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This essay provides an overview of contemporary studies on the land in Faulkner’ s works. Previous research around the 2000 s contributed to our comprehension of pastoral and anti-pastoral representations of the land in Faulkner’ s works. However, their ecological critique of modernity was subject to criticism for its inclination towards melancholic nostalgia for the preindustrial South. Recent studies, released from these anti-modern strains, use the concept of Anthropocene to analyze the author’ s geological contemplation on deep time scales. In Faulkner’ s fiction, the Southern soil contains traces of deep time within the layers of its physicality. Faulkner’ s depiction of the earth during the impending disaster in “Old Man” exposes the historical significance of the plantation South and the hardships undergone by successive generations. Humanity, acting as a geological agent, has repeatedly violated the collective ecosystem of Yoknapatawpha. However, Faulkner also shows the enduring and resilient nature of the land, as evidenced by its deep time. This essay introduces the different points of view of Global South Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Environmental Justice approaches in their understanding of Faulknerian land and its time scale. With the emergence of New Modernist Studies, the efforts of historicizing Southern modernity have grown in recent years. These efforts reconfigure Faulkner’ s modernism by relocating the South from the regional other to the place of modernization. Material modernity, however, doesn’ t fully elucidate the depth of certain characters’ struggles with modernization. To get insight into their pains, we must look beyond the temporal scale of history and envision the deep history that erupts across time. The complexities of Faulknerian soil, where historical time and deep time are intertwined, has the potential to provoke additional thought in this regard.
