Associate Professor Dr. Anca Peiu
University of Bucharest
Elective Course Syllabus,
3rd Year Undergraduate Students, Spring Term 2016
Modern and Romantic Renderings of the Old South in
William Faulkner’s and Flannery O’Connor’s Shorter Fiction
Course Description
The American Old South is a relative location for William Faulkner’s fiction. We can only read his
miniature masterpieces as world literature – due to both his modern virtuosity of stylistic expression
and his (mock)romantic cast of mind. It is in this complexity of Faulkner’s literary heritage that we
will always meet our contemporary in terms of literary message, technique, humor, tragic irony.
Faulkner’s universality is rendered by his successful shorter fiction, which develops on the same
mythical map of Yoknapatawpha. The works in our bibliography may not be very long, yet they are
“a slow read,” provided we study them as carefully as they deserve.
Likewise, Flannery O’Connor – one of William Faulkner’s most brilliant disciples in the art of fiction
– uses the strategies of shorter fiction to build up an intense picture of the contemporary Old South.
We will find in it the classic recipe: elements of Southern Gothic, dark humor, grotesque – blending
into her witty short stories of universal value.
Course Requirements
The main requirement is thorough (close) reading.
Mandatory attendance: 75% of the classes.
Assignments: 4 (four) essays, one for each literary work studied, with four different approaches –
each one 25% of the final grade
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A Plan of Work & Discussions
Week 1: A General Revision & Introduction of William Faulkner’s Personality. Introspection: a keyword for the American tradition of psychological fiction
Week 2: “A Rose for Emily” – a general presentation of the short story. The Southern Gothic tradition
and the classic American detective story pattern. Intertextuality issues
Week 3: “A Rose for Emily” – students’ feed-back. Debating seminar
Week 4: “A Rose for Emily” – students’ home-written essays evaluation
Week 5: As I Lay Dying – a general introduction of Faulkner’s most daring & experimental novel.
Metaphorical fiction with drama elements. Faulkner and the American tradition of black humor
Week 6: As I Lay Dying – students’ feed-back. Debating seminar
Week 7: As I Lay Dying – students’ focus on one character/ voice of their own choice
Week 8: As I Lay Dying – students’ home-written essays evaluation
Week 9: Flannery O’Connor: “Good Country People”– an introduction to the writer & her work
Week 10: “Good Country People” – students’ feed-back. Debating seminar
Week 11: Intruder in the Dust – a general introduction of Faulkner’s detective novel with deeper
meanings. The Old South and its stories of racial (in)tolerance
Week 11: Intruder in the Dust – students’ feed-back. Debating seminar
Week 12: Intruder in the Dust – The Stevenses and Lucas Beauchamp. Chick Mallison and the
Southern chivalric code of honor in the 20th century. A Southern Bildungsroman
Week 13: Intruder in the Dust – social classes issues in the Old South (the upper middle-class, the
intellectual, the lawyer; the poor white trash). The whodunit and the dilemma of the AfricanAmerican anti-hero
Week 14: The Final Evaluation & Conclusions
Bibliography
A. Primary Bibliography
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” (1930) – a short story
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930) – a novel
Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People” (1955) – a short story
William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948) – a novel
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B. Secondary Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, Novelists and Novels; A Collection of Critical Essays, Checkmark Books, 2007
(2005)
Blotner, Joseph, Faulkner: A Biography, Vintage Books, Random House, NY, 1991 (1974)
Brinkmeyer, Jr., Robert H., The Art and Vision of Flanery O’Connor, Louisiana State University
Press, Baton Rouge and London, 1993
Gray, Richard, Southern Aberrations: Writers of the South and the Problems of Regionalism,
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2000
Kristeva, Julia, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia Univ. Press, 2005 (1982)
Mihăieş, Mircea, Ce rămâne: William Faulkner şi misterele ţinutului Yoknapatawpha, Polirom, 2012
Moreland, Richard, Ed., A Companion to William Faulkner, Blackwell Publishing, 2007
Morrison, Toni, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Vintage Books,
Random House, Inc., New York, 1993
Peiu, Anca, “Addie ca în <Adio>. William Faulkner şi arta monologului,” a preface to the vol. Pe
patul de moarte (As I Lay Dying), translated into Romanian by Horia-Florian Popescu and Paul Goma,
the “William Faulkner Library,” a critical edition, RAO International Publishing Company,
Bucharest, 2012
Peiu, Anca, “Yoknapatwpha: Hartă pentru iscoade şi (nu) pentru intruşi,” a preface to the vol. Iscoadă
în ţărână (Intruder in the Dust), translated into Romanian by Anca Peiu, the ”William Faulkner
Library,” a critical edition, RAO International Publishing Company, Bucharest, 2011
Peiu, Anca, Prefaces, Chronologies, Selective Bibliographies & Notes, to the RAO Critical edition –
”William Faulkner Library:” The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion, Flags in the Dust, Uncollected
Stories of William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, Intruder in the Dust – RAO International Publishing
Company, Bucharest, 2008 – 2012
Peiu, Anca, Trecutul timpului perfect: de la Thomas Mann la William Faulkner, EUB, 2001
Rivkin, Julie & Michael Ryan, Literary Theory: An Anthology, Blackwell Publishing, 2004
Todorov, Tzvetan, The Poetics of Prose, Cornell University Press, 1992 (1971)
Whitt, Margaret Earley, Understanding Flannery O’Connor, Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1997
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