Time Rots
William Faulkner and John Keats were born a century and thousands of miles apart, in worlds that were foundationally different. These differences helped shape their works and perspective, with Romanticism influencing Keats and Modernism influencing Faulkner. Though the two movements share an “oppos[ition] to reason and logic,” the medium they focused on differed widely (Tucker). Romanticists tended to find inspiration in the natural world while Modernists analyzed the way technology affected society, “often to its detriment” (Tucker). However, despite these varied points resulting from different decades of influence, both Faulkner and Keats used anachronistic diction, vacillating setting, and vivid imagery to portray the theme of …show more content…
In Keats’ world, a Grecian urn sets the boundaries, and he conveys that by emulating the word choices of the Greeks in their plays, such as “Prometheus Bound’, a play by Aeschylus written around 430 B.C.E. This is important because of the speech commonalities between the two like “ye” and “twain” (Keats). Invoking these specific words creates a sense of legitimacy. Faulkner uses similar strategies to establish his setting, likening his character’s style of speaking to citizens of the Old South. He writes phonetically, allowing the full accent to come through, with words such as “yawl [and] gonter” (Faulkner 317). Although these grammar errors roughen the reading of “The Bear,” they do not detract from Faulkner’s content and actually reminds us of the Southern accent. Such a reminder, of course, also ties in with the ‘Old Southern’ thinking, pre-Civil War, and furthers the characterization of Faulkner’s characters. For instance, the fourth section of “The Bear” marks a change in Ike, the main character, as he …show more content…
Faulkner was from Mississippi in the late seventeenth century, while Keats was from late sixteenth century England. One would think two people born halfway across the world from each other and living a hundred years apart would negatively affect their way to connect, but it could not be less true. Both authors apply archaic wording, descriptive text, and fluctuating setting to portray their respective themes of fragile
William Faulkner and John Keats were born a century and thousands of miles apart, in worlds that were foundationally different. These differences helped shape their works and perspective, with Romanticism influencing Keats and Modernism influencing Faulkner. Though the two movements share an “oppos[ition] to reason and logic,” the medium they focused on differed widely (Tucker). Romanticists tended to find inspiration in the natural world while Modernists analyzed the way technology affected society, “often to its detriment” (Tucker). However, despite these varied points resulting from different decades of influence, both Faulkner and Keats used anachronistic diction, vacillating setting, and vivid imagery to portray the theme of …show more content…
In Keats’ world, a Grecian urn sets the boundaries, and he conveys that by emulating the word choices of the Greeks in their plays, such as “Prometheus Bound’, a play by Aeschylus written around 430 B.C.E. This is important because of the speech commonalities between the two like “ye” and “twain” (Keats). Invoking these specific words creates a sense of legitimacy. Faulkner uses similar strategies to establish his setting, likening his character’s style of speaking to citizens of the Old South. He writes phonetically, allowing the full accent to come through, with words such as “yawl [and] gonter” (Faulkner 317). Although these grammar errors roughen the reading of “The Bear,” they do not detract from Faulkner’s content and actually reminds us of the Southern accent. Such a reminder, of course, also ties in with the ‘Old Southern’ thinking, pre-Civil War, and furthers the characterization of Faulkner’s characters. For instance, the fourth section of “The Bear” marks a change in Ike, the main character, as he …show more content…
Faulkner was from Mississippi in the late seventeenth century, while Keats was from late sixteenth century England. One would think two people born halfway across the world from each other and living a hundred years apart would negatively affect their way to connect, but it could not be less true. Both authors apply archaic wording, descriptive text, and fluctuating setting to portray their respective themes of fragile