TEXT C The centenary of the birth
of William Faulkner, one of the great modern novelists, was celebrated in
September, 1997. Faulkner wrote about the southern states of the United States
of America where he grew up, and where his family had an important part to play
in the history of that region. His work became a touchstone for insights into
the troubled issues of southern American identity, race relations, and the
family interrelation- ships of the old-time southern gentry.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897.
Despite his interest in writing, he left Oxford High School, Mississippi,
without graduating. After World War 1, he entered the University of Mississippi
as a special student, a right to study which was granted to war veterans,
although Faulkner had training with the Air Force in Canada, he did not enter
combat. Faulkner began to write poems, a verse play, short
stories and finished his first novel Satoris in 1928. His fiction was centered
for 14 of the 19 novels published during his lifetime a fictional region called
Yoknapatawpha County. The name is said to be stem from the India Chickasaw word
meaning split land. In December 1950, Faulkner was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature. When he accepted it in Stuck-holm, his speech
emphasized that he wished to continue writing, but in a positive way that
affirmed the power of humanity to prevail over adverse circumstances. As he said
in his speech, he still felt that, despite the threat of nuclear war then
hanging over the world, the central concern of the writer should be "the
problems of the human heart in conflict with itself", He wanted the tension and
problems that he had cast the spotlight on in the southern states of America to
be resolved by the life-affirming attitudes and actions of his
characters. Like playwright Tennessee Williams, Faulkner was a
major voice who spoke for the troubled heart of the southern states of America.
His achievement is all the more remarkable because, as a schoolboy, he was not
only a frequent truant but also reportedly failed to reach pass grades in
English class. His collected short stories, novels, poems, allegorical stories
and other writings which form a legacy of literature which casts pro found
illumination on the special culture of the South, a culture, which developed
from a history and social circumstances that were often tumultuous and always
unique. From the focus on a fictional county, and by remaining
true to his view of a dose-knit but authentic society that reflected the greater
world around him, Faulkner in the end fashioned a saga of the Deep South that is
one of the major achievements of 20th-century literature. (451) What was William Faulkner’s attitude toward the troubled issues of southern America
A.He reflected them by writing and criticized them. B.He intended to call on the troubled people to rebel. C.The troubled issues of southern America just provided many elements for his novels. D.He advocated to resolve them in a positive attitudes and actions.