Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays

20th Century Views

by Robert Penn Warren (Editor)

Contemporary critical opinion and commentary on William Faulkner and his works.

Genres: Essays, Criticism, Literary Criticism

311 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Used to be my Faulkner reference book extraordinaire. I decided to give it a new reading along with Faulkner’s the Sound and the Fury and All the King’s Men

[Suzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any Faulkner fan will want to read this book. Mr. Penn Warren has accumulated essays on the nature of Faulkner and the writing that are so inextricably woven together. The book starts with Robert Penn Warren's brilliant essay given from his point of view as southern man and writer. He, amongst others (like Brooks, Cowley, etc.) try and decypher the undecypherable nature of time and place and culture, all bound and thrown back up at us in Faulkner's work. This book has no value to someone who's not read Faulkner, so don't bother. If one wants a great start--a shot at ingesting Faulkner, read his wonderful editor's attempt to show the world his client, Wm. Faulkner. The book is called "The Portable Faulkner". With Mr. Faulkner's permission and collaboration, Cowley takes the body of F's work and assembles it in chronological order. He removes sections of books, puts in short stuff along with the entire masterpieces, and gives us a much better way to take on Faulkner on first pass. Order it. Get it through Amazon or whatever. THEN, read Penn Warren's wonderful collection of essays that try and discypher the runes of words and clauses and phrases and endless endlessness that he uses to bombard us with enough stuff to stick. it's like using a million birdshot bb's and four of them hit and kill the bird, but oh, my, what a pattern they make as they poof on in through our feathers!!!! Come on. Get with it. Read Faulkner, and then find this Penn Warren book, and Faulkner will come out of the smokey veil to you.

[Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good essays in here. The variety of perspectives and frameworks made this a mixed bag in terms of quality but is ultimately a virtue in such a compilation.

[Marie Geier]

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and until the last syllable of recorded time! I will run toward his confusion!

[Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very articulate, well-researched articles on Faulkner’s style. I especially like the incorporation of Jean Paul Sartre’s commentary as an objective criticism of the literature Faulkner produced as an expression of the American “South”.

[Edmund Kubiak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I owned a copy of this book until I moved. I really hated giving it up but room in the new house was limited, so I left it behind. The entire series was very good.