Editing Light in August (section)

=== Title ===
The title refers to the fire of the house that is at the center of the story. The whole novel revolves around one event, the fire, which is visible for miles around, and happens in August.

Some critics have speculated that the meaning of the title derives from a [[colloquialism|colloquial]] use of the word "light" to mean giving birth&mdash;typically used to describe when a cow will give birth and be "light" again&mdash;and connect this to Lena's pregnancy.{{sfn|Brooks|1963|p=375}} Speaking of his choice of title, Faulkner denied this interpretation and stated,

<blockquote> ... in August in Mississippi there's a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there's a foretaste of fall, it's cool, there's a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and—from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it's gone{{nbsp}}... the title reminded me of that time, of a luminosity older than our Christian civilization."{{sfn|Ruppersburg|1994|p=3}}</blockquote>

Within the novel itself, the title is alluded to when Gail Hightower sits at his study window waiting for his recurring vision of his grandfather's last raid. The vision always occurs in "that instant when all light has failed out of the sky and it would be night save for that faint light which daygranaried leaf and grass blade reluctant suspire, making still a little light on earth though night itself has come."{{sfn|Faulkner|1990|p=60}} The story that would eventually become the novel, started by Faulkner in 1931, was originally titled "Dark House" and began with Hightower sitting at a dark window in his home.{{sfn|Hamblin|Peek|1999|p=228}} However, after a casual remark by his wife Estelle on the quality of the light in August, Faulkner changed the title.{{sfn|Ruppersburg|1994|p=3}}