WILLIAM FAULKNER wrote works of psychological drama and emotional depth, typically with long serpentine prose and high, meticulously-chosen diction.

Like most prolific authors, he suffered the envy and scorn of others, and was considered to be the stylistic rival to Ernest Hemingway (his long sentences contrasted to Hemingway's short, 'minimalist' style). He is perhaps also considered to be the only true American Modernist prose fiction writer of the 1930s, following in experimental tradition European writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust, and known for using groundbreaking literary devices such as stream of consciousness, multiple narrations or points of view, and time-shifts within narrative.

Faulkner was born William Falkner (no "U") in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in and heavily influenced by that state, as well as the general ambience of the South. Mississippi marked his sense of humor, his sense of the tragic position of Blacks and Whites, his keen characterization of usual Southern characters and his timeless themes, one of them being that fiercely intelligent people dwelled behind the facade of good old boys and simpletons. An early editor misspelled Falkner's name as "Faulkner", and the author decided to keep the spelling.

Faulkner's most celebrated novels include The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light In August (1932), The Unvanquished (1938), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936), which are usually considered masterpieces. Faulkner was a prolific writer of short stories: his first short story collection, These 13 (1931), includes many of his most acclaimed (and most frequently anthologized) stories, including "A Rose for Emily," "Red Leaves," "That Evening Sun," and "Dry September." During the 1930s, in an effort to make money, Faulkner crafted a sensationalist "pulp" novel entitled Sanctuary (first published in 1931). Its themes of evil and corruption (bearing Southern Gothic tones), resonate to this day. A sequel to the book, Requiem For a Nun, is the only play that he has published. It involves an introduction that is actually one sentence that spans for a couple pages. He received a Pulitzer Prize for A Fable, and won a National Book Award (posthumously) for his Collected Stories.

Faulkner was also an acclaimed writer of mysteries, publishing a collection of crime fiction, Knight's Gambit, that featured Gavin Stevens, an attorney, wise to the ways of folk living in Yoknapatawpha County. He set many of his short stories and novels in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on--and nearly identical to in terms of geography--Lafayette County, of which his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi is the county seat; Yoknapatawpha was his very own "postage stamp" and it is considered to be one of the most monumetal fictional creations in the history of literature.

In his later years Faulkner moved to Hollywood to be a screenwriter (producing scripts for Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not--both directed by Howard Hawks). Faulkner started an affair with a secretary for Hawks, Meta Carpenter.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1949. He drank shortly before he had to sail to Stockholm to receive the distinguished prize. Once there, he delivered one of the greatest speeches any literature recipient had ever given. In it, he remarked "I decline to accept the end of man...Man will not only endure, but prevail..." Both events were fully in character. Faulkner donated his Nobel winnings, "to establish a fund to support and encourage new fiction writers", eventually resulting in the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Faulkner served as Writer-In-Residence at the University of Virginia from 1957 until his death in 1962

For our next Literature Lecture at Bilgi: 10.10.2017

Dear Students,
We are still looking at 20th century lit this week.
Please read and print out the following poems and the short story below:


short story: 

"A Rose for Emily"by William Faulkner

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/wf_rose.html

Musée des Beaux Arts (1940)

W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just
walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy
life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’ (1934)

Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Sorrow by Talha Özdemir, Ist Bilgi Uni- Turkey

Sorrow

As the night falls,

Beloved ones will be left,

Where all the pines freeze to death,

Shelter what’s left inside of sorrowful breath.

As you grow older,

Being locked up in a cage,

While every single being tortures with wage,

Find power to forgive the evil,

Only way to embrace.

Temptations lead to sorrow,

So much obsessed with depression,

Downfall of the agony will short your morrow,

Beauty will perish in the hands of the fallen ones.

Finest hours of life,

Trouble chased all the way down,

All the good have been done so far,

Given in a form of sub guidance from above,

Will accompany your heart and soul,

At the time of final judgement,

Sorrow will prevail love.

thanks for sharing Talha 👌

For those who are interested here is Richard Wagner's: Tristan and Isolde

FOR THE LITERATURE CLASS AT ISTANBUL BILGI UNİ

Dear Students,

We are starting our Literature Class with Twentieth Century Poetry.
And a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Please print out the poems below.
You can reach Poe's short story at this link:
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_tell-tale_heart_0.pdf

best
gh

When You Are Old

by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

WHEN YOU ARE OLD AND GREY AND FULL OF SLEEP, 

And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 

And loved your beauty with love false or true, 

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 

And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 

And paced upon the mountains overhead 

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 

YOU CAN LISTEN TO THIS POEM: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43283

The Waste Land

Related Poem Content Details

BY T. S. ELIOT

                                  FOR EZRA POUND
                                IL MIGLIOR FABBRO

              I. The Burial of the Dead

  April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain. 

Winter kept us warm, covering 

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding 

A little life with dried tubers. 

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee 

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, 

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. 

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. 

And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s, 

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, 

And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 

Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. 

In the mountains, there you feel free. 

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. 

  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow 

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only 

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, 

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, 

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only 

There is shadow under this red rock, 

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock), 

And I will show you something different from either 

Your shadow at morning striding behind you 

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; 

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 

                      Frisch weht der Wind 

                      Der Heimat zu 

                      Mein Irisch Kind, 

                      Wo weilest du? 

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 

“They called me the hyacinth girl.”

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, 

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not 

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither 

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 

Looking into the heart of light, the silence. 

Oed’ und leer das Meer. 

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, 

Had a bad cold, nevertheless 

Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, 

With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, 

Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, 

(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) 

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, 

The lady of situations. 

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, 

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, 

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, 

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find 

The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. 

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. 

Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, 

Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: 

One must be so careful these days. 

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Related Poem Content Details

BY T. S. ELIOT

S’IO CREDESSE CHE MIA RISPOSTA FOSSE
A PERSONA CHE MAI TORNASSE AL MONDO,
QUESTA FIAMMA STARIA SENZA PIU SCOSSE.
MA PERCIOCHE GIAMMAI DI QUESTO FONDO
NON TORNO VIVO ALCUN, S’I’ODO IL VERO,
SENZA TEMA D’INFAMIA TI RISPONDO.

Let us go then, you and I, 

When the evening is spread out against the sky 

Like a patient etherized upon a table; 

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 

The muttering retreats 

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 

Streets that follow like a tedious argument 

Of insidious intent 

To lead you to an overwhelming question ... 

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” 

Let us go and make our visit. 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, 

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, 

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, 

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 

And seeing that it was a soft October night, 

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. 

And indeed there will be time 

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, 

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 

There will be time, there will be time 

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; 

There will be time to murder and create, 

And time for all the works and days of hands 

That lift and drop a question on your plate; 

Time for you and time for me, 

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, 

And for a hundred visions and revisions, 

Before the taking of a toast and tea. 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

And indeed there will be time 

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” 

Time to turn back and descend the stair, 

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — 

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) 

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, 

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — 

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) 

Do I dare 

Disturb the universe? 

In a minute there is time 

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 

For I have known them all already, known them all: 

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; 

I know the voices dying with a dying fall 

Beneath the music from a farther room. 

               So how should I presume? 

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, 

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, 

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, 

Then how should I begin 

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 

               And how should I presume? 

And I have known the arms already, known them all— 

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare 

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) 

Is it perfume from a dress 

That makes me so digress? 

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. 

               And should I then presume? 

               And how should I begin? 

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes 

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... 

I should have been a pair of ragged claws 

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. 

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 

Smoothed by long fingers, 

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, 

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. 

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, 

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, 

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, 

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; 

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, 

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 

And in short, I was afraid. 

And would it have been worth it, after all, 

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, 

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, 

Would it have been worth while, 

To have bitten off the matter with a smile, 

To have squeezed the universe into a ball 

To roll it towards some overwhelming question, 

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, 

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 

If one, settling a pillow by her head 

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; 

               That is not it, at all.” 

And would it have been worth it, after all, 

Would it have been worth while, 

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, 

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— 

And this, and so much more?— 

It is impossible to say just what I mean! 

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 

Would it have been worth while 

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, 

And turning toward the window, should say: 

               “That is not it at all, 

               That is not what I meant, at all.” 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; 

Am an attendant lord, one that will do 

To swell a progress, start a scene or two, 

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, 

Deferential, glad to be of use, 

Politic, cautious, and meticulous; 

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; 

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— 

Almost, at times, the Fool. 

I grow old ... I grow old ... 

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. 

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach? 

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. 

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. 

I do not think that they will sing to me. 

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves 

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back 

When the wind blows the water white and black. 

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea 

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

You can listen to this poem: (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/44212)

Come, let us all be friends for once, Let us make life easy on us, Let us be lovers and loved ones, The earth shall be left to no one.

This semester we are going to write our own poetry.