The Unvanquished Embodies the Qualities William Faulkner Describes in His Nobel Acceptance Speech Sarah Downey

"On December 10, 1950 , [William Faulkner] delivered his [Nobel Prize] acceptance speech to the academy in a voice so low and rapid that few could make out what he was saying, but when his words were published in the newspaper the following day, [the speech was] recognized for its brilliance; in later years, Faulkner's speech would be lauded as the best speech ever given at a Nobel ceremony."

-quoted from http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/lib_nobel.html

His acceptance speech is much like his literary life- he wrote many novels, poems, and short stories, as many works as most writers produce in their lifetime in just over a decade, but received little recognition for them until after he had retired. In both his career and his speech, he was neither understood nor noticed until the next day, the next decade- after the fact. As a young writer his sales sagged, and he was largely unknown in America for much of his life. Was it because he refused to write anything lacking what he considered the "old verities and truths of the heart?î Faulkner's speech stressed the writer's duty to help man endure by keeping alive these truths in his or her work. He did not wish to fuel the American reader's...