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The Design and Meaning of Absalom! Absalom!

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ilse Dusoir Lind
Ilse Dusoir Lind*
Affiliation:
New York University, New York 3, N.Y.
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Extract

Absalom! Absalom! is a unique fictional experiment—unique in relation to Faulkner's other novels and to modern fiction generally. Indeed, it is not too much to claim that in point of technique it constitutes the last radical innovation in fictional method since Joyce. A “difficult” work, its difficulties do not inhere in verbal subtleties or in excessive refinement of perception, but in the strain imposed upon attention and sensibility in comprehending its monumental design.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 70 , Issue 5 , December 1955 , pp. 887 - 912
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

page 890 note 1 Eugene O'Neill, S years earlier, had discussed the possibility of using “one of the old legend plots of Greek tragedy as the basis for a modern psychological drama” in which he hoped to “achieve a modern psychological approximation of the Greek sense of fate which would seem credible to a present-day audience and at the same time prove emotionally affecting.” Introd. to Mourning Becomes Eleclra, Wilderness Ed. (New York, 1934), ii, xiii.

page 890 note 2 William Flint, Jr., The Use of Myths to Create Suspense in Extant Greek Tragedy (Concord, N. H., 1922), p. 6.

page 890 note 3 Mosquitoes (New York, 1927), p. 340.