William Faulkner
The Making of a Modernist

by Daniel J. Singal


Amid all that has been published about William Faulkner, one subject--the nature of his thought--remains largely unexplored. But, as Daniel Singal's new intellectual biography reveals, we can learn much about Faulkner's art by relating it to the cultural and intellectual discourse of his era, and much about that era by coming to terms with his art.

Through detailed analyses of individual texts, from the earliest poetry through Go Down, Moses, Singal traces Faulkner's attempt to liberate himself from the repressive Victorian culture in which he was raised by embracing the Modernist culture of the artistic avant-garde. To accommodate the conflicting demands of these two cultures, Singal shows, Faulkner created a complex and fluid structure of selfhood based on a set of dual identities--one, that of a Modernist author writing on the most daring and subversive issues of his day, and the other, that of a southern country gentleman loyal to the conservative mores of his community. Indeed, it is in the clash between these two selves, Singal argues, that one finds the key to making sense of Faulkner.

Daniel J. Singal, author of The War Within: From Victorian to Modernist Thought in the South, is professor of history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

"Written with calm authority." --Kirkus Reviews

"In this book, Dan Singal brings a professional lifetime of researching, thinking, and writing about the intellectual culture of the South to bear on the life and works of William Faulkner. With a sure hand he weaves Faulkner into the tortured efforts of the South to pass from a Victorian to a Modernist order. He offers us a bold and sweeping interpretation. It is carefully wrought, and it is persuasive."--Joel Williamson, author of William Faulkner and Southern History

"A well-written, well-argued, original approach to Faulkner's life and work, revolving around the conflict between the Victorian/Cavalier ideology he inherited and the Modernism he not only chose but helped bring to its supreme manifestation. Singal makes clear the depth and pervasiveness of this tension in Faulkner's fiction as well as his several transformations of it in his 'journey from one sensibility to another.'"--Donald Kartiganer, coeditor of Faulkner and Psychology and Faulkner and the Artist

$37.50 hardcover, $18.95 paperback

   

From the book, here is the contents and list of illustrations.

The University of North Carolina Press
1-800-848-6224

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