Yoknapatawpha County

Yoknapatawpha County

Yoknapatawpha County is a fictional county created by American author William Faulkner as a setting for many of his novels. It is widely believed by scholars that Lafayette County, Mississippi is the basis for Yoknapatawpha County. Faulkner would often refer to it as "my apocryphal county."

Yoknapatawpha county is located in northwestern Mississippi and its seat is the town of Jefferson. This fictional county is bounded on the north by the Tallahatchie River and on the south by the Yoknapatawpha River and has an area of 2,400 mi² (6,200 km²). Most of the eastern half (as well as a small part of the southwest corner) of the county is pine hill country.

The word "Yoknapatawpha" is pronounced "Yok'na pa TAW pha." It is derived from two Chickasaw words—"Yocona" and "petopha", meaning "split land." Faulkner claimed that the compound means "water flowing slow through the flatland," though this is unverified. "Yoknapatawpha" was the original name for the actual Yocona River, which runs through the southern part of Lafayette County, of which Oxford is the seat.

The area was originally Chickasaw land. White settlement started around the year 1800. Prior to the Civil War, the county consisted of several large plantations: Louis Grenier's in the southeast, McCaslin's in the northeast, Sutpen's in the northwest, and Compson's and Sartoris's in the immediate vicinity of Jefferson. Later the county became mostly small farms. By 1936, the population was 15,611, of which 6,298 were whites and 9,313 were black.

tories set in Yoknapatawpha County

* "Sartoris" (1929)
* "The Sound and the Fury" (1929)
* "As I Lay Dying" (1930)
* "A Rose for Emily" (1930)
* "Spotted Horses" pub. in Scribner's Magazine (1930)
* "Dry September" (1931)
* "That Evening Sun" (1931)
* "Sanctuary" (1931)
* "Light in August" (1932)
* "Absalom, Absalom!" (1936)
* "The Unvanquished" (1938)
* "Barn Burning" (1939)
* "The Hamlet" (1940)
* "Go Down, Moses" (1942)
* "Intruder in the Dust" (1948)
* "Requiem for a Nun" (1951)
* "The Town" (1957)
* "The Mansion" (1959)
* "The Reivers" (1962)
* "Flags in the Dust" (1973)


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  • Yoknapatawpha County — ist ein fiktiver Landkreis (County) im amerikanischen Bundesstaat Mississippi, der Schauplatz der meisten Romane und Erzählungen des Literaturnobelpreisträgers William Faulkner ist. Vorbild für Yoknapatawpha County war das Lafayette County im… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Yoknapatawpha County — es un condado ficticio del noroeste de Misisipi, en el que transcurren varias novelas de William Faulkner. Flanqueado al norte por el río Tallahatchie y al sur por el Yoknapatawpha, ambos realmente existentes, se corresponde grosso modo con el… …   Wikipedia Español

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  • Yoknapatawpha County —  Fictional county in William Faulkner novels …   Bryson’s dictionary for writers and editors

  • Yoknapatawpha County — …   Useful english dictionary

  • Yoknapatawpha — County ist ein fiktiver Landkreis (county) im amerikanischen Bundesstaat Mississippi, der Schauplatz der meisten Romane und Erzählungen des Literaturnobelpreisträgers William Faulkner ist. Vorbild für Yoknapatawpha County war das Lafayette County …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • Lafayette County, Mississippi — Lafayette County courthouse in Oxford, Mississippi …   Wikipedia

  • Faulkner’s County — Yoknapatawpha (an invention of novelist William Faulkner) …   Eponyms, nicknames, and geographical games

  • William Faulkner — Infobox Writer name = William Faulkner imagesize = 200px caption = Faulkner in 1954, photograph by Carl Van Vechten pseudonym = birthname = William Cuthbert Falkner birthdate = September 25, 1897 birthplace = Oxford, Mississippi deathdate = July… …   Wikipedia

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