Faulkner and the Great Depression: Aesthetics, Ideology, and Cultural Politics

Why, at a time when the American economy produced so little, did Faulkner produce so much? This is the first comprehensive study to consider his most acclaimed works in the context of those hard times.

About the Author :
TED ATKINSON teaches at Augusta State University in Georgia.

Review :
Faulkner certainly was more engaged with this time and place than many critics in the past have given him credit for. It's refreshing to read a work that reminds us that Faulkner was not, after all, writing in splendid isolation but was acutely aware of the political and economic issues of the day and the ways those issues played out in popular culture. Atkinson offers a solid contemporary ideological but aesthetically sensitive examination of the relationship of Faulkner's fiction, especially works from the 1930s, to the political, social, cultural, and economic issues of the Great Depression. Others have written about this topic, one that is ripe for exploration, but no one until Atkinson has produced such a sustained meditation on it. Atkinson resituates Faulkner's major work in the historical and cultural context of a Great Depression characterized not just by the iconography of dust bowls and bread lines but by Hollywood films about gangsters and mobs, by a resurgence of Civil War representations, by political arguments pitting the ideology of self-reliance against the bureaucratic machinery of relief, and, perhaps most of all, by lively intellectual debates over the politics of literary aesthetics. Atkinson shows us a Faulkner positioned squarely, but never simply, amidst this cultural ferment. Along the way we get fresh insights into The Sound and the Fury, Light In August, Absalom, Absalom!, and The Unvanquished, along with major reinterpretations of Mosquitoes, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, and 'Barn Burning.' One comes away from this study with the sense that the defining crises and contradictions of the Depression brought out the very best in Faulkner, catalyzing and challenging his artistic and social vision. A vital, valuable addition to the growing body of historicist and cultural studies scholarship on Faulkner. [A] significant book . . . Atkinson's study offers, on the whole, a balanced analysis and presents a thoughtful model for future studies. . . . At his best Atkinson places Faulkner firmly in the frightening and exhilarating context of our last century's history and culture. In doing so, he shows just how relevant Faulkner remains for our own time. A fine contribution to historicist and cultural studies scholarship on Faulkner's work . . . Atkinson makes a convincing argument for re-evaluating Faulkner's fiction between 1927 and 1941 in the context of dominant social and political debates going on at the time. . . . Atkinson's book is a significant contribution both to Faulkner studies and to American studies more broadly. . . . Anybody interested in further understanding Faulkner, the history of the Depression, or the relationship between art and politics would find this very readable book both of interest and of value. Sheds light on [a] broader view of this major American author active in the mid 1900s by focusing on individual character, incidents, and circumstances in his novels. All writers, in some fashion, reflect the generation in which they write, and, as evidenced by this book, William Faulkner was no exception.