Just thought you might like some context for the acerbic depiction of Hightower sinking into some Tennyson on p. 318 (last page of ch 13). The text tells us of Hightower’s almost narcotic reading of the poems in his “sanctuary” of a home, separated from the violence and injustice of town life: the poems are full of the “gutless swooning full of sapless trees and dehydrated lusts” and reading them is “better than praying without having to bother to think aloud.”

I thought you might like to judge for yourself: I think it’s safe to say Faulkner was thinking of poems like “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” You can judge how sappy/lusty it is for yourself, but it’s hard not to hear one of Hightower’s raving sermons in the background as you read it. And I think the implicit contrast (if ironic) with Bunch’s Byron is strong: BB is one of the “bunch” of Jefferson WASPs, to be sure, but I think his willingness to side with the “outlandish” elements of society makes him an honorary member of the Society of Byron…