Synopses & Reviews
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."
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-301).
About the Author
Fred Hobson is Professor of English and Lineberger Professor of Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. History and the Sense of the Tragic, Cleanth Brooks
2. Repetition and Revenge, John Irwin
3. The Signifying Abstraction: Reading "The Negro" in Absalom, Absalom!, Thadious Davis
4. Absalom, Absalom! and the House Divided, Eric Sundquist
5. The Silencing of Rosa Coldfield, Minrose Gwin
6. Sutpen's Design, Dirk Kuyk, Jr.
7. "The Direction of the Howling": Nationalism and the Color Line in Absalom, Absalom!, Barbara Ladd
8. Absalom, Absalom!, Haiti and Labor History: Reading Unreadable Revolution: Richard Godden
9. Remarks on Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
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