Recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, William Faulkner has long been considered one of America's great modernist writers. From the 1920s through the 1950s, he produced a profound portrait of the Southern mind, expressed in a complex but rich narrative that mastered the stream of consciousness technique. The dividends of sharing a Faulkner novel in a group setting are great. The Sound and the Fury, published in 1929, was his breakthrough work, in which he experimented with literary form and content. The novel will be divided between two sessions: first, the Appendix, which he wrote 20 years after the book’s original publication (shortcutting some of the problems in a "first read") and the "Benjy" and "Quentin" narratives; and, second, the "Jason" and "Dilsey" narratives.
Suggested reading before the course: Preferred version: The Sound and the Fury, a Norton Critical Edition, edited by David Minter, published by Norton. Available at Avid Reader or at Amazon.com.