Willian Faulkner :: essays research papers

William Cuthbert Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of quadruple sons born to Murry and Maud Butler Faulkner. He was named after his great-grandfather, William Clark Faulkner, the Old Colonel, who had been killed eight historic period earlier in a duel with his former business teammate in the streets of Ripley, Mississippi. A jurisprudenceyer, politician, planter, businessman, Civil War colonel, railroad financier, and finally a best-selling writer (of the novel The White Rose of Memphis), the Old Colonel, crimson in death, loomed as a larger-than-life model of personal and superior success for his male descendants. A few days before Williams fifth birthday, the Faulkners moved to Oxford, Mississippi, at the urging of Murrys father, tin Wesley Thompson Faulkner. Called the Young Colonel out of homage to his father rather than to actual troops service, the younger Falkner had abruptly decided to sell the railroad begun by his father . baffle that he would not inherit the railroad, Murry took a series of jobs in Oxford, approximately of them with the help of his father. The elder Faulkner, meanwhile, founded the First National Bank of Oxford in 1910 with $30,000 in capital. William demonstrated artistic talent at a young age, draftsmanship and writing poetry, but around the sixth grade he began to turn increasingly bored with his studies. His earliest literary efforts were romantic, conscientiously modeled on English poets such as Burns, Thomson, Housman, and Swinburne. While still in his youth, he also made the acquaintance of two individuals who would play an important spot in his future a childhood sweetheart, Estelle Oldham, and a literary mentor, Phil Stone. Estelle was a popular, vivacious girl in Oxford with an active social life that include dances and parties. Despite her romance with William, she dated other boys, one of whom was Cornell Franklin, an Ole Miss law student who proposed marriage. She lightheartedly accepted, apparently believing his request insincere since he was spillage to Hawaii to establish a law practice. When he sent her an plight ring several months later, however, her parents thought Franklin would be a fine preserve for their daughter, and she found herself unable to escape the circumstances. She and Franklin were married in Oxford on April 18, 1918. Williams other close acquaintance from this period arose from their mutual interest in poetry. When Stone read the young poets work, he immediately recognise Williams talent and set out to give Faulkner encouragement, advice, and models for study.