William Faulkner: Biography

Background of William Faulkner

WILLIAM FAULKNER

1897-1962

Biography

As a productive writer, William Faulkner soon became extremely famous all his life. With great popularity of the crowd, he, however, shielded himself from the spotlight as much as possible. Faulkner was known as an eccentrically Southern gentry and an alcoholic with cavalier attitude and haughty aloofness. Nevertheless, the most suitable way to introduce or describe Faulkner’s background perhaps is to understand his heritage from the great grandfather to his parents. In addition, Faulkner’s family had intensely influence on him, just like the Southern character depicted in his novel.

 William Faulkner and His Family

Family Tree

       Born in 1825, William Faulkner’s great grandfather, Colonel William Faulkner, moved to Mississippi when he was about fourteen-year-old. He was a lawyer, writer, politician, novelist who creates bestsellers and a pioneer entailing several murder judgments in two of which he was accused. In the Civil War a legion was enlisted by him, who is then appointed its colonel, but whose insolence made him degraded by the troop soon after. After the war ended, he started with the railroad business. The success of the railway business enriched him and even his descendants. He bought a grange and began his writings, one of which became bestselling. In 1889, he ran for Mississippi state legislature, but was shot and assassinated by his competitor before the election. 

          Faulkner’s grandfather was the colonel's oldest son—John Wesley Thompson Falkner. He succeeded to his father’s estate, becoming an Assistant U.S. Attorney and afterwards the president of the First National Bank of Oxford, Mississippi.

Faulkner’s father, Murray Falkner, was jobless before being the business manager of the University of Mississippi, in which he and his family resided for the rest of his life. As a reclusive man, the father enjoyed hunting, drinking, exchanging stories with intimate friends.

Faulkner’s mother, Maud Butler, was an aspiring, sensitive and literary woman, who had deeper influence on Faulkner’s life and whose mother, a high-spirited old lady with independence and great imagination also inspire Faulkner profoundly.

William Faulkner

William Faulkner (top center) and his brothers

Coming from an old and traditional Southern family, William Faulkner grew up in Oxford where his parents moved when he was about five. Born on September 25, 1897, William Faulkner started to write poetry in adolescence. Disinterested in school lectures, he later dropped out of high school in his second year. During World War I, he participated in the Canadian and then the British Royal Flying Corps— for he was so short that he was rejected by the U.S. Air Force. However, he never fought in the army, and the Armistice was signed the day when he graduated from the Flying Corps. The injury he received in WWI brought about the result of his excessive drinking, inflicted with alcoholism, and the habit of holding parties on Armistice Day.

After the war, going back to Oxford, Faulkner, enrolled as a special student at the University of Mississippi, begin to write for the school papers and magazines and immediately earn a reputation for his peculiarity. Famous for his unusual routines, stylish clothing and ineptitude of holding down an employment made him nickname “Count Nocount.” In 1921, he became the postmaster of the University. Nevertheless, that his enthusiasm and passion for writing caused him to neglect the customers’ needs was then noticed by the postal inspector and have him resign the position. His first book of poetry, The Marble Faun, was published in 1924, panned by the critics and with only few buyers.

Faulkner married Estelle Oldham in 1929, dwelling in Oxford Mississippi, with his wife and her two children from the previous marriage, Malcolma and Victoria. Faulkner’s only biological daughter was Jill, born in 1933. 

Faulkner’s next publication of the novel, As I Lay Dying, finally made him a writer on the literary scene. But not until he published Sanctuary in 1931 he achieved great success and gained practically financial supports. Throughout the 1940s, Faulkner completed several masterpieces, embracing Light In August, Absalom, Abasalom!, The Wild Palm, The Hamlet, and Go Down, Moses. But these works did not bring Faulkner much fortune; therefore, he obliged to come to Hollywood, working as a screenwriter.

In 1950, Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. This award effectively changed Faulkner’s life, bringing him to riches, solving his economic difficulties which had long obsessed with him. But some reviewers had a query about the disappointing quality of his works written after he won the prize, particularly in comparison with those earlier published mythical pieces.

During the latter part to the 1950s, Faulkner took some time to live away from his hometown, Oxford, including one-year-residence as a writer at the University of Virginia. In June of 1962, he returned to Oxford. Then in July of that year, he died of a heart attack on the morning.

William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak

In 1930 William Faulkner bought “The Bailey Place,” a large primitive Greek revival house that predated the Civil War. Attracted by the house’s historical background, Faulkner rename it “Rowan Oak.” Furthermore, he redecorated it and arranged the ornament of the surrounding with his wife and children. Rowan Oak became the family home of the Faulkners till 1962, the year Faulkner passed away. In 1972, Faulkner only surviving biological daughter, Jill, decided to sell the house to the University of Mississippi. Nowadays, Rowan Oak has become a place for Faulkner’s fans from all over the world

Rowan Oak was served as William Faulkner’s private world, a personal space to bring his talents into full play no matter in reality or in imagination. His imaginative faculty was aroused by local stories of Indians, slaves escaping away, old and traditional Colonels, bachelorette lecturing china-painting lessons and his hometown memory of the age in South where the oldness and traditions gradually vanished and faded and the modernity spring up. Faulkner was extremely productive during his inhabitance in Rowan Oak, as he wrote lot of poems, stories and novel, later reaching the peak of his life of being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1950 for his gifted intelligence on literary.

At present, William Faulkner remains today’s the most-studied writer in the world. The number of the books, articles, research paper and essays written about his works are nearly more than any other writer in addition to Shakespeare.

 pictures from:

Nobelprize. Org—The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize (June 9, 2011)

http://nobelprize.org /nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.html

William Faulkner on the Web. (June 9, 2011)  

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html
William Faulkner: Biography. Pearson Literature. (June 11, 2011)
http://wps.ablongman.com/long_kennedy_lfpd_9/22/5820/1489984.cw/index.html 

sources from:

Nobelprize. Org—The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize (June 8, 2011)  

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.html

C-Span American Writers—A Journey through History. (June 8, 2011)

http://www.americanwriters.org/writers/faulkner.asp

William Faulkner on the Web. (June 8, 2011)  

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html
Grade Saver—Getting You the Grade since 1999. (June 8. 2011)   
http://www.gradesaver.com/author/william-faulkner/