Title: Faulkner and psychology /
Authors: Kartiganer, Donald M., 1937-; Abadie, Ann J.; University of Mississippi.
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi,
Year: 1994
Subjects: Faulkner, William, Knowledge Psychology Congresses.; Psychoanalysis and literature Congresses.; Psychology in literature Congresses.; Psychological fiction, American History and criticism Congresses.
Abstract: Characteristically, William Faulkner minimized his familiarity with the theories of psychology that were current during the years of his apprenticeship as a writer, especially those of Freud. Yet, Faulkner's works prove to be a trove for psychological study. These original papers from the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, held in 1991 at the University of Mississippi, vary widely in their approaches to recent psychological speculation about Faulkner's texts. In recent years psychological analysis of literature has shifted largely from investigation of a writer's life to a focus on the work itself. Whether applying the theories of Freud and Lacan, drawing upon theoretical work in women's studies and men's studies, or emphasizing the rigid determinacy of psychological pressure, the essays included in this collection show Faulkner's works to be unquestionably rich in psychological materials.
Contents: Little sister death / Doreen Fowler -- Male Fantasies? / Anne Goodwyn Jones -- Of mothers, robbery, and language / Deborah Clarke -- Symbolic fathers and dead mothers / Carolyn Porter -- Faulkner's "male commedia" / Jay Martin -- Faulkner's forensic fiction and the question of authorial neurosis / Jay Watson -- Psychoanalytic conceptualizations of characterization, or, Nobody laughs in Light in August / Lee Jenkins -- Faulkner and psychoanalysis / Michael Zeitlin -- Horace Benbow and the myth of Narcissa / John T. Irwin -- Faulkner and the reading self / David Wyatt -- What I chose to be / Donald M. Kartiganer.