Overview
Provides the first in-depth analysis of ethics across six of Faulkner’s major novels
Draws on Henry Sidgwick’s “The Methods of Ethics”, as well as applying more recent contributions to moral philosophy from Jacques Derrida and Derek Parfit
Explores Faulkner’s moral language and his exploration of responsibility, duty, benevolence and universalism
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book offers the first comprehensive investigation of ethics in the canon of William Faulkner. As the fundamental framework for its analysis of Faulkner’s fiction, this study draws on The Methods of Ethics, the magnum opus of the utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick. While Faulkner’s Ethics does not claim that Faulkner read Sidgwick’s work, this book traces Faulkner’s moral sensitivity. It argues that Faulkner’s language is a moral medium that captures the ways in which people negotiate the ethical demands that life places on them. Tracing the contours of this evolving medium across six of the author’s major novels, it explores the basic precepts set out in The Methods of Ethics with the application of more recent contributions to moral philosophy, especially those of Jacques Derrida and Derek Parfit.
Reviews
- Niall Gildea, author of Jacques Derrida’s Cambridge Affair: Deconstruction, Philosophy and Institutionality (2019).
‘Early Faulkner criticism often followed the trajectory of Faulkner’s life, sometimes simply assuming that life had a moral compass. Later schools, for example historical materialism, sought the ‘substratum’ of material reality that underpinned the narrative, again only assuming that issues, such as the nature and economics of labor, had moral implications. Psychology, anthropology, mythology—all have had their day, often very useful days, often touching on ethical issues—but what has been lacking is ethics itself. Michael Wainwright’s Faulkner’s Ethics: An Intense Struggle will end that neglect and, I believe, spur a new interest in moral struggle, moral direction as it can be found in Faulkner’s life and literature.’
- Charles A. Peek, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Nebraska Kearney, USA
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Faulkner’s Ethics
Book Subtitle: An Intense Struggle
Authors: Michael Wainwright
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68872-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-68871-4Published: 29 May 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-68874-5Published: 30 May 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-68872-1Published: 28 May 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 319
Topics: North American Literature, Aesthetics, Twentieth-Century Literature, Ethics