An excerpt of William Faulkner's famous Nobel Prize Speech
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.
An excellent example of the spirit of a writer is William Faulkner. He's a perfect specimen of a writer, and the qualified specimen of a writer who is expert at holding the attention of readers, while presenting to the world a part of himself and a view of his society and culture, manifested in his stories about Southern people in is specific time period. Today, you will note much of his content is offensive to many people of diversity.
His speech is so famous probably more so than the other writer speeches, at least to date, because of his authentic definition of his part as a writer, "a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit..." His human spirit, in his time period in life, in his location, and in his cultural milieu, he managed to capture it all in the agony and sweat of the human spirit.
Much like Jack London, Faulkner also met with great challenges to be who he was, particularly keeping his integrity intact while writing, and while having his bouts with love and loss, misunderstandings, and excessive drinking (it is painful to be transparent when your transparency reveals many scars, wrongful discourtesies, hateful interactions and humiliations of the daily activities of many souls, to be let out publicly--often leading to anesthetizing one with drink).
Although his legacy remains and his contribution can be felt throughout generations, he was still a man who had a story to tell in order to make us understand ourselves as well as he: this was his most serious determination, and he achieved it very well.
To this day, his Nobel Prize speech is deeply moving. It is hard to hear it without sensing the impact on a person of sincere soul writing, and isn't it appropriate? Reading it will move the heart greatly; he was truly a WRITER first, before anything else.
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