Shakespeare and Faulkner

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In Shakespeare and Faulkner: Selves and Others, Karl F. Zender presents a character-focused study that consists of three chapters on Shakespeare plays ("Measure for Measure, " "Othello, " and "Macbeth") and three on Faulkner novels ("The Sound and the Fury" and "Absalom, Absalom!" considered together, followed by individual pieces on "Light in August" and "Intruder in the Dust"). An appendix contains a personal essay reflecting on the author's correspondence with an Iranian professor translating Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun" into Farsi. Throughout these critically rigorous though at times quite personal analyses, Zender emphasizes the moral and ethical dilemmas that characters face inside themselves and in their interactions with others. The two halves of the manuscript share a common methodology in that they originate in Zender's history as a teacher of and writer on the two authors, who until now he generally approached separately. He emphasizes the new insights gleaned from rereading these authors over several decades, situating their texts in relation to shifting trends in criticism and emphasizing the contemporary relevance of their insights. The last body chapter, an extended discussion of "Intruder in the Dust, " attempts something unusual in critical practice. It reverses the emphasis on close textual analysis of Zender's previous work, instead exploring the intersections between events depicted in the novel and his own life, both as a child and as an adult. Taken as a whole, "Shakespeare and Faulkner: Selves and Others" speaks to the power of literature as a form of pleasure and of consolation. It reveals the centrality of narrative and storytelling to human beings' attempts to make sense not only of their journey through life but of the circumstances in which they live. Zender's navigation of texts he finds enriching and deeply rewarding offers a model of engaged and thoughtful scholarly criticism"--