Annotated Bibliography

William Faulkner’s Writing Style

11/13/03

Lucy Bruenderman

Bleikasten, André.  William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, A Critical Casebook. 

New York: Garland Publishing, 1982.

Bleikasten discusses in his book Faulkner’s original style he used when writing The Sound and the Fury.  Bleikasten uses examples such as the language Faulkner used when writing his character Benjy, and examples of the different types of communication used by Faulkner’s characters in the novel, as examples of his specific style.  Bleikasten provides scholarly essays focusing specific traits of Faulkner’s writing within the book, such as:  The Comic Structure of The Sound and the Fury by Fred Chappel, Form and Fulfillment in The Sound and the Fury by Beverly Gross, The Rhetoric of Communication: Voice in The Sound and the Fury by Margaret Blanchard, A Rhetoric for Benjy by L. Moffitt Cecil, and The Composition of The Sound and the Fury by Gail M. Morrison.  Along with these essays Bleikasten also provides the reader/researcher interviews with Faulkner discussing his writing style as well as content.                                                                                                       

Claridge, Henry, ed.  William Faulkner, Critical Assessments, Volume I.  The Banks,

Mountfield: Helm Information Ltd, 1999.

This is another collection of critical analysis of Faulkner’s works.  This book is only the first volume in a series of four.  The first one focuses on the general perspectives of Faulkner’s works and contains memories, interviews, and “contemporary critical opinion.”  The book also contains a history of Faulkner’s life, some short stories, magazine articles, and interviews and letters written by Faulkner.  Some of the critiques discuss Faulkner’s rhetoric, his use of humor, the importance of his imagery, and the point of view in his novels, its positive and negative effects. 

Delville, Michael.  “Alienating Language and Darl’s Narrative Consciousness in

Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.”  The Southern Literary Journal 27  (1994) :  61-73.

This article has a strong focus on Faulkner’s use of language in his novel As I Lay Dying.  It describes Faulkner’s words as an experience for the reader saying that there is  “language in experience and experience in language.”  The article says that Faulkner uses specific language to help the reader to understand, and have more of an appreciation for the characters’ situations and conflicts.  But this article does state that some of Faulkner’s words are out of place, stating that he uses some language that is “incompatible with their [the characters’] social strata.”

Hahn, Stephen, and Robert W. Hamblin.  Teaching Faulkner, Approaches and

Methods.  Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.

            This book is a collection of critiques of Faulkner’s works and his writing style, meant to be used when teaching Faulkner in the classroom.  Its articles are meant to help teachers as well as their students to better understand Faulkner and to dissect his works.  One of the articles titles is “Words that Don’t Fit” : As I Lay Dying and Graciliano Ramos’s Barren Lives, by Catarina Edinger.  This article compare sand contrasts Faulkner to Ramos.  Both writers write from the standpoint of a particular demographic, and the article discusses their use of language, and voice, as well as the experience of teaching the two styles in the classroom.  There are eighteen other articles in this book that discuss different ways of teaching Faulkner and the importance of reading Faulkner  in schools.

Martin, Robert A.  “The Words of The Sound and the Fury.”  The Southern Literary

Journal 32  (1999) : 46-48.

This article discusses Faulkner’s original style in the Sound and the Fury.  It talks about his stylistic arrangements in the novel along with his the sentences, images and chapters. Also, it discusses the significance of the order of events with in the story, and Faulkner’s   “rearrangement of time.”  Faulkner’s use of different voices and his ability to switch from each character is also critiqued, as well as Faulkner’s symbolic overuse of words as an indicator of certain characters, such the word fire relating to his character, Benjy. 

Moritmer, Gail, L.  Faulkner’s Rhetoric of Loss A Study in Perception and Meaning. 

Austin: U of Texas Press, 1983.

This book argues that Faulkner’s style is the key element that shapes and illustrates his characters’ experiences, as well as the collective human experience.  In the introduction of the book the author states that “My book is an attempt to draw connections among various rhetorical choices that Faulkner makes- choices that we refer collectively and recognize instinctively as his style-and to show how these choices reflect Faulkner’s unique ways of organizing experience.”  She also discusses Faulkner’s use of his “detached [third person] narrators,” stating that they also influence how the books are read.  This book mostly discusses Faulkner’s use of voice and language, and the strong effect each has on the readers’ interpretation of the novels.

Stoicheff, Peter.  “Between originality and Indebtedness: Allegories of Authorship in

William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.”  Modern Language Quarterly  53 (1992): 449-63.

Within this article Faulkner’s style in The Sound and the Fury is described as being a novel that would “heavily influence Faulkner’s later works.”  This article talks about Faulkner’s use of imagery and symbolism, as well as the different voices of Faulkner’s characters.  It discusses Faulkner’s ability to separate his own voice from the voice of his characters.  But the article does have an interesting critique of Faulkner’s style, calling is somewhat original, it believes that Faulkner is an innovative wrier, but makes the comment, “Another is the novel’s presentation of the writer’s attempt to negotiate between originality and influence, between a vision of himself a unique creator uninhibited by the dominant literary texts that have preceded him and as a derivate inheritor incapable of moving beyond them.”  This article causes the reader to think more complexly about Faulkner’s writing style.

Watson, James G. William Faulkner Self Presentation and Performance.  Austin: U

Of Texas Press, 2000.

This book gives the reader a history of Faulkner’s life, describing it in words, along with photographs and illustrations.  The book isn’t as informative on describing Faulkner’s writing style, as much as it gives the reader a history of why he wrote the way that he did.  In the beginning chapter, however, it describes his uses of narration in some of his novels, especially the importance of third person narration in The Sound and the Fury.  This book is an essential tool used to help the reader to better understand Faulkner and his writing style.