fury translatedalso by Li Wen jun, appeared in l984, A Collection of Fautheer'sShort Stories was published in l985, about tbrty articles, essays ofFaulAner appeared on different joumals during this Period. FaulAnerscholarship entered the prosperous stage from l992, and got theclimax in 1997, dd...