Faulkner?s Text as a Work of Mourning: Elements of Elegy in Faulkner?s As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom!, and Requiem for a Nun

The book offers a reading of Faulkner?s novels through the prism of elegy, in an attempt to solve the as yet unsettled clash between Faulkner?s dark subject matter and the wonderful poetry used for its narration. Diverting the focus of attention from the dominant tragic elements in Faulkner?s novels to the antithetical voice of peaceful elegy hidden beyond them, it exposes unexpected continuities between traditional elegy and Faulkner?s modern prose. Intertwining the psychological with the aesthetic, the book provides new insights into the meaning and function of Faulkner?s recurrent refrains, and groups them together, for the first time, as markers of a particular genre that struggles with loss. Specifically, it examines As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom!, and Requiem for a Nun as Faulkner?s ?prose elegies?, and shows how, by writing these novels, Faulkner was redefining his art and language, and himself as a writer. The book will be especially useful to Faulkner scholars, students, and readers, or anyone who finds interest in artistic procedures, and in the angle at which rhetoric devices and resurrective practices are juxtaposed.