William Faulkners Use of Shakespeare Essay -- William Faulkner

William Faulkners Use of ShakespeareThroughout his career William Faulkner acknowledged the influence of legion(predicate) writers upon his work--Twain, Dreiser, Anderson, Keats, Dickens, Conrad, Balzac, Bergson, and Cervantes, to name only a few--but the one writer that he consistently mentioned as a constant and continuing influence was William Shakespeare. Though Faulkners study as a fledgling writer in 1921 that he could write a play like Hamlet if he wanted to (FAB 330) may be dismissed as an act of youthful posturing, the statement serves to indicate that from the beginning Shakespeare was the standard by which Faulkner would judge his own creativity. In later years Faulkner frequently acknowledged Shakespeare as a major inspiration and influence, once noting, I have a one-volume Shakespeare that I have just about worn out carrying around with me (FIU 67). Faulkners recorded interviews and conversations contain references to a number of Shakespeares works and characters, i ncluding Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry IV, Henry V, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Romeo and Juliet, the sonnets, Falstaff, Prince Hal, Lady Macbeth, Bottom, Ophelia, and Mercutio. In 1947 he told an Ole Miss English break up that Shakespeares work provides a casebook on mankind, adding, if a man has a great deal of talent he can use Shakespeare as a yardstick (Webb and Green 134). In one of his last interviews shortly before his death in 1962, Faulkner said of all writers, We yearn to be as good as Shakespeare (LIG 276). The parallels in the lives and careers of the two writers are remarkably striking. Both were born in provincial small towns but found their eventual mastery in metropolitan cities, Shakespeare in London and Faulkner in New York and... ...n August Faulkners Structural Motifs. Masters thesis, Southeast Missouri State University, 1995.Greenblatt, Stephen, and others, eds. The Norton Shakespeare. New York W.W. Norton, 1997.Gwynn, Frederick L., and Joseph L. Blotner, eds. Fau lkner in the University Class Conferences at the University of Virginia, 1957-1958. Charlottesville University of Virginia Press, 1959. Cited as FIU.Meriwether, James B., ed. Essays, Speeches, and Public Letters by William Faulkner. New York Random House, 1965. Cited as ESPL.--------, and Michael Milgate, eds. Lion in the GardenInterviews with William Faulkner, 1926-1962. New York Random House, 1968. Cited as LIG.Rowse, A. L. William Shakespeare A Biography. New York Harper and Row, 1963.Webb, James W., and A. Wigfall Green, eds. William Faulkner of Oxford. Baton Rouge Louisiana State University Press, 1965.