As They Lay Dying: Or Why We Should Teach, Write, And Read Eudora Welty Instead of, Alongside of, Because of, As Often As William Faulkner (Critical Essay‪)‬

Of course we should read, study, and teach William Faulkner. (1) I am well aware of the breadth of Faulkner's imaginative world, his contribution to American letters, and the wealth of critical material on the south within the terrain of his Yoknapatawpha universe. I myself read, teach, and am indebted to the genius from Oxford. But I also believe that we should teach Eudora Welty as often and with as much critical acclaim and attention. When I consider how Faulkner is taught in many survey courses instead of Welty; when I think how often professors never even consider Welty when they are teaching or writing about Faulkner; and when I am asked by colleagues: "Still working on Eudora Welty?", I wonder: how many of them would say, "Still working on William Faulkner?" When my students come back from the stacks amazed by the four columns of floor-to-ceiling volumes on the great master and the two-to-three shelves (at best) on Welty; when I find 5,239 entries on Faulkner and 1,063 on Welty in a MLA online search, then a deep sense of mission wells up in me, for I am deeply committed to the life and works of the genius from Jackson. I can enter this debate only through the heavily worn critical path of "Faulkner and Women." Fortunately, everything that needs to be said on this subject has-been-will-be-is-being said brilliantly by my feminist Faulkner colleagues including Minrose Gwin, Deborah Clarke, Gail Mortimer, Barbara Ladd, Patsy Yeager, Diane Roberts, Ann Goodwin Jones, Judith Bryant Wittenberg, Susan Donaldson, Doreen Fowler, Dawn Trouard, Ellen Douglas, and many, many more. There are at least four volumes on the subject, a special edition of The Faulkner Journal, and numerous articles. As Caroline Carvill summarizes in her chapter, "Feminist and Gender Criticism" in A Companion to Faulkner Studies, "Feminist criticism has reshaped the map of Faulkner critical studies" (215), and it has done so by using multiple theoretical and critical approaches. These feminist critiques of Faulkner are extraordinary studies, to which I am much indebted. They are, in fact, some of the most nuanced and groundbreaking readings in the study of southern literature.