ABSTRACT
From 1951, when Absalom, Absalom! was reissued and the novel began to be studied in the college and university classes, students of the novel have been regularly and insistently perceiving possible homoerotic configurations in some of the principal events and characters. 1 Clearly the novel deals with the taboos against incest and miscegenation, but the purpose of this study is to demonstrate an additional taboo that is likewise central to an understanding of the thematic unity of the novel: the proscription of homoeroticism. One's understanding of Absalom, Absalom!,which Albert J. Guerard concludes is “perhaps the greatest American novel,” 2 is diminished without a full awareness of the homo-erotic components in many of the major events and characters in the conjectural reconstructions made by Mr. Compson, Quentin, and Shreve. (In “Divorce in Naples,” 1931, Faulkner wrote a short story centered on an explicit homoerotic relationship, but in no major novel does Faulkner utilize homoeroticism more significantly than in Absalom, Absalom! Because of critical neglect of this component and because of the importance of this novel in modern fiction, this study shall be restricted exclusively to Absalom, Absalom!)
