Faulkner, William

Original pen-and-ink and wash drawing and 8 lines of verse in Faulkner's calligraphic hand, signed ("W Falkner"), (9 7/8 x 6 1/4 in.; 250 x 159 mm), [Oxford, Mississippi, c. 1919–20], with a child's pencil drawing of chair, table and vase on verso; some browning.  Glazed and in original frame.

Cf: Sensibar, Faulkner's Poetry: A Bibliographical Guide to Texts and Criticism, pp. 92–96

As described in catalogue.
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A previously unknown Faulkner drawing accompanied by 8 lines of hitherto unpublished verse.  The charming drawing depicts a youthful piping Pan, seated on a rock.  Standing next to him in a clump of willows is a slender nymph bearing a distinct resemblance to Estelle Oldham (then Mrs. Cornell Franklin, and residing in Honolulu).  In the background, a group of nymphs dance in a circle, while stylized swallows dart through the air.  For his fanciful signature just under the drawing, the artist signs himself in art-deco lettering as "W Falkner." 

At this period Faulkner was a student at the University of Mississippi and was still suffering from the loss of Estelle Oldham, with whom he remained very close. Estelle had married Cornell Franklin in April 1918 and moved with him to Hawaii shortly afterward. It is likely that the young artist and poet gave this drawing to Estelle during one of her visits home from Hawaii to see her parents in Oxford.  During these visits, Billy Falkner (as he still was) was an almost constant guest at the Oldham home.

It was during this period that Faulkner was at work on his book-length pastoral poem The Marble Faun (published 1924).  The eight unpublished lines found here compliment the published work (not to mention other known manuscript fragments of the period), as does the drawing. If the ink-and-wash drawing reflects Faulkner's early admiration for Aubrey Beardsley, it also echos Manet's illustrations for Mallarmé's "L'Après-midi d'un faun" (a title Faulkner would appropriate untranslated for one of his own poems).  The pictogram-like birds of the drawing are described in The Marble Faun: "Swallows dart and skimming fly / Like arrows painted in the sky …."   This untitled poem, however, is not simply a fragment or a discarded strophe, but a complete poem in which the poet laments the loss of his loved one and the chill this loss brings to his world.  Faulkner's Pan blows through "anguished pipes" for "springs before the world grew old."  The young poet must certainly have been thinking of Estelle's great love for dancing and his own awkwardness on the dance floor when he regretted "blond-limbed dancers lemon-clad / From vales and hill-tops fiery cold — / A world fantastical and sad."

During this period, Faulkner also published poetry in The Mississippian, most of it heavily indebted to A. E. Housman, Verlaine, Mallarmé, and the French Symbolists.  Some of this early published poetry earned him the ridicule of other Ole Miss "scribblers" and he was blackballed from one of the school's three literary societies. He was also at work on his dream-play The Marionettes, a copy of which he presented to Estelle's young daughter Victoria, known as Cho-Cho.   

This newly discovered sheet combining a fine drawing and eight lines of verse executed in meticulous calligraphy by the poet is quintessential early Faulkner, shedding new light on his development as a writer and on his relationship with Estelle Oldham, later to become his wife.