Remembering William Faulkner’s Address Upon Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature

William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for the year 1949. He officially received the Prize and delivered his acceptance speech on December 10, 1950. This article re-examines critical responses to the writer’s Nobel Prize address, their interest in the address’s intertextual references to Faulkner’s earlier works and the works of other writers. The language of the address documents significant aspects of Faulkner-the writer’s/Faulkner-the reader’s aesthetic vision from the perspective of his didactic concern with the duties of the writer facing the challenges of his/ her time and as a means of constructing publicly Faulkner’s own literary self-portrait of universal dimensions.