William Faulkner’s Dialogue with the Pastoral Genre

This essay deals with the fact that The Sound and the Fury and Light in August dialogize the pastoral genre. In this respect, the first part of the essay presents a discussion about the definitions and modifications of the concept of the pastoral in different epochs. Then it will be proved that pastoral and specifically post-pastoral codes are appropriated in the two novels and, in this way, these novels can be categorized as pastoral novels. It will also be explained in detail that the mentioned novels not only appropriate the pastoral and post-pastoral codes but also reverse them and render a carnivalised version of the pastoral. The objective is to show that dialogue with the pastoral genre is not simply the appropriation of its codes within the two novels, and that the two novels interact with this genre in terms of giving a new version of the pastoral through negating its codes. The researcher will show that this interaction provides a good opportunity for Faulkner to question and criticize the social ideology of his time.