123 Faulkner, William
(William Falkner)
(1897–1962) novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter
One of the great American writers of the 20th cen-tury, William Faulkner concentrated in his writing on his own region, the Deep South. Most of his novels are set in Yoknapatawpha County, an imag-inary area in Mississippi with a colorful history and a richly varied population. The county is a micro-cosm of the South as a whole, and Faulkner’s nov-els examine the effects of the dissolution of traditional values and authority on all levels of southern society. His themes centered on racism, class divisions, and family. He described the South through families who often reappeared from novel to novel. These reappearing characters usually grow older and cannot cope with social change.
The reclusive Faulkner won the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize and was best known for his nov-els The Sound and the Fury (1929), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936). He also published several volumes of short stories, collec-tions of essays, and poems.
William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, to Murray Falkner (William Faulkner added the “u” to his last name) and Maud (Butler) Falkner. His great-grand-father was a plantation owner, a colonel in the Confederate army, a railroad builder, and an author.
William Faulkner’s father moved from job to job before becoming the business manager of the
University of Mississippi in Oxford. Faulkner began to write poetry as a teenager and dropped out of school in the 10th grade. During World War I, he
The famous southern writer William Faulkner created the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, as the setting for most of his novels. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection [LC-USZ62-117954])
was rejected by the U.S. Air Force because he was too short, so he enlisted in the Canadian air force.
He did not see combat. Faulkner was accepted to the University of Mississippi and wrote stories and poems as well as drew cartoons for school publica-tions. He quickly earned a reputation as an eccen-tric. His swanky dress and inability to hold down a job earned him the nickname “Count No ’count.”
His first book of poetry, The Marble Faun (1924), was critically panned and sold poorly.
Faulkner left the university in 1920 without a degree and moved to New York City, where he worked as a clerk in a bookstore. Then he returned to Oxford, where he supported himself as a post-master at the university. He was fired for reading on the job. Faulkner drifted to New Orleans, where he intended on boarding a ship for Europe. Instead, he met novelist and short story writer SHERWOOD ANDERSON, who encouraged Faulkner to write fic-tion rather than poetry. Faulkner stayed in New Orleans and finished his first novel, Soldier’s Pay (1926), in six weeks. It was critically accepted but sold few copies. Faulkner eventually did travel to Europe, visiting Italy, Switzerland, France, and England, but quickly returned to Oxford to write.
In 1929, Faulkner married Estelle Oldham Franklin, his childhood sweetheart. They had one daughter, Jill. He also purchased a traditional southern pillared house in Oxford, which he named Rowan Oak, and gained a reputation as a reclusive curmudgeon. None of his next four novels, Mosquitoes (1927), Sartoris (1929), The Sound and the Fury, and As I Lay Dying (1930), sold well. After Sanctuary (1931), a scandalously lurid potboiler, was published, Faulkner’s work began to sell, and even magazines that had rejected his stories in the past clamored to publish them.
One of Faulkner’s primary themes was the abuse of blacks by southern whites and his novels are peppered with violent and sordid events. His writing diverged from that of his realistic contem-poraries such as ERNEST HEMINGWAY. Faulkner mas-tered a rhetorical, highly symbolic style and frequently used convoluted time sequences and stream of consciousness. He often forced the read-er to piece togethread-er events from a seemingly ran-dom and fragmentary series of impressions experienced by a variety of narrators. His narrative
style varies from traditional storytelling (Light in August) to a series of snapshots (As I Lay Dying) or collage (The Sound and the Fury). The distortion of time through the use of the inner monologue is used particularly successfully in The Sound and the Fury; the downfall of the Compson family is seen through the minds of several characters. Faulkner’s strength at stream-of-consciousness writing has been especially noted in this book’s first chapter, which displays the point of view of a mentally chal-lenged narrator. The novel Sanctuary is about the degeneration of Temple Drake, a young girl from a distinguished southern family. Its sequel, Requiem for a Nun (1951), written partly as a drama, cen-tered on the courtroom trial of an African-American woman who had once been a party to Temple Drake’s debauchery. In Light in August, prejudice is shown to be most destructive when it is internalized. The theme of racial prejudice is brought up again in Absalom, Absalom!, which is generally considered to be Faulkner’s masterpiece.
It records a range of voices in a story about a young man who is rejected by his father and brother because of his mixed racial heritage. Faulkner’s most outspoken moral evaluation of the relation-ship and the problems between blacks and whites is to be found in Intruder in the Dust (1948). The Reivers (1962), a nostalgic comedy of boyhood, was his last novel and had many similarities to MARK TWAIN’s Huckleberry Finn.
By 1945, when Faulkner’s novels were out of print, he moved to Hollywood to write, under con-tract, movie scripts. Faulkner cowrote screenplays to earn money, including To Have and Have Not (1944), based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel, and The Big Sleep (1946), based on RAYMOND CHAN
-DLER’s novel. “Sometimes I think if I do one more treatment or screenplay, I’ll lose whatever power I have as a writer,” he once said. Faulkner’s second period of success started in 1946 with the publica-tion of The Portable Faulkner, which rescued him from near oblivion. However, his health was seri-ously debilitated by hard drinking, and his wife’s drug addiction and declining health further shad-owed his life. “I will always believe that my first responsibility is to the artist, the work,” he wrote in a letter. “It is terrible that my wife does not realize or at least accept that.” Faulkner had a series of affairs 124 Faulkner, William
over the years, including one with Meta Dougherty Carpenter, which lasted for 15 years. Faulkner did not become famous until he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1949. After this award, Faulkner became a public figure and he accepted an invitation by the U.S. State Department to go on goodwill tours throughout the world.
He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for A Fable, the National Book Award for fiction, and the Gold Medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In the latter part of the 1950s, he spent some time away from Oxford, including spending a year as a writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia. He returned to Oxford in 1962 and, after his third fall from a horse in as many years, died of a heart attack on July 6, 1962.
He was 64 years old.
Further Reading
Baker, Charles. William Faulkner’s Postcolonial South. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
Brooks, Cleanth. William Faulkner: First Encounters. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
Chabrier, Gwendolyn. Faulkner’s Families: A Southern Saga. New York: Gordian Press, 1993.
Fowler, Doreen. Faulkner: The Return of the Repressed.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997.
Watson, James G.William Faulkner: Self-Presentation and Performance. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (1919– ) poet
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was known as a poet and a businessman who supported the work of poets in San Francisco during the years of the Beat scene. As the owner of City Lights Bookstore, he created a forum for himself and other struggling writers and was a central figure in nurturing the cultural renaissance of San Francisco. His poetry was written to be accessi-ble and often reflected social and political issues of importance to him. While several of his poems con-tained the “outsider” view of society espoused by the Beats, they also reflected hope for a better future.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born on March 24, 1919, in Yonkers, New York. He spent his first years
of life in France, living with relatives after his moth-er had been committed to an insane asylum shortly after his birth. He returned to the United States at age five and attended boarding school. After com-pleting high school, he enrolled at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was influ-enced by the works of ERNEST HEMINGWAY,WILLIAM FAULKNER, and THOMAS WOLFE.
During World War II, Ferlinghetti was a lieu-tenant commander in the navy. He took part in the invasion of Normandy. He was called to Nagasaki six weeks after the atom bomb was dropped and witnessed firsthand the carnage and devastation.
His time in Japan would influence his pacifist lean-ings in later years. He left the military and, with help from the G.I. Bill, earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1947. He returned to France, enrolled at the Sorbonne, and received his Ph.D.
In 1951, he married Selden Kirby-Smith. The couple eventually had two children, Julie and Lorenzo. He and his family settled in San Francisco, where Ferlinghetti met Peter Martin, and together they published City Lights, a magazine committed to publishing the works of cutting-edge writers exam-ining social and political issues. As a side venture, the men decided to open City Lights Bookstore, the only bookstore specializing in paperbacks in 1953.
The City Lights Bookstore became a haven for the city’s avant-garde poets and writers, and brought to the city a cultural élan. The famous Beat poetry readings, which launched the careers of ALLEN GINS
-BERG,WILLIAM S.BURROUGHS, and, indirectly, JACK KEROUAC, were performed at City Lights.
During the 1950s, Ferlinghetti published the Pocket Poets series, small volumes of poetry meant to introduce readers to a wider world of ideas. He ran into legal trouble after publishing Allen Ginsberg’s long poem Howl, and was ordered to trial on obscenity charges. Prominent novelists, critics, and other literary types supported his innocence and he was eventually acquitted. The verdict marked a victory over those who would deny the protection of the First Amendment to the boundary-pushing Beats.
Ferlinghetti authored more than 30 books of poetry, including A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) and The Secret Meaning of Things (1969).
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence 125
His poetic themes centered around his political ideals as well as the Beat Generation’s view of being on the outside, looking in upon a conformist socie-ty. He stood against literary elitism and his poems employed commonplace words, making them accessible to most readers.
In 1998, Ferlinghetti was named the first poet laureate of San Francisco. During this time, he sug-gested the development of a newspaper column devoted to news in poetry, and shortly after, began writing the “Poetry as News” column for the San Francisco Chronicle. His concern that technology would turn people inward, away from a community of ideas, prompted him to develop the City Lights Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funded programs supporting the literary arts and its diver-sity of voices.
In 2000, he became the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle. He has remained politically active in San Francisco, speaking out about the city’s gentrifica-tion and daring its people to retain the free-minded cultural atmosphere that made San Francisco special. Although divorced from his wife of 20 years, Ferlinghetti still lives near City Lights, which continues to operate as a bookstore.
Further Reading
Cherkovski, Neeli. Ferlinghetti: A Biography. New York:
Doubleday, 1979.
Infante, Victor. “The Beat Goes On: Lawrence Ferlinghetti Is Still a Rebel.” About.com. Available online. URL: http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/
aa060600a.htm. Downloaded June 6, 2003.
Silesky, Barry. Ferlinghetti, the Artist in His Time. New York: Warner Books, 1990.
Smith, Larry. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poet-at-Large.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
(Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald)
(1896–1940) novelist, short story writer, essayist, screenwriter
F. Scott Fitzgerald became as famous for his person-al life as he eventuperson-ally did for his novels. He and his
wife, Zelda Sayre, came to epitomize the boom of the 1920s and the depression of the 1930s as Fitzgerald descended into alcoholism and Zelda into madness. Among Fitzgerald’s constant themes were youth, nostalgia, and aspiration. Although he considered himself to be a failure toward the end of his short life, The Great Gatsby (1925) came to define the classic American novel. Fitzgerald nur-tured a cult of doomed youth, whereby to be young, rich, and beautiful was to be most fully alive, and to be old was nothing. He conveyed, as the critic H.L.
MENCKEN put it, something of the “inexplicable tragedy of being alive.”
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896, to Edward and Mary (Mollie) McQuillan. Fitzgerald was the namesake and second cousin three times removed of Francis Scott Key, the author of the U.S. national anthem. His father was from Maryland, with an allegiance to the old South and its values. Fitzgerald’s mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in Saint Paul. Edward Fitzgerald failed as a manufacturer of wicker furniture in Saint Paul, and he became a salesman for Procter and Gamble in upstate New York. After he was dismissed, the family returned to Saint Paul and lived comfortably on Mollie Fitzgerald’s inheri-tance. Fitzgerald began writing stories while attending the Saint Paul Academy. He later attended a Catholic preparatory school and was accepted at Princeton University. While he was there, Fitzgerald’s literary apprenticeship took precedence over his studies. He wrote scripts and lyrics for the Princeton Triangle Club musicals and was a contributor to the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and the Nassau Literary Magazine. He quit Princeton to join the army in 1917 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry.
Convinced that he would die in the war, he rapid-ly wrote a novel, The Romantic Egoist. Publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons rejected the novel but praised its originality and asked for a revision.
That was rejected as well.
While stationed near Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald fell in love with a vivacious and some-times reckless belle, 18-year-old Zelda Sayre, the youngest daughter of an Alabama judge. The war 126 Fitzgerald, F. Scott
ended just before Fitzgerald was to be sent overseas.
He went to New York City in 1919 to seek his for-tune in the advertising business so he could marry Zelda, but she broke off their engagement because she was unwilling to wait for his success and unwill-ing to live on his small salary.
Fitzgerald’s first novel, revised and renamed as This Side of Paradise (1920), was finally accepted by Scribners. Zelda agreed to marry Fitzgerald a week later. Set mainly at Princeton, the novel deals with the post–World War I generation and their disillu-sioned lives. This Side of Paradise made the 24-year-old Fitzgerald famous almost overnight. He then began writing stories for mass-circulation maga-zines, mainly to earn money. The Saturday Evening Post became Fitzgerald’s best story market, and he was regarded as a “Post writer.” His early commer-cial stories about young love introduced a fresh
character: the independent, determined young American woman who appeared in “The Offshore Pirate” and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” Fitzgerald’s more ambitious stories, such as “May Day” and
“The Diamond As Big As the Ritz,” were published in The Smart Set, which had a small circulation.
Meanwhile, the Fitzgeralds embarked on an extravagant life as young celebrities and he felt as though “life would never be so sweet again.”
Fitzgerald’s playboy image impeded his effort to establish a serious literary reputation. The couple took an apartment in New York City and Fitzgerald wrote his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), a naturalistic chronicle of the dissipation of Anthony and Gloria Patch. Zelda gave birth to their only child, Frances (Scottie), and the family settled in Great Neck, on New York’s Long Island.
Fitzgerald expected his play The Vegetable to be an enormous success. The political satire, which was subtitled “From President to Postman,” failed at its tryout in 1923. Fitzgerald’s drinking increased.
Although he was an alcoholic he wrote when he was sober. Zelda regularly drank, but she was not an alcoholic. Their frequent arguments, though, were usually triggered by alcohol.
The Fitzgeralds spent the next several years in Europe. The marriage became damaged by Zelda’s involvement with a French naval aviator. In the meantime, Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, which marked a striking advance in his technique, utilizing a complex structure and a controlled nar-rative point of view. Fitzgerald’s achievement received critical praise, but sales of Gatsby were dis-appointing. Stage and movie rights, however, brought additional income. In Paris, Fitzgerald formed a friendship with GERTRUDE STEIN and
ERNEST HEMINGWAY, whom he admired greatly.
Above all, Fitzgerald envied Hemingway’s vigorous worldliness, his swagger and adventurousness. But the relationship later soured as Hemingway’s star rose and Fitzgerald’s began to dim. Hemingway also insulted Fitzgerald in private by referring to him as
“poor old Scott” and mocking his drinking and reliance on Zelda. The Fitzgeralds remained in France until the end of 1926, alternating between Paris and the Riviera. During these years Zelda’s unconventional behavior became increasingly eccentric.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott 127
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote several American classics, including The Great Gatsby, before his early death at the age of 44. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-88103])
The Fitzgeralds returned to the United States and after a short, unsuccessful stint of screenwrit-ing in Hollywood, they moved into a mansion near Wilmington, Delaware. Zelda commenced ballet training, intending to become a professional dancer.
The Fitzgeralds returned to France in 1929, where Zelda’s intense ballet work damaged her health and estranged them. The next year she suffered her first breakdown and was treated at Prangins clinic in Switzerland. Fitzgerald lived in Swiss hotels and worked on short stories to pay for his wife’s psychi-atric treatment. They returned to America and rented a house in Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda suffered a relapse in 1932 and entered Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. While there, she rapidly wrote Save Me the Waltz, an autobiographi-cal novel that generated considerable bitterness between the couple. Fitzgerald regarded it as pre-empting the material that he was using in his novel-in-progress, Tender Is the Night (1934). Although it was his most ambitious novel, it was a commercial failure and its merits were matters of critical dis-pute. Set in France during the 1920s, Tender Is the Night examines the deterioration of Dick Diver, a brilliant American psychiatrist, during the course of his marriage to a wealthy mental patient. For several years Fitzgerald lived near Baltimore and made several failed efforts to write. Zelda remained
The Fitzgeralds returned to France in 1929, where Zelda’s intense ballet work damaged her health and estranged them. The next year she suffered her first breakdown and was treated at Prangins clinic in Switzerland. Fitzgerald lived in Swiss hotels and worked on short stories to pay for his wife’s psychi-atric treatment. They returned to America and rented a house in Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda suffered a relapse in 1932 and entered Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. While there, she rapidly wrote Save Me the Waltz, an autobiographi-cal novel that generated considerable bitterness between the couple. Fitzgerald regarded it as pre-empting the material that he was using in his novel-in-progress, Tender Is the Night (1934). Although it was his most ambitious novel, it was a commercial failure and its merits were matters of critical dis-pute. Set in France during the 1920s, Tender Is the Night examines the deterioration of Dick Diver, a brilliant American psychiatrist, during the course of his marriage to a wealthy mental patient. For several years Fitzgerald lived near Baltimore and made several failed efforts to write. Zelda remained