An analysis of the influence the decadent movement of the 1890's had on the writing of selected works by William Faulkner.

Abstract

This study, by using vocabulary comparison, demonstrates that William Faulkner was influenced by the fin de siecle Decadents in writing three of his novels: Absalom, Absalom!, Sanctuary, and The Sound and the Fury. Karl Beckson, in the preface to his anthology Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890's, mentions that modern critics need to take a new look at the Decadent Movement if they wish fully to understand the roots of modern literature. One of the major modern American novelists is William Faulkner. He, like the Decadents, presents studies of a society in decay. In Absalom, Absalom!, he describes a scene as he believes Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley might portray it. He specifically mentions both their names. This evidence demonstrates that Faulkner was aware of his Decadent predecessors. However, how far does this awareness go? Using Beckson's definition of Decadence and that of Philippe Jullian in his Dreamers of Decadence, one can select words from works by Decadents that help to verify those definitions. These words can be grouped under fourteen elements which provide a concise description of Decadent literature: Aristocracy/Luxury, Beauty, Death, Divine Order of Things, Dreams, Evil, Fascination with Colors, Harlots, Illness, Pain, Pleasure, Sexual Deviation, The Soul, and Superstition. This study presents a glossary of words compiled by means of an examination of Beardsley's Under the Hill, Charles Baudelaire's Twenty Prose Poem~ and Flowers of Evil, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and SalomI, Max Beerbohm's "Pervasion of Rouge" and "Dandies and Dandies," Walt Whitman's Children of Adam and Calamus, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. The compilation supports the fourteen elements which are used to help develop characters, settings, and themes. The searching out of evidence that these elements are present in the three works by Faulkner reveals that to develop general effects Faulkner uses a vocabulary similar to that used by Decadent writers. This study demonstrates that Faulkner is not only aware of the Decadents' works but consciously makes use of their atmospheric techniques in developing these three works.