Darwin and Faulkner's Novels Evolution and Southern Fiction

by Wainwright, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781137362889
• ISBN10: 113736288X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2013-10-10
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Wide-ranging and skillful, Darwin and Faulkner's Novels reexamines the fiction of the great twentieth-century American author from the interdisciplinary perspective of sociobiology. Challenging the assumption that Faulkner's South was nothing other than a reactionary wilderness, Michael Wainwright charts the manner in which Faulkner learned and applied his evolutionary concepts. Ultimately, this ambitious book unsettles staid interpretations of the Faulknerian canon and overturns habitual judgments on the value of his later novels.

Author Biography

Twice winner of the Faulkner Conference 'Call for Papers,' Michael Wainwright lectures at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is the author of Faulkner's Gamble: Chess and Literature, Toward a Sociobiological Hermeneutic: Darwinian Essays on Literature, and articles for the Mississippi Quarterly, Brief Chronicles, and Papers on Language and Literature.

Table of Contents

1. Looking Across the Atlantic
2. Hand in Hand with the Old Gentleman
3. The Complex Temple of Sexual Politics
4. Pangenesis and Southern Thought
5. From Race to Ecology
6. Philosophical Frontiers
7. The Enemy Within
8. Self-interest, Cooperation, and Beyond