William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Thomas Dasher (Berry College)
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Requiem for a Nun was Faulkner’s fifteenth novel, published on 27 September 1951. Written as a sequel to Sanctuary (1931), Faulkner’s most notorious novel, Requiem continues the story of Temple Drake eight years after the horrendous events of the earlier novel in which Temple, a reckless co-ed on a wild trip to a college baseball game, is abandoned at the bootleggers’ hideout by her drunken date, sexually brutalized and abducted by Popeye, a bootlegger and gangster, and held prisoner in a brothel where she is thoroughly corrupted by alcohol, sex, and association with the Memphis underworld. Faulkner had first considered using the title Requiem for a Nun as early as December 1933 for a…

4612 words

Citation: Dasher, Thomas. "Requiem for a Nun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 December 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2397, accessed 29 March 2024.]

2397 Requiem for a Nun 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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