New directions in Faulkner studies

the long version

What has Faulkner criticism so far accomplished? Where have scholars wandered far afield? What directions now should meaningful scholarship take? These questions are considered in this volume of papers presented at the Tenth Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference held in 1983 at the University of Mississippi. The authors, some of the leading names in Faulkner scholarship, point out that William Faulkner too often has been classified as a southern traditionalist, a primitive, a romantic realist, or a realist with a moral message. They share the view that too few critics have given sufficient attention to Faulkner's aesthetic dimensions and to his modernism, as well as to a careful study of his multitude of short stories, his letters, his nonfiction prose, and his speeches, essays, and interviews. The essays in this volume encourage Faulkner scholarship that gives attention to these new directions. - Back cover.