William-Faulkner.ppt2.ppt

1、William Faulkner(1897-1962),I. Biography II. Literary works III. Literary contribution,I. Biography,1. Birth: in New Albany, Mississippi, on Sept. 25, 1897 and the family soon moved to Oxford, the setting used in his Sartoris 2. Prestigious family history: Great-grandfather: a local legend for nothi

2、ng to prosperity Colonel William C. Falkner (老上校), serving the Civil War and a famous writer and once elected to the legislative and was shot by a political rival in 1889; Grandfather: ran a family railroad; Father: once a hardware store owner in Oxford turned out the business manager of the Univers

3、ity of Mississippi at the close of WWI.,3. Education 1) Attending 2 years of high school in Oxford, where trying hands at writing; 2) Feeling tired of the traditional teaching he dropped out in 1915, and read widely in his grandfathers library; 3) Phil Stone, a close friend helped him reading in his

4、 family library, enriching himself with extensive knowledge in the ancient classics, the poems of Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot and French novelists such as Balzac and French symbolist poets;,7. Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 “因为他对当代美国小说做出了强有力的和艺术上无与伦比的贡献” 8. A writer in res

5、idence at the University of Virginia and participating international activities; 9. Death from a heart attack on July, 6, 1962,II. Literary works,Producing 18 novels and 3 volumes of short stories in his life closely linked with the Deep South A. Three literary stages: 1. 1924-1929: a. A book of poe

6、ms: The Marble Faun (1924) 大理石牧神 b. First novel, falling under the “Lost Generation” Soldiers Pay 军饷(1926),C. Second novel: Mosquitoes 蚊群 (1927) d. Sartoris 沙多里斯(1929) 2. 1930-1942: a. The Sound and the Fury 喧哗与骚动 (1929 finished) : - His most difficult one among his novels; - portraying the Compson

7、family through the inner worlds of the three brothers and giving a symbolic picture of the decay of the Southern class and the evanescence (disappearance) of the Southern traditional ethics,b. As I Lay Dying 我弥留之际 (1930): - The twists and turns of the Bundrens (本德伦) , a poor white family; - Composed

8、 of 59 subjective monologues in the perspective of 15 narrators of the same story, namely, the long journey of Jefferson to their mother in their family tombs; - Employing the Stream of Consciousness;,c. Light in August 八月之光 (1932) d. Absalom, Absalom 押沙龙！押沙龙！ (1936) e. The Hamlet 小村 (1940) f. Go Do

9、wn, Moses 下去，摩西 (1942),3. 1942-1959: The Town 小镇 (1957) The Mansion 大宅 (1959) B. Categories of his novels: 1. Yoknapatawpha series (约克纳帕塔法系列小说) ：a long loosely constructed Yoknapatawpha saga Yoknapatawpha County: the imaginary Southern place for Lafayette County in northern Mississippi, the capital

10、Jefferson for Oxford, where the author lived,They include: a. Sartoris b. The Sound and the Fury c. Absalom, Absalom d. Go Down, Moses 2. The Snopes Trilogy (斯诺普斯三部曲): The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion,The Absalom story in Bible,flourished c. 1020 BC, Palestine) In ancient Israel, the third and most beloved son of David. He killed his half brother Amnon as revenge for the latters rape of Tamar, Absaloms sister, and was banished from the kingdom for a time. He later raised a rebellion against his father, capturing Jerusalem but meeting defeat in the fores