Faulkner and Postmodernism (Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha by John N. Duvall

because the Sixties, William Faulkner, Mississippi's most famed writer, has been famous as a significant determine of foreign modernism. yet may possibly Faulkner's fiction be understood relating to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in addition to James Joyce's Ulysses?

In 11 essays from the 1999 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha convention, held on the college of Mississippi, Faulkner and Postmodernism examines William Faulkner and his fiction in gentle of postmodern literature, tradition, and idea. the quantity explores the diversity of how Faulkner's artwork can be utilized to degree similarities and alterations among modernism and postmodernism.

Essays within the assortment fall into 3 different types: those who use Faulkner's novels to be able to mark a interval contrast among modernism and postmodernism, those who see postmodern trends in Faulkner's fiction, and people who learn Faulkner during the lens of postmodern theory's modern legacy, the sector of cultural reviews.

in an effort to make their specific arguments, essays within the assortment evaluate Faulkner to extra modern novelists comparable to Ralph Ellison, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, Walker Percy, Richard Ford, Toni Morrison, and Kathy Acker. yet now not all the comparisons are to excessive tradition artists, due to the fact that even Elvis Presley turns into Faulkner's foil in a single of the essays.

numerous theoretical views body the paintings during this quantity, from Fredric Jameson's pessimistic experience of postmodernism's percentages to Linda Hutcheon's conviction that cultural critique can proceed in postmodernism via cutting edge new varieties comparable to metafiction. regardless of the various theoretical premises and targeted conclusions of the person authors of those essays, Faulkner and Postmodernism proves once more that during the major debates surrounding twentieth-century fiction, Faulkner is a vital determine.

John N. Duvall, an affiliate professor of English at Purdue collage, is the editor of Modern Fiction Studies.

Ann J. Abadie is affiliate director of the guts for the research of Southern tradition on the college of Mississippi.