Mayday itself is not, as one might expect, a fumbling piece of apprentice-work, but a skillful and amusing exercise in a very minor literary genre which might be described as a lightly allegorical medieval pastiche. It is the story of Sir Galwyn of Arthygal, who, accompanied by Hunger and Pain, rides forth as a new knight, kills "a small dragon of an inferior and cowardly type," seduces three beautiful princesses in three consecutive days and immediately abandons each of them, and finally, with the help of St. Francis, seeks and finds little sister Death in the river. On the way he encounters various figures, including Time, with whom he has philosophical discussions; and the whole work operates in a spirit of cheerful and unportentous nihilism. The manner and style are essentially those of Cabell, and the archaic language is remarkably well handled, especially in view of the fact that Faulkner was no scholar. Much of the amusement comes from what [Carvel Collins in his introduction] calls anachronisms, though they are not really that but are deliberate juxtapositions of the tone of high romance with everyday trivial clichés, as when Yseult, standing naked in the water, replies to a highflown speech of Sir Galwyn: "Do you really think I am beautiful? You say it so convincingly that I must believe you have said it before—I am sure you have said it to other girls. Now, haven't you? But I am sorry you saw me with my hair done this way." There is nothing unmedieval about this, as Chaucer's Criseyde shows us on occasion; but it clashes engagingly with the conventions and language of high romance.
Mayday will do nothing, of course, to increase the stature of Faulkner as one of the few really great writers of our century, but it is no disgrace to Faulkner and is worth publishing for literary as well as biographical and scholarly purposes. (p. 332)
Calvin S. Brown, "Faulkner, Criticism, and High Fashion," in The Sewanee Review (reprinted by permission of the editor; © 1980 by The University of the South), Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 4, Fall, 1980, pp. 631-41.
