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Re: Shade and Shape in Pale Fire by Brian Boyd
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Dear Don and List,
Don sent us a very interesting article. Without taking sides ( not enough scholarship for that ), I'd like to take a plunge since the article raised the issue concerning Zembla and Boyd's book on Pale Fire. Nevertheless I shall be restricting myself to one question ( or two, perhaps).
Neither Cedarn, Utana may be pinpointed in a Map, or New Wye, although Apalachia ( from Miami to Maine) may be and has been so described by VN ( the route of "Hurricane Lolita" and various other references linked to weather forecasts in Shade's poem). Kinbote once linked Cedarn to a cave ( which brings to our minds both Coriolannus and Titus Andronicus). There was a "cedarn cave" cited by an explorer who tried to reach the sources of the Nile. It seems that Coleridge took up his description of an "edenic place" at the source of the Nile as inspiration for "Xanadu".
I was curious about the link bt. Zembla and Xanadu.
In our List ( in 2003) there has been a reference to both, and to Salman Rushdie who mentioned them together in a 2003 poem - but the text distributed to us came in Russian and I could not follow it.
Here is Salman Rushdie's poem:
Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:
All our dream-worlds may come true.
Fairy lands are fearsome too.
As I wander far from view
Read, and bring me home to you.
Here is Coleridge's poem describing cedars, caves and Xanadu:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
After wondering about Shade's "auto-da-fé" I happened on a Brazilian poem about the Phoenix and in which the poet wrote about King Sardanapal ( Assyria) who set all his books and jewels afire to deprive his country's invadors from their booty ( Shade and Kinbote?). Coleridge's "river Alph" may take us back to the Nile and to Greek mythology ( the story of Alpheus).
This set me on the trail of Assyria and Egypt and the Nile, fabulous countries and animals and then I picked up B.Boyd's book on "Pale Fire" to check Coleridge's reference to "river Alph". I was then planning to read what Boyd wrote about the "alphabetic family", Alpha and Omega, going from A to Z and King Alfin. Priscilla Meyer's excellent book was separated to follow her lead, too.
Despite my plans, the posting gave me the idea to share these "hints" with the List and get help to proceed - or - to abandon the project.
While perusing Boyd's chapters I was struck by the ellision of the letter "E" ( we have four names with A,B,C and D. We know that number four figures prominently in Pale Fire) and, in Zembla, we will find a kind of alphabetical continuation if we ennumerate Fleur, Garth...
"E", as in Eliot, might have been omitted to stress a sexual allusion hidden by the limits that extend from Alpha to Delta ( from the source to the delta of the Nile, for example) since this Greek letter represents graphically a woman's sexual " delta". Eric Naiman, in his exploration of VN's bawdy allusions in "Lolita", mentioned how one word or image is "overdetermined" in VN and I agree with his observation. Although one may recognize VN's sexual allusions at the surface, there is a more serious game of discovery taking place at the same time, with Cedarns and caves and hidden treasures in imaginary paradises, such as Xanadu ( and I tremble when I add Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, Xanadu and Rosebud) and Zembla.
While using the "Google" I found a curious note offered at the Wikipaedia where it deals with imaginary countries. Zembla is mentioned among "Questionable cases" ( Countries from stories, myths, legends, that some people have believed to actually exist) since "the proof" about Zembla is based in VN's "Pale Fire"! Their list reads: Atlantis Aztlán El Dorado Lemuria Mu (continent) Ophir Shangri-la or Shambala Xanadu Zembla (See Pale Fire) Zinj
Best,
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 1:13 AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Shade and Shape in Pale Fire by Brian Boyd
.
NOTE: I picked this up off a Praue TV web page. As i recall it first appeared in NABOKOV STUDIES and them as part of Boyd's Pale Fire monograph.
D.Barton Johnson
(....)
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Don sent us a very interesting article. Without taking sides ( not enough scholarship for that ), I'd like to take a plunge since the article raised the issue concerning Zembla and Boyd's book on Pale Fire. Nevertheless I shall be restricting myself to one question ( or two, perhaps).
Neither Cedarn, Utana may be pinpointed in a Map, or New Wye, although Apalachia ( from Miami to Maine) may be and has been so described by VN ( the route of "Hurricane Lolita" and various other references linked to weather forecasts in Shade's poem). Kinbote once linked Cedarn to a cave ( which brings to our minds both Coriolannus and Titus Andronicus). There was a "cedarn cave" cited by an explorer who tried to reach the sources of the Nile. It seems that Coleridge took up his description of an "edenic place" at the source of the Nile as inspiration for "Xanadu".
I was curious about the link bt. Zembla and Xanadu.
In our List ( in 2003) there has been a reference to both, and to Salman Rushdie who mentioned them together in a 2003 poem - but the text distributed to us came in Russian and I could not follow it.
Here is Salman Rushdie's poem:
Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:
All our dream-worlds may come true.
Fairy lands are fearsome too.
As I wander far from view
Read, and bring me home to you.
Here is Coleridge's poem describing cedars, caves and Xanadu:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
After wondering about Shade's "auto-da-fé" I happened on a Brazilian poem about the Phoenix and in which the poet wrote about King Sardanapal ( Assyria) who set all his books and jewels afire to deprive his country's invadors from their booty ( Shade and Kinbote?). Coleridge's "river Alph" may take us back to the Nile and to Greek mythology ( the story of Alpheus).
This set me on the trail of Assyria and Egypt and the Nile, fabulous countries and animals and then I picked up B.Boyd's book on "Pale Fire" to check Coleridge's reference to "river Alph". I was then planning to read what Boyd wrote about the "alphabetic family", Alpha and Omega, going from A to Z and King Alfin. Priscilla Meyer's excellent book was separated to follow her lead, too.
Despite my plans, the posting gave me the idea to share these "hints" with the List and get help to proceed - or - to abandon the project.
While perusing Boyd's chapters I was struck by the ellision of the letter "E" ( we have four names with A,B,C and D. We know that number four figures prominently in Pale Fire) and, in Zembla, we will find a kind of alphabetical continuation if we ennumerate Fleur, Garth...
"E", as in Eliot, might have been omitted to stress a sexual allusion hidden by the limits that extend from Alpha to Delta ( from the source to the delta of the Nile, for example) since this Greek letter represents graphically a woman's sexual " delta". Eric Naiman, in his exploration of VN's bawdy allusions in "Lolita", mentioned how one word or image is "overdetermined" in VN and I agree with his observation. Although one may recognize VN's sexual allusions at the surface, there is a more serious game of discovery taking place at the same time, with Cedarns and caves and hidden treasures in imaginary paradises, such as Xanadu ( and I tremble when I add Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, Xanadu and Rosebud) and Zembla.
While using the "Google" I found a curious note offered at the Wikipaedia where it deals with imaginary countries. Zembla is mentioned among "Questionable cases" ( Countries from stories, myths, legends, that some people have believed to actually exist) since "the proof" about Zembla is based in VN's "Pale Fire"! Their list reads: Atlantis Aztlán El Dorado Lemuria Mu (continent) Ophir Shangri-la or Shambala Xanadu Zembla (See Pale Fire) Zinj
Best,
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 1:13 AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Shade and Shape in Pale Fire by Brian Boyd
.
NOTE: I picked this up off a Praue TV web page. As i recall it first appeared in NABOKOV STUDIES and them as part of Boyd's Pale Fire monograph.
D.Barton Johnson
(....)
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm