In honor of Faulkner’s 115th birthday, here’s a passage from As I Lay Dying that I marked up my senior year of college when I was writing a verbose and probably questionable senior thesis on Faulkner’s indebtedness to Hamlet. This really is his version of the “To be or not to be” speech, though. In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is. How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.
Pop-upView Separately

In honor of Faulkner’s 115th birthday, here’s a passage from As I Lay Dying that I marked up my senior year of college when I was writing a verbose and probably questionable senior thesis on Faulkner’s indebtedness to Hamlet.

This really is his version of the “To be or not to be” speech, though.

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is.

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

68 Notes/ Hide

  1. brandend667 reblogged this from ecantwell
  2. realityisdead reblogged this from ecantwell
  3. forcefedandmisled reblogged this from allthelions
  4. aseerpravasi reblogged this from ecantwell
  5. fuckyeahmarginalia reblogged this from ecantwell
  6. lunaticcity reblogged this from ecantwell
  7. dondante reblogged this from allthelions
  8. byronic said: Pretty sure I did similar philological work with Shakespeare/Smashing Pumpkins lyrics back when I was a teenager. I can hear you snicker but you’d be surprised :)
  9. allthelions reblogged this from ecantwell
  10. alienoctopus reblogged this from onehundreddollars