As I Lay Dying
Published on 19. January 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-0-393-93138-9 (ISBN)
Description
This Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1985 corrected text and is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" is divided into three sections, each of which includes a concise introduction by Michael Gorra that carefully frames the issues presented, with particular attention to As I Lay Dying's place in Faulkner's literary life. "Contemporary Reception" reprints American, English, and French reviews by Clifton Fadiman, Henry Nash Smith, Edwin Muir, and Maurice Coindreau, among others, along with Valery Larbaud's never-before-translated preface to the first French edition of the novel. "The Writer and His Work" examines Faulkner's claim to have written the novel in six weeks without changing a word. It includes his comments on the book's composition along with his later thoughts on and changing opinions of it, sample pages from the manuscript, his Nobel Prize address, and the little-known short story in which he first used the title. "Cultural Context" reprints an essay by Carson McCullers and an excerpt from James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men along with other materials that address questions of Southern Agrarianism and the Southern grotesque.
"Criticism" begins with the editor's introduction to As I Lay Dying's critical history and scholarly reception. Eleven major essays are provided by Olga W. Vickery, Cleanth Brooks, Calvin Bedient, Andre Bleikasten, Eric Sundquist, Stephen M. Ross, Doreen Fowler, Patrick O'Donnell, Richard Gray, John Limon, and Donald M. Kartiganer.
A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" is divided into three sections, each of which includes a concise introduction by Michael Gorra that carefully frames the issues presented, with particular attention to As I Lay Dying's place in Faulkner's literary life. "Contemporary Reception" reprints American, English, and French reviews by Clifton Fadiman, Henry Nash Smith, Edwin Muir, and Maurice Coindreau, among others, along with Valery Larbaud's never-before-translated preface to the first French edition of the novel. "The Writer and His Work" examines Faulkner's claim to have written the novel in six weeks without changing a word. It includes his comments on the book's composition along with his later thoughts on and changing opinions of it, sample pages from the manuscript, his Nobel Prize address, and the little-known short story in which he first used the title. "Cultural Context" reprints an essay by Carson McCullers and an excerpt from James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men along with other materials that address questions of Southern Agrarianism and the Southern grotesque.
"Criticism" begins with the editor's introduction to As I Lay Dying's critical history and scholarly reception. Eleven major essays are provided by Olga W. Vickery, Cleanth Brooks, Calvin Bedient, Andre Bleikasten, Eric Sundquist, Stephen M. Ross, Doreen Fowler, Patrick O'Donnell, Richard Gray, John Limon, and Donald M. Kartiganer.
A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
More details
Series
Edition
Critical edition
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Edition type
Critical edition
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
330 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-93138-9 (9780393931389)
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Schweitzer Classification
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08/2022
2nd Edition
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Persons
William Faulkner (1897-1962) is the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, among other works. These two novels were originally published by Liveright in the 1920s. Michael Gorra is the Mary Augusta Jordan Professor of English at Smith College, where he has taught since 1985. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation and, for his work as a reviewer, of the Balakian Award from the National Book Critics Circle. His books include The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War; Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of on American Masterpiece, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography; The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany; After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie; The English Novel at Mid-Century; and, as editor, The Portable Conrad and the Norton Critical Editions of The Sound and the Fury and The Portrait of a Lady.
Content
Introduction
Note on the Text
The Text of As I Lay Dying
Backgrounds and Contexts
CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION
1. Margaret Cheney Dawson * Beside Addie's Coffin
2. Julia K. W. Baker * Literature and Less
3. Clifton P. Fadiman * Morbidity in Fiction
4. Henry Nash Smith * A Troubled Vision
5. Henry Seidel Canby * The School of Cruelty
6. Maurice-Edgar Coindreau * William Faulkner
7. Valery Larbaud * "Preface" to Tandis que j'agonise
8. Edwin Muir * From New Novels
THE WRITER AND HIS WORK
1. William Faulkner * Adolescence
2. William Faulkner * As I Lay Dying
3. William Faulkner * Introduction to the Modern Library edition of Sanctuary
4. William Faulkner * An Introduction for The Sound and the Fury
5. William Faulkner * Address upon Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature
6. William Faulkner * The Paris Review Interview
7. William Faulkner * Class Conferences at the University of Virginia
8. William Faulkner * Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi [Map]
9. William Faulkner * Sample pages from the manuscript and carbon typescript of As I Lay Dying
CULTURAL CONTEXT
1. Carson McCullers * The Russian Realists and Southern Literature
2. Fred Hobson * Benighted South
3. Andrew Nelson Lytle * The Hind Tit
4. James Agee * The Gudger House
5. Thoms D. Clark * From Pills, Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store
6. C. D. Mitchell, M.D. * Thirty-Sixth Biennial Report of the Mississippi State Insane Hospital, Jackson, Mississippi. From July 1, 1925 to June 30, 1927
CRITICISM
1. Olga W. Vickery * The Dimension of Consciousness
2. Cleanth Brooks * Odyssey of the Bundrens
3. Calvin Bedient * Pride and Nakedness: As I Lay Dying
4. Andre Bleikasten * The Setting
5. Eric Sundquist * Death, Grief, Analogous Form: As I Lay Dying
6. Stephen M. Ross * Mimetic Voice
7. Doreen Fowler * Matricide and the Mother's Revenge: As I Lay Dying
8. Patrick O'Donnell * Between the Family and the State: Nomadism and Authority in As I Lay Dying
9. Richard Gray * A Southern Carnival
10. John Limon * Addie in No Man's Land
11. Donald M. Kartiganer * "By It I Would Stand or Fall": Life and Death in As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner: A Chronology
Selected Bibliography
Note on the Text
The Text of As I Lay Dying
Backgrounds and Contexts
CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION
1. Margaret Cheney Dawson * Beside Addie's Coffin
2. Julia K. W. Baker * Literature and Less
3. Clifton P. Fadiman * Morbidity in Fiction
4. Henry Nash Smith * A Troubled Vision
5. Henry Seidel Canby * The School of Cruelty
6. Maurice-Edgar Coindreau * William Faulkner
7. Valery Larbaud * "Preface" to Tandis que j'agonise
8. Edwin Muir * From New Novels
THE WRITER AND HIS WORK
1. William Faulkner * Adolescence
2. William Faulkner * As I Lay Dying
3. William Faulkner * Introduction to the Modern Library edition of Sanctuary
4. William Faulkner * An Introduction for The Sound and the Fury
5. William Faulkner * Address upon Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature
6. William Faulkner * The Paris Review Interview
7. William Faulkner * Class Conferences at the University of Virginia
8. William Faulkner * Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi [Map]
9. William Faulkner * Sample pages from the manuscript and carbon typescript of As I Lay Dying
CULTURAL CONTEXT
1. Carson McCullers * The Russian Realists and Southern Literature
2. Fred Hobson * Benighted South
3. Andrew Nelson Lytle * The Hind Tit
4. James Agee * The Gudger House
5. Thoms D. Clark * From Pills, Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store
6. C. D. Mitchell, M.D. * Thirty-Sixth Biennial Report of the Mississippi State Insane Hospital, Jackson, Mississippi. From July 1, 1925 to June 30, 1927
CRITICISM
1. Olga W. Vickery * The Dimension of Consciousness
2. Cleanth Brooks * Odyssey of the Bundrens
3. Calvin Bedient * Pride and Nakedness: As I Lay Dying
4. Andre Bleikasten * The Setting
5. Eric Sundquist * Death, Grief, Analogous Form: As I Lay Dying
6. Stephen M. Ross * Mimetic Voice
7. Doreen Fowler * Matricide and the Mother's Revenge: As I Lay Dying
8. Patrick O'Donnell * Between the Family and the State: Nomadism and Authority in As I Lay Dying
9. Richard Gray * A Southern Carnival
10. John Limon * Addie in No Man's Land
11. Donald M. Kartiganer * "By It I Would Stand or Fall": Life and Death in As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner: A Chronology
Selected Bibliography