Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner

Lecture Details

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock traces Faulkners appropriation of the epic genre through two conventions the blurring of boundaries between humans and non-humans and the resurrection of the dead. She first reads Faulkners minor character Tull and his relation to both mules and buzzards to draw out the "nature of manhood in poor whites." From Tull, she shifts focus to Jewel and suggests that his kinship with the snake and the horse foregrounds the narrative secrecy of Jewels genealogy. As Addie Bundrens monologue reveals, Jewels illegitimate father, the Reverend Whitfield, is similarly identified with both the horse, as the animal he rides, and the snake, whose Edenic behavior he parallels in his affair with Addie. 0000 - Chapter 1. Humans and Non-Humans0350 - Chapter 2. The Epic Tradition and Homers Cyclops0756 - Chapter 3. Cross-Species Kinship in Circes Magic and Dantes Inferno0948 - Chapter 4. Tulls Animal Identification in As I Lay Dying 1619 - Chapter 5. The Epic Function of Mules2155 - Chapter 6. Poor Whites as Buzzards2512 - Chapter 7. Jewel as Snake and Horse 2822 - Chapter 8. The Mythic Horse, the Snake, and Scattered Representation3422 - Chapter 9. The Secretive Narrative of Jewels Horse4210 - Chapter 10. The Epic Convention of Raising the DeadComplete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website httpoyc.yale.eduThis course was recorded in Fall 2011.