English DepartmentProfessor Victor Strandberg
When literary pundits occasionally post a list of the ten greatest novels in world literature, no writer is more likely to be cited than William Faulkner, Nobel Prize winner in 1950. The main question is which of his masterworks will be cited (if not both)—The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom! If the list were extended to the top twenty, two other novels could be in play—As I Lay Dying and Light in August.
As Hemingway conceded, Faulkner “has more talent than all of us [contemporaries]. I would be happy just to be his manager.” This course will begin with several of Faulkner’s best short stories—for example, “A Rose for Emily” and “Red Leaves”—and then follow the divided stream of his creativity, taking up his more conventional novels first (Sanctuary, Light in August, The Hamlet) and reserving until last his greatest and most challenging experimental novels such as Absalom, Absalom! Three hour exams, one optional term paper (5-7 pages), no three-hour final exam.