Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0003348, Fri, 4 Sep 1998 10:03:00 -0700

Subject
Re: VN & Sentiment (fwd)
Date
Body
Tim Henderson<thenders@mail.lanline.com> wrote:
Does this strike anyone else as a definition that fits the word
"melodramatic" better than "sentimental" in the sense of the Salinger
quote discussed earlier -- roughly, an unnatural degree of 'tenderness'
-- or Dale Plank's 'unearned emotion'? Some of the situations we
discussed, such as Pnin and his punch bowl, seem to revolve not around
long-suffering virtue but the kind of pity or other pang evoked by
helpless and ardent things, whether they deserve it or not. It may be
that the kind of pity evoked by VN, deliberately divorced from any sense
of justice and 'meaning', is part of his unique appeal.

> From: Brian Boyd <b.boyd@edunov2.auckland.ac.nz>
>
> By the way, you might want to pop this onto the list: the exact
> quotation
> that my memory summarized:
>
> " 'Sentimental' implies little beyond the shedding of conventional
> tears
> over the misadventures of conventional virtue in verse or prose
> _Eugene
> Oegin_ 3.33
>
> Brian Boyd
> English Department
> University of Auckland
> Auckland, New Zealand
> FAX + 64 9 373 7599 ext 7429
> e-mail: b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz
>
> Brian Boyd
> English Department
> University of Auckland
> Auckland, New Zealand
> FAX + 64 9 373 7599 ext 7429
> e-mail: b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz