Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:02:39.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Conclusion

The Stakes of Reading Faulkner - Discerning Reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Philip M. Weinstein
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

As I write, we approach the hundredth anniversary of William Faulkner’s birth, and the turn of a century and a millennium. Considering the advances and promise of this past century, we may look forward to beginning a new era. Seeking lessons from this century’s failures, we may meditate on a period that has been, despite all its real advances, murderous on a scale beyond precedent and perhaps beyond comprehension. This century has witnessed, and continues to witness, the violent destruction of unnumbered millions of people and a ravaging of the earth we're only now beginning to reckon. At this point in a hundred years of awesome accomplishment and promise coupled with sickening destruction, it seems appropriate to ask some questions here about reading a famous literary record of this time.

What’s at stake in reading Faulkner? To whom does it matter? Why does it matter?

Or, why ask why? These questions may seem to be unnecessary or to answer themselves. On the one hand, it is well known that Faukner matters, and has mattered, to many readers. The preceding esssays in this volume testify to, even as they critically examine, Faulkner’s importance for an international reading public.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×