A Rose for Emily | Literary Criticism & Book Review

A Rose for Emily Critical Overview

Faulkner is now regarded by most critics as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. However, "A Rose for Emily," written in 1929, was actually rejected by Scribner's and other magazines before Forum published it in 1930. Although one of his greatest novels, The Sound and the Fury, was published just before "A Rose for Emily" in 1929, many American critics did not immediately recognize Faulkner as a groundbreaking writer. As is often the case with many challenging American authors, Faulkner was identified as a unique American voice in Europe long before he gained respect at home. In fact, as late as 1950, after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the New York Times (quoted in Robert Penn Warren's introduction To Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays) published an editorial claiming that his work was "too often vicious, depraved, decadent, [and] corrupt." "Americans most fervently hope,"...
(read more)