Shakespeare and Faulkner explores the moral and ethical dilemmas that characters face inside themselves and in their interactions with others in the works of these two famed authors. Karl F. Zender''s characterological study offers insightful, critically rigorous, and at times quite personal analyses of the complicated figures who inhabit several major Shakespeare plays and Faulkner novels.
The two parts of this book--the first of which focuses on the English playwright, the second on the Mississippi novelist--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 evolving insights gleaned from reading these authors over several decades, situating their texts in relation to shifting trends in criticism and highlighting the contemporary relevance of their works. The final chapter, an extended discussion of Faulkner''s Intruder in the Dust, <
