Grecian+Urn

The influence of poetry is evident in many pieces of Faulkner’s work. However, one poem in particular, John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” was influential to Faulkner in numerous ways. In the poem the urn can be seen as a metaphor for eternity and stasis in contrast to life, “the mad pursuit” that is constantly changing. The art imprinted on the urn is forever beautiful, silent, still and permanent. Furthermore, the poem further depicts how art enables one to fantasize and that what one does not actually experience is far “sweeter” than the actualities of life. Essentially, art is an existential moment that is “for ever new” and one can be happy in forever. It is forever still and allows one to fall in love with the ideal. However, because art allows one to fantasize so greatly it can leave “a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d” and one will experience much disappointment with the actual world. Art flirts with the imagination and one will always aspire for something else, as well as be constantly dissatisfied with the things around them.

Faulkner, like Keats, “deplores man’s immersion in a world of time and change where nothing lasts…and must involve change. Throughout his fiction, Faulkner offers us characters who seek the sort of stasis enjoyed by the figures on the Grecian urn” (Korenman 4-5). For example, Quentin Compson in //The Sound and the Fury// and Gail Hightower in //Light in August// are two characters that “struggle to stop time’s flow, to prevent time from defiling their ideal past. Faulkner recognizes his protagonists inadequacies, especially their tendency to romanticize the past and their consequent inability to tolerate life in the present” (Korenman 5).

Quentin Compson’s obsession with time, in addition to his thoughts about his relationship with his sister Caddy, reveals his anxiety about change and life being in constant motion. In fact, “he wants desperately to stop time, to restore and preserve the fixed world of his childhood with his sister, Caddy. The stasis he seeks resembles that of the figures on Keats’ Grecian urn” (Korenman 10). First, it is essential to note Quentin’s obsession with clocks and further his worry about time. “The elaborate symbolism of clocks…reveals the romantic hero’s striving toward immorality and transcendence” (Folks 186). Quentin’s watch is a constant reminder of the progression of time and its ticking begins to haunt him. Even after Quentin breaks his watch, which can be considered as a symbolic attempt at stopping time, he still could “hear [his watch], ticking away inside [his] pocket, even though nobody could see it. even though it could tell nothing if anyone could” (TSAF 85). Quentin’s fixation with the ticking watch and time in particular highlights his desire to be in the past, a past before promiscuous Caddy loses her virginity. He wishes he were there at the contraception of Dalton Ames so he could have aborted him before he was even created and “watch[ed] him die before he lived” (TSAF 80). He envisions an imaginative and romanticized solution to the blackening of the Compson name and the loss of Caddy’s virginity. A solution in which he commits incest and is the one to take Caddy’s virginity so no one else can take it. Incest would also mean reproducing the same and evacuating difference, which is what Quentin fanaticizes about. “Because it it were just to hell; if it were just to hell; if that were all of it. Finished. It things just finished themselves. Nobody else there but her and me. If we could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us. I have commited incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Ames” (TSAF 79). In this passage in which Quentin envisions he and his sister in hell, committing incest is described as a place where the both of them could live in the same time, eternally and separate from everyone. Similar to the frozen moment imprinted on the urn, Hell would be a place of transcendence and a place of frozen time. Lastly, Quentin’s repetition of the word ‘temporary’ throughout the chapter also reveals his desire for the eternal, a place in which a moment exists forever. The use of the word ‘temporary’ exploits that time bothers Quentin and it is the continuation of time that drives him to commit suicide, as death will allow him to exist in a place outside of time.

Keats’ Grecian urn is again drawn to in Faulkner’s //Light in August// with its past-ridden character Gail Hightower. “What Quentin could only find in death—Keatsian stasis, an escape from time and change—the Reverend Gail Hightower in //Light in August// seeks retreating from life into the past” (Korenman 13). Hightower, similar to Quentin, is obsessed with the past. In particular, Hightower is infatuated with a past that he was not apart of himself, but rather his deceased, Civil war veteran grandfather’s past: But they could not tell whether he himself believed or not what he told them, if he cared or not, with his religion and his grandfather being shot from the galloping horse all mixed up, as though the seed which his grandfather had transmitted to him had been on the horse too that night and had been killed too and time had stopped there and then for the seed and nothing had happened in the time since, not even him. (LIA 64) In this passage is an image of a frozen moment in the past, a somewhat mythical past. Constantly within the novel Hightower often goes back to these traumatic and suspended moments in time. Furthermore, “Hightower’s intense concentration on the past renders him incapable of participating successfully in the present” (Korenman 14). In the end of the novel when Hightower is forced to “come in contact with life’s most basic and extreme experiences—birth and death” (Korenman 14) it is then that he begins to feel the disappointment of life, “the heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d” that Keats describes in his poem. Life and death break the suspension of time in which Hightower lives.

The Grecian Urn is again alluded to with the character Lena Grove, however in contrast to Hightower. Whereas Hightower craved stasis, Lena Grove is described a character who moves along well with change. In the beginning of the novel, “there is a close relationship between the aesthetic icon of organic movement in the opening scene of Lena Grove and the mule wagons ‘like something moving forever and without progress across an urn’ (Honnighausen 556). Lena’s movement is described as slow, “a long monotonous succession of peaceful and undeviating changes from day to dark and dark to day again, through which she advanced in identical and anonymous and deliberate wagons as though through succession of creakwheeled and limpeared avatars…” (LIA 6). Lena’s movement is so slow that it is essentially aesthetically frozen, similar to the art imprinted on Keats’ Grecian urn. However, it is essential to note that in this description Lena’s pregnant body is depicted as an urn and one that is about to bust and give birth. The bursting of the urn/Lena’s water breaking places the urn in time. Furthermore this shows that there must be change, time must continue on, and ultimately a break in stasis.

Faulkner's fascination with Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is made evident throughout many of his novels. Much like the images of stasis and frozen motion that Keats describes in his poem are the things that some of Faulkner's characters crave. The timeless art imprinted on the urn that is forever in a beautiful and still, bliss echos the suspension of time both Quentin and Hightower wish to preserve. It is the realization that these moments in time cannot be paused that eventually lead to both characters downfall. While other accepting of time characters, such as Lena Grove, continue to move on and change with time.

Works Cited:

Folks, Jeffrey J. ""The Influence of Poetry on the Narrative Technique of Faulkner's Early Fiction" //The Journal of Narrative Technique.// 9.3 (1979):184-190

Honnighausen,Lothar. "The Impact of the Arts on Faulkner's Writing." //American Studies.// 42.4 (1997): 559-571. JSTOR.

Korenman, Joan S. "Faulkner's Grecian Urn." //The Southern Literary Journal// 7.1 (1974): 3-23. JSTOR.

[Erica Rallo]