"A Cosmos of My Own" (Papers presented at the 1980 Faulkner and
Yoknapatawpha Conference at the University of Mississippi) Edited by
Doreen Fowler and Ann J. Abadie Contributors: Robert Hamblin, Panthea
Reid Broughton, James B. Carothers, Louis Daniel Brodsky, Ellen Douglas,
Charles Nilon, and Francois Pitavy. Reflecting recent developments in
Faulkner criticism, the papers delivered at the 1980 Faulkner and
Yoknapatawpha Conference point the way to a new and relatively
unexplored avenue of research, that of the study of relationships among
Faulkner's seemingly distinct novels. No longer satisfied to look only
at the individual work, critics are instead surveying the whole field of
Faulkner's fiction. Many of the papers in this volume direct attention
to the full scope and range of Faulkner's fictional world, searching
for, and finding, unity, harmony, and interrelationships. Some of the
essays, like Ellen Douglas's "Faulkner in Time" and James Carothers's
"The Road to 'The Reivers, '" examine all of Faulkner's novels, seeking
to uncover an overall design and meaning. Others trace the appearances,
in work after work, of one theme or figure. Among the subjects
considered in this way are Faulkner's women, his black characters, his
heroes, his aristocrats, and his attitude toward death. Taken together,
these essays implicitly acknowledge the appropriateness of the metaphor
of a cosmos for Faulker's fictional creation. To be fully and accurately
understood, each single part of Faulkner's vast system of fictional
meanings, like the separate worlds in a cosmos, must be assessed in the
context of the whole.
