Lowe, John
T 11:10 AM
Park Hall 61
English 8750 FAULKNER AND GAINES
This seminar will investigate the works of two masters of the Southern novel and short story, William Faulkner and Ernest Gaines. Both of these writers concentrated on their individual "postage stamp of soil," which became the locus of most of their fiction. In Faulkner's case, he transformed his native Oxford Mississippi into Jefferson, county seat of fabled Yoknapatawpha County, which was based on his own Lafayette County. Gaines, by contrast, who was from Riverlake Plantation near New Roads, Louisiana in Pointe Coupee Parish, invented the fictional realm of Bayonne, in Rafael Parish. Their stirring accounts of slavery, reconstruction, the New South, and the impact of industrialization and modernity are set against gripping depictions of racial struggle, conflict, and accommodation. Both also focus on class, gender, and the beauties of the Southern landscape. As Faulkner was an important influence on Gaines's art, we will read and compare texts that seem to be in conversation. We will also probe a number of short stories by each writer, and view some films that have been made from their works. Course requirements: an oral report; a ten-page draft of the final project at midterm, which will lead to a 20-25 page research paper.