"Kilt," not "whupped," Part 2

Okay my friends, I now have one further theory to posit about the Tim Kaine-quoting-Faulkner conundrum. In an earlier post, you may recall, we discussed a striking moment from Kaine's 2016 concession speech, in which he cited the words of Wash Jones, from Faulkner's novel Absalom, Absalom!, and drew cheers and applause from the audience.

As noted then, it was an odd choice. In the novel, Jones is an impoverished hanger-on to the Sutpen fortune. The phrase that Kaine quoted—about being "kilt," but not yet "whupped"—is one Jones utters multiple times with variations in the novel, and always in the context of trying to revive the Southern so-called "lost cause."

It is an uncomfortable choice at best for a politician to invoke a Neo-Confederate and white supremacist slogan, even if it was one penned by an esteemed and unimpeachably highbrow novelist, and placed into the mouth of one of his more disreputable characters. And it is downright ironic for Kaine to have used it as a rallying cry of stoicism and defiance in the wake of a loss to one of the most blatantly racist politicians to reach elected office in recent decades.

I suspect that Kaine—or Kaine's speechwriter, or whoever—was drawn to the quote, despite the queasiness of these associations, because of its thrilling air of paradox. It captures at once the enormity of the defeat—to the very point of death - as well as the tiny stalk of hope springing up in spite of this calamity—an image of what Rev. Jeremiah Wright famously called, discussing a painting by Victorian artist George Frederic Watts, "the audacity of hope." (Whence Obama's noted use of the phrase.)

As I argued in the earlier post, however, the phrase loses some of this meaning and power—and gains in banality—if we trace its likely etymological origins. Once we discover that "kilt" as used by a Scotch-Irish Southerner may have referred to neither the Highland garment nor an alternative spelling of the past participle of the verb "to kill," but may have simply meant "wounded," then Wash Jones is just saying that we have been damaged but will nonetheless carry on.

The phrase remains an invitation to resilience in the face of a setback, in that case, but an altogether more conventional one.

Be that as it may, however, we are still left with a bit of a puzzle. Did Kaine, or Kaine's speechwriter, or whoever, really read this quote in context in Absalom, Absalom! and think - gee, we really ought to invoke the spirit of Neo-Confederate ne'er-do-well Wash Jones in conceding defeat to racist demagogue Donald Trump?

They might have thought no one would care about the phrase's origins, but if so, that was dreadfully short-sighted of them. We live in the digital age, when information is easy to come by, and everyone cares about everything (or, better to say, someone will carry about anything).

This brings me to my new theory, which I believe solves the apparent mystery. The "kilt, not whupped" quote appears originally in Absalom, Absalom!, but that is not the only place it has been invoked since. Reading Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety, I discover that it is also a favorite tag used by two of our main characters, Larry and Sid.

They too have stripped it of context (though they attribute it to Faulkner and note that, in the novel, it is uttered by someone they refer to as an "unreconstructed redneck"). They too use it as a general-purpose reminder to be stoical in the face of defeat and the ungracious treatment of others. Stoicism is indeed an undercurrent throughout Stegner's novel, with Housman, Hardy, and an unnamed "Anglo-Saxon" all making appearances in this role. Why not Faulkner too?

This, then, is my theory: Kaine, or Kaine's speechwriter, or whoever, did not get the quote from reading Faulkner, but from reading Stegner.

Does this matter? Should we care? I, for one, find it an instructive example—one worthy of study if we wish to know the subtle ways that literary lines keep, and pass, and turn again. A good line does not lie inert once, but lives, and reappears. We hope and pray the Confederate cause is dead and buried. But may the good line, like Emerson's "slain," continue to rise again.