Faulkner - William Cuthbert Faulkner

American novelist. Along with Hemingway, he is considered one of the most representative American writers of the 20th century. His bold experimental techniques, deep insight into human nature, and the magnitude of his literary influence make him one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

He was born on September 25, 1897, as the eldest son of an old family in New Albany, a town in the northern part of the state of Mississippi in the southern United States. Soon after, his family moved to Ripley, a town in the same region, and then in 1902 to Oxford, where the county seat and Mississippi State University are located. His great-grandfather, William Clark Faulkner, was a Civil War hero who wrote best-selling novels at the time and founded a railroad company before being assassinated by a political opponent. He was a legendary figure of sorts, and through this legend, he had a great influence on the writer Faulkner. His grandfather was also a successful lawyer. After moving to Oxford, his father made a living through a variety of jobs.

William Faulkner dropped out of high school and after a year at university. From the age of 16, he became deeply familiar with fin de siècle literature and symbolist poetry. He became absorbed in reading under the guidance of his older friend Philip Stone, and around 1917, he began contributing pictures, poems, and prose to newspapers and magazines related to the University of Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Air Force in Canada, and later lived in New York for a time, but devoted himself to poetry and other writing activities in Oxford. In 1924, he published his first collection of poems, The Marble Faun, with the help of Stone. The following year, he went to New Orleans with the intention of going to Europe, and spent about six months in close contact with the famous writer of the time, Sherwood Anderson. There, he seized the opportunity to turn to fiction writing, and wrote his debut work, The Soldier's Wages (1926), which is full of unique symbolism. After a short trip to Europe, he wrote the long novel The Mosquito, which was published in 1927. It was around this time that he began to immerse himself in the world-building of what became known as the "Yoknapatawpha Saga," set in the fictional town of Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi.

His first novel, Sartoris (1929), was a kind of study that contrasted the illusion of the past, symbolized by the character of Colonel Sartoris, who was modeled on his great-grandfather, with the self-destructive real life of Bayard Sartoris, a young man reminiscent of the Lost Generation. His next work, The Sound and the Fury (1929), realistically depicted the suffering of modern people burdened by the weight of the past, using modernist techniques, and showed his rapid maturity as a writer. The fact that Sartoris could not easily find a publisher resulted in him gambling his own future on this work, and after this work he pursued his own world more deeply and continued to write the important works of the Yoknapatawpha series in a torrent of succession. In June 1929, he married his former lover, Estelle Oldham, who had just divorced, and thereafter spent most of his life in Oxford.

After The Sound and the Fury, the Yoknapatawpha series continued with As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), the collection of short stories These Thirteen Stories (1931), and Light in August (1932), gradually deepening in quality and eventually reaching a climax in Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Set in the unique region of the American Deep South, these works are unique in that they capture the universal human condition of the modern world as a symbol through a penetrating reflection on the novel as an art of language. He then thoroughly explored the themes of love and death in "The Wild Palms" (1939), and after repeated methodological experiments, returned to the traditional style of American novels ("narration"), using "tall tales" from the South to depict the humorous atmosphere in "The Village" (1940), and "Go, Moses" (1942), which explores the salvation of the South, that is, human society, through primitivism, and in these tranquil and heroic works, he positively portrays the human themes he pursues. However, contrary to his expectations, his works did not sell, and he was not very well off at home, so he spent half the year writing screenplays in Hollywood to make a living.

In 1946, critic M. Cowley's anthology "Portable Faulkner" prompted the reprinting of his earlier works. He also published new works such as "The Cemetery Trespasser" (1948), "Requiem for a Nun" (1951), "Fable" (1954), which could be called a modern Christian story, and "The Town" (1957), a trilogy about the emerging Snopes family following "The Village," "The Mansion" (1959), and the fairy-tale-like "The Car Thief" (1962), which was the last of the Yoknapatawpha series. By the time he died on July 6, 1962 at the age of 64, the world of Yoknapatawpha that the author had constructed had been revealed to readers in its entirety. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 and the following year in 1950. He subsequently traveled as a cultural envoy to many countries around the world, including Japan (1955), to discuss his own works with young researchers and students. His actions, like all of his works, were the fruition of a sincere and highly artistic literary effort in the pursuit of the suffering of modern man and how to overcome it.

Since the late 1960s, research into Faulkner's work has been actively undertaken to uncover the secrets of his creative process, using the large number of manuscripts and other materials kept at the University of Virginia. Currently, research is being conducted on a global level to explore the relationship between Faulkner's works and biographical facts, as well as to elucidate his aesthetic and philosophical aspects using new critical theories based on structuralism.

[Kenzaburo Ohashi]

"The Complete Works of Faulkner, 27 volumes (1967-1997, Tomiyama Publishing)" ▽ "Shincho World Literature 41 & 42: Soldier's Wages and Others, translated by Ohashi Kenzaburo et al. (1970, Shinchosha)" ▽ "Faulkner Short Stories, translated by Tatsuguchi Naotaro (Shincho Bunko)" ▽ "Faulkner, edited by Nishikawa Masami (1966, Kenkyusha Publishing)" ▽ "Faulkner - Living in Modern History, by Akasofu Tetsuji (1977, Fuyukisha Publishing)" ▽ "Faulkner Studies, 3 volumes, by Ohashi Kenzaburo (1977-1982, Nagundo)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

アメリカの小説家。ヘミングウェイと並ぶ20世紀アメリカの代表的作家と目されている。その大胆な実験的手法と深い人間洞察、およびその文学的影響力の大きさは、20世紀最大の作家の一人といえよう。

　1897年9月25日、アメリカ南部ミシシッピ州北方の町ニュー・オルバニーの旧家の長男として生まれる。まもなく一家は同じ地域の町リプレーに移り、さらに1902年、郡役所所在地、ミシシッピ州立大学のあるオックスフォードに移る。曽祖父(そうそふ)ウィリアム・クラーク・フォークナーは南北戦争の英雄で、当時ベストセラーの小説を書き、また鉄道会社をおこして政敵に暗殺されたといわれる、一種伝説的な名士で、その伝説を通じて作家フォークナーに大きな影響を与えた。祖父も弁護士として成功した人物。父はオックスフォードに移住してからは、さまざまな職業に従事して生計をたてた。

　ウィリアム・フォークナーは高校中退、大学も1年余りで退学、16歳のころから世紀末文学や象徴主義の詩に深く親しみ、年長の友人フィリップ・ストーンの指導で読書にふけり、1917年ころからミシシッピ大学関係の新聞や雑誌に絵や詩や散文を寄稿し始める。第一次世界大戦中カナダのイギリス空軍に入隊、のち一時ニューヨークに住んだが、もっぱらオックスフォードで詩作そのほかの文筆活動に専念。1924年、処女詩集『大理石の牧神』をストーンの尽力で出版した。翌年ヨーロッパに渡るつもりでニュー・オーリンズに赴き、当時の有名作家シャーウッド・アンダーソンと約半年間親しく交わった。そこで小説創作に転じる機をつかみ、独自な象徴性をもつ処女作『兵士の報酬』（1926）を書く。短いヨーロッパ旅行後、長編『蚊』を書き、1927年に出版。このころから架空のミシシッピ州ヨクナパトーファ郡ジェファソンを舞台とする、いわゆる「ヨクナパトーファ・サガ」の世界構築に没頭し始めた。

　その第一作『サートリス』（1929）は、曽祖父をモデルにしたサートリス大佐の人間像が象徴する過去の幻と、「失われた世代（ロスト・ジェネレーション）」風な青年ベイヤード・サートリスの自己破壊的現実生活との対照を主軸にする一種の習作。次作『響きと怒り』（1929）は、過去の重圧を負う現代人の苦悩を、モダニズムの技法を駆使してリアルに描き取り、作家としての急激な成熟を感じさせる。『サートリス』が容易に出版社をみいだしえなかったことによって、かえってこの作品に作者自身の未来を賭(か)けさせる結果となり、この作以後、いよいよ深く独自の世界を追求し、次々と奔流のようにヨクナパトーファ連作の重要作品を書き続ける。1929年6月、かつての恋人、離婚直後のエステル・オールダムと結婚、以後は生涯の大部分をオックスフォードで過ごした。

　ヨクナパトーファ連作は、『響きと怒り』後、『死の床に横たわりて』（1930）、『サンクチュアリ』（1931）、短編集『これら十三編』（1931）、『八月の光』（1932）などと続き、しだいに深まりをみせ、やがて『アブサロム、アブサロム！』（1936）で一つのクライマックスに達する。アメリカの深南部という特殊地域を舞台に、ことばの芸術としての小説への透徹した省察を通じて、現代世界の普遍的人間状況を一つの象徴としてとらえたところに、これら作品群の独自性がある。続いて『野性の棕櫚(しゅろ)』（1939）で愛と死の主題を徹底し方法的実験を繰り返したあと、ふたたびアメリカ小説の伝統的様式（「語り」）に戻り、南部に伝わる「ほら話」を利用し、ユーモラスな雰囲気で描き出す『村』（1940）、プリミティビズムによって南部つまり人間社会の救済を探る『行け、モーセ』（1942）など静謐(せいひつ)で雄勁(ゆうけい)な作品に、作者の追求する人間の主題を肯定的に描き出す。しかし、期待に反して作品は売れず、家庭的にもあまり恵まれず、生活のため1年の半分をハリウッドでシナリオ書きに追われた。

　1946年、批評家M・カウリーによる選集『ポータブル・フォークナー』がきっかけとなり、次々に旧作が再版された。また新しい作品『墓地への侵入者』（1948）、『尼僧への鎮魂(ちんこん)歌』（1951）、現代のキリスト物語ともいうべき『寓話(ぐうわ)』（1954）、さらに『村』に次いで新興階級スノープス一族を扱う三部作『町』（1957）、『館(やかた)』（1959）、ヨクナパトーファ連作の最後を飾るメルヘン風な『自動車泥棒』（1962）などが続く。1962年7月6日、64歳で没するまでに、作者の構築するヨクナパトーファの世界は、読者の前に壮大な全容を現した。1949年のノーベル文学賞を、翌1950年に受賞。以後文化使節として日本（1955）を含む世界各国を訪れ、若い研究者や学生を相手に自作について論じた。彼のそうした行動は、全作品と同様、現代の人間の苦悩とその超克を真実に追求する、真摯(しんし)な、優れて芸術的な文学的努力の結実であったといえよう。

　フォークナーの業績については、1960年代後半から、バージニア大学保管の多量の原稿その他の資料により、創作の秘密に迫る研究が活発になり、現在、作品と伝記的事実との関係の追求をはじめ、構造主義以後の新しい批評理論による美学的、哲学的解明が、世界的なレベルで進められている。

［大橋健三郎］

『『フォークナー全集』全27巻（1967～1997・冨山房）』▽『大橋健三郎他訳『新潮世界文学41・42　兵士の報酬他』（1970・新潮社）』▽『龍口直太郎訳『フォークナー短篇集』（新潮文庫）』▽『西川正身編『フォークナー』（1966・研究社出版）』▽『赤祖父哲二著『フォークナー――現代史を生きる』（1977・冬樹社）』▽『大橋健三郎著『フォークナー研究』全3巻（1977～1982・南雲堂）』

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