《美国文学选读》(第3版)威廉姆

第15单元威廉姆?福克纳

15.1复习笔记

I.Introduction to author（作者简介）

1.Life（生平）

William Faulkner(1897—1962)was born into a Southern family with a fairly long tradition.The town of Oxford where he was brought up became the model for his fictional Jefferson.His own family history found its way into his novels.He joined the Royal Flying Corps in Canada and still under training when the war was over.He returned to the United States,attended the University of Mississippi for a year,and supported himself with a variety of odd jobs.His first two novels were not very promising.But Sartoris(1929)revealed Faulkner’s fuller development as a writer.His next book,The Sound and the Fury,was definitely the mature work of a major work.In the following years,his major works appeared one after another.In 1946,Malcoim Cowley edited The Viking Portable Faulkner with a generous introduction of his works.Faulkner became the center of critical attention.Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature in1949.

威廉·福克纳(1897—1962)出生于一个历史悠久的南方家庭。他在牛津镇长大，该镇后来成为其小说中虚构的杰斐逊镇的原型。他的家族史也被写进了他的小说中。一战早期他曾在加拿大参加英国陆军航空队，训练未完一战就已结束了。回国后他在密西西比大学就读一年，后做过多种杂工。他的前两部小说并未引起注意，而1929年出版的《沙特里斯》却表

现出其创作已渐臻成熟。他的下一部《喧哗与骚动》是一部较为成熟的作品。而后，他的主要作品陆续出版。1946年文学批评家马尔科姆·考利编辑了他的作品选集《福克纳读本》，并详细介绍他的著作。福克纳成为文学批评界的焦点。福克纳于1949年获得诺贝尔文学奖。

2.Subject matter（创作题材）

Faulkner wrote altogether19novels and three volumes of short stories.Here the Deep South is delineated in as minute as possible.Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha saga in which he writes about the histories of a number of southern aristocratic families.In the very rise of these family fortunes,Faulkner sees their inevitable fall because they have displaced the Indians and enslaved the black race,thus putting a curse upon the land.When the same story of the tragic rise and fall recurs in one novel after another,it assumes symbolic proportion.It becomes clear that what Faulkner is talking about concerns not merely the American south but the human situation in general.The spiritual deterioration which characterizes modern life stems directly from the loss of love and want of emotional response.

福克纳共创作了19部长篇小说和3本短篇小说集。在这些作品里，福克纳极为细致地刻画了美国南方。福克纳的作品被称为“约克纳帕塔法世家小说”。在这些作品里福克纳描写了许多南方贵族的家族史。在这些家族发迹时福克纳就预示到他们必然的衰落。因为他们剥夺了印第安人的土地，奴役了黑人，受到了诅咒。当悲壮的兴衰史在一部部小说中不断呈现时，它就具有了象征性的意义。很显然，福克纳想要表达的不仅仅涉及美国南方，也包括整个人类的生活状况。现代生活中精神的堕落直接源于缺乏爱和渴望情感上的回应。

3.Characteristics of writings（写作特点）

Faulkner was daring formal experimentalist.He evolved his literary strategies so as to be better able to communicate his idea.

(1)Characterization was,to Faulkner,the essential medium to reveal the multifaceted nature of man.He allowed the characters to enjoy a maximum degree of autonomy and independence.There are quite a few devices by means of which the autonomy of the characters is ensured.One of the most important is authorial transcendence by employing a fallible narrator or multiple narrators.

(2)Faulkner is a difficult writer.There are a lot of interior monologues;the modern stream of consciousness technique is frequently and skillfully used.Words are often run together,with no capitalization and no proper punctuation.Sentences are not always clearly indicated;many long ones are pushed together in peculiar ways.The pronouns often cause irritating perplexity.

(3)His prose ranges from colloquial,regional dialects to highly charged courtroom rhetoric,covering a variety of“registers”of the English language.

(4)Faulkner has very powerful imagination.Rooting his works in the Deep South,he manages to create a literary milieu of his own through which he tries to transcend the limits of particularity to reach universality.He keeps moving his fictions toward the condition of myth and succeeds eventually in elevating a simple, true story of human life on to the plane of an elaborate mythology.

福克纳在形式上大胆地进行创新实验，他不断发展文学策略以更好地表达他的观点。

（1）福克纳极重视人物的塑造，这是他表现人的多面性的关键所在。他给予角色最大程度的自主和独立。他运用了各种写作手法以保证人物的独立性。其中最重要的是“作者的超脱”，这通过不可靠的叙事者和多位叙事者的手法实现。

（2）福克纳的作品有些不易理解。他的作品里有很多的内心独白，并且运用了大量的现代意识流技巧。要读懂福克纳是很吃力的事。他的作品里有很多的内心独白。现代意识流技巧频繁恰当地运用。单词常挤到一块，没有大写和标点符号。句子意义指代不明，长句子奇怪地堆积到一起。代词的使用加重了其文章的复杂性。

（3）他的作品里包含日常口语、地方方言，又有规范的文学语言，涵盖了英语语言的多种“语域”。

（4）福克纳的想象力异常丰富。他把作品植根于美国南部历史，创造出一种独特的文学氛围，最终超越具体的人或事的局限而触及普遍性的问题。他的小说逐步向神话的境界移动，把人生的简单而却真实的故事提升高到神话的高度。

4.Major Works（主要作品）

The Marble Faun(1924)《大理石牧神》

Soldier’s Pay(1926)《士兵的报酬》

Mosquitoes(1927)《蚊群》

The Sound and the Fury(1929)《喧嚣与骚动》

As I Lay Dying(1930)《我弥留之际》

Light in August(1932)《八月之光》

Absalom,Absalom!(1936)《押沙龙，押沙龙！》

Ⅱ.Selected works（选读作品）

◆Barn Burning《烧牲口棚》

Abner Snopes,the father of young Sarty Snopes,is driven out of town after burning down his landlord’s barn.In the court case that opens the story and in which Sarty is initially called to testify,no palpable proof can point to Abner as the culprit,but the Snopes family is ordered to leave the county.They move to a new place where Abner is to work as a sharecropper for Major de Spain,but Abner cannot seem to control his pyromania and hatred for society.

Shortly after arriving at his new position,Abner visits Major de Spain’s house and tracks horse droppings on his rug.Major de Spain orders Abner to clean the rug,which he does by using a piece of harsh-lye soap,ruining the rug beyond repair,before throwing the rug onto Major de Spain’s front porch.Major de Spain levies on Abner a fine of20bushels of corn against the price of the rug.At court,a Justice of the Peace reduces the fine to ten bushels of corn.Feeling once again wronged,Abner makes preparations to set fire to Major de Spain’s barn.Sarty warns Major de Spain of his father’s intentions to burn down his barn and then flees in the direction of his father.He is soon overtaken by Major de Spain on his horse and jumps into the ditch to get out of the way.Sarty hears three gun shots, but who gets shot is never revealed;the father and the brother appear in work set after“Barn Burning.”Profoundly affected by his father’s legacy,the boy does not return to his family but continues on with his life alone.

阿伯纳·斯诺普斯是小萨蒂·斯诺普斯的父亲，在烧了别人的牲口棚后被逐出小镇。庭审

揭开了故事的序幕，萨蒂被传来作证，但是由于证据不足，阿伯纳被当庭释放，但被要求举家离开此郡。他们搬到一个新地方，阿伯纳成为德斯潘的佃农，但是阿伯纳控制不住纵火癖和对社会的憎恶。

刚到达那里不久，阿伯纳到德斯潘家拜访并将马粪踩在他家地毯上。德斯潘命令阿伯纳将地毯弄干净。于是，阿伯纳就用一块强碱肥皂清洗，地毯就被彻底洗坏了。之后，阿伯纳将地毯扔到德斯潘家的门廊前。德斯潘要扣押阿伯纳20蒲式耳粮食以抵换地毯价格。在法庭上，法官将其赔偿降为10蒲式耳。阿伯纳感到自己再一次被冤枉，就准备放火烧德斯潘家的牲口棚。萨蒂提醒德斯潘他父亲要烧牲口棚的意图，就向着他父亲所在的方向逃去。他很快被德斯潘超越，就跳进路边的小沟里。萨蒂听到三声枪响，但是不知道打中了谁；父亲和哥哥在“烧牲口棚”后又回到了工作地点。男孩深受他父亲的影响，没有回家，而是继续独自生活。

Ⅲ.Analysis of major work（主要作品分析）

◆The Sound and the Fury《喧哗与骚动》

The title is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth“a tale/Told by an idiot,full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.”There is enough despair and nihilism but not much love and emotion in this sad story of the Compsons.

It is a story of deterioration from the past to the present.The past is idealized to form a striking contrast with the loveless present.There is in the book an acute feeling of nostalgia toward the happy past.Quentin’s suicide offers an example of a complete negation of the present In a sense,Quentin’s value system may represent Faulkner’s own idea of an ideal way of life,that of an antebellum society.