Reading Faulkner: Introductions to the First Thirteen Novels

by Richard Marius, Nancy Grisham Anderson (Editor)

Reading Introductions to the First Thirteen Novels is a collection of lectures by Harvard University professor and nationally known novelist and biographer Richard Marius. Marius had been charged with the task of teaching an introductory course on Faulkner to undergraduates in 1996 and 1997. Combining his love of Faulkner's writing with his own experiences as an author and teacher, Marius produced a series of delightful lectures-which stand on their own as sparkling, well-rounded essays-that help beginning students in understanding the sometimes difficult work of this celebrated literary master.An expository treatment of Faulkner's major works, Reading Faulkner comprises essays that are arranged in roughly chronological order, corresponding to Faulkner's development as a writer. In a way sure to captivate the imagination of a new reader of Faulkner, Marius explicates themes in Faulkner's work, and he sheds light on the larger social history that marked Faulkner's literary production.In addition, Marius is a southerner who grew up a couple of generations after Faulkner and, like Faulkner, turned his own world into the setting for his fiction. This unique perspective, combined with Marius's thorough readings of the novels, grounded in basic Faulkner criticism, provides an engaging and accessible self-guided tour through Faulkner's career.Reading Faulkner is perfect for students from high school through the undergraduate level and will be enjoyed by general readers as well.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2005

About the author

Richard Curry Marius was an American academic and writer.

He was a scholar of the Reformation, novelist of the American South, speechwriter, and teacher of writing and English literature at Harvard University. He was widely published, leaving behind major biographies of Thomas More and Martin Luther, four novels set in his native Tennessee, several books on writing, and a host of scholarly articles for academic journals and mainstream book reviews.

Marius was known as a raconteur and political activist.

Reviews

[Michael Canoeist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southern writer Richard Marius was assigned by Harvard to teach Faulkner, much to his disappointment -- I think he wanted to teach English poetry or French philosophy or something. This book consists of his lectures on each of the first 13 novels, through Go Down, Moses; plus two or three more on major recurring topics such as race and mythology. They are terrific ruminations and discussions on each book. He has his own particular points of view on some subjects, from modernism to religion, and that does affect his "reviews" of the novels. But he is respectful, even of the worst (like Mosquitoes and Sanctuary) and he managed to make me want to reread Pylon, usually considered another stinker. He only taught the course a couple years, but it became extremely popular, and it is quite evident why. His look at what he thought Faulkner was doing is insightful and generous and Marius is not afraid to say when he doesn't have a clue about a motivation or a meaning. A great way to revisit and refresh yourself on the single greatest oeuvre in American literature.