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Re: Yet another reconsideration of Pale Fire
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R S Gwynn [to Dave Haan's "hope that this opens the door to more serious scholarship on Johnson's influence on Nabokov."] As a man who lived with an unabridged dictionary (and made good use of it) there's no doubt why, on at least on level, VN revered the great lexicographer. But on another level, please note that the epigraph to PF is not from Johnson but from Boswell. Shade is to Kinbote as Johnson was to Boswell. So there are many reasons why comparisons are apt, not the least of which is Johnson's fascination with Savage and friendship with Smart.
JM: Savage and Smart are not familiar names to me, and a little checking on Christopher Smart, following RS Gwynn's hints, provided me with a wealth of information to link Kinbote's choice of Boswell on Johnson (and cats) for his epigraph in Pale Fire, and the poet Smart. The mad poet's poem to his cat may have found echoes in the written instructions Judge Goldsworth left to Kinbote, concerning his cat.
It was interesting to read about Dr.Johnson and the intoxicating powers of apples, ie:carnivorous Shade's apple on a plate (reminiscent of Adam and Eve and their sons) against Kinbote's "Caim" vegetarianism)...
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wiki: Johnson was constantly afraid of losing his sanity, but he kept that anxiety to himself throughout his life. There were, however, occasional outbursts that worried his friends. In June 1766, Johnson was on his knees before John Delap, a clergyman, "beseeching God to continue to him the use of his understanding" in a "wild" manner that provoked Johnson's friend, Henry Thrale to "involuntarily [lift] up one hand to shut his mouth"...Thrale's experience is similar to many other accounts; James Anderson reported Adam Smith as telling him:"I have seen that creature bolt up in the midst of a mixed company; and, without any previous notice, fall upon his knees behind a chair, repeat the Lord's Prayer and then resume his seat at table. He has played this freak over and over, perhaps five or six times in the course of an evening. It is not hypocrisy, but madness." Although this claim is similar to what the Thrales reported, Boswell wrote: "There is, I am convinced, great exaggeration in this, not probably on Smith's part, who was one of the most truthful of men, but on his reporter's.". Early on, when Johnson was unable to pay off his debts, he began to work with professional writers and identified his own situation with theirs.During this time, Johnson witnessed Christopher Smart's decline into "penury and the madhouse", and feared that he might share the same fate. In joking about Christopher Smart's madness, his writing for the Universal Visiter, and his own contributions, Johnson claimed: "for poor Smart, while he was mad, not then knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write ... I hoped his wits would return to him. Mine returned to me, and I wrote in 'the Universal Visitor' no longer".[18] The truth was that Johnson wrote for the Universal Visiter as an "act of charity" to the ailing Smart. Hester Thrale Piozzi, in her British Synonymy Book 2, did not joke about Johnson's possible madness, and claimed...that Johnson was her "friend who feared an apple should intoxicate him"...She made it clear who she was referring to when she wrote in Thraliana that "I don't believe the King has ever been much worse than poor Dr Johnson was, when he fancied that eating an Apple would make him drunk." To Hester Thrale, what separated Johnson from others who were placed in asylums for madness-like Christopher Smart-was his ability to keep his concerns and emotions to himself. However, Johnson was receiving a treatment of sorts, and it is possible that it involved a set of fetters and padlock. John Wiltshire later determined that these instruments were not symbolic, but actually used in private treatment.
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Johnson in passing on Christopher Smart Sun, June 25, 2006 " 'Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.' " Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who was confined in a mad-house, he had, at another time, the following conversation with Dr. Burney:
--BURNEY. 'How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to recover?'
JOHNSON. 'It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.'
BURNEY. 'Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise.'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he was _carried_ back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him[1169]; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.'
"My Cat Geoffrey" Christopher Smart was a friend of Samuel Johnson who died raving in a madhouse. 300 years later, in the best of ironies, ...
www.tribes.tribe.net/drjohnson/.../ee27adde-e1a0-405c-8978-2f71a11bfeca -
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JM: Savage and Smart are not familiar names to me, and a little checking on Christopher Smart, following RS Gwynn's hints, provided me with a wealth of information to link Kinbote's choice of Boswell on Johnson (and cats) for his epigraph in Pale Fire, and the poet Smart. The mad poet's poem to his cat may have found echoes in the written instructions Judge Goldsworth left to Kinbote, concerning his cat.
It was interesting to read about Dr.Johnson and the intoxicating powers of apples, ie:carnivorous Shade's apple on a plate (reminiscent of Adam and Eve and their sons) against Kinbote's "Caim" vegetarianism)...
...........................................................................................................
wiki: Johnson was constantly afraid of losing his sanity, but he kept that anxiety to himself throughout his life. There were, however, occasional outbursts that worried his friends. In June 1766, Johnson was on his knees before John Delap, a clergyman, "beseeching God to continue to him the use of his understanding" in a "wild" manner that provoked Johnson's friend, Henry Thrale to "involuntarily [lift] up one hand to shut his mouth"...Thrale's experience is similar to many other accounts; James Anderson reported Adam Smith as telling him:"I have seen that creature bolt up in the midst of a mixed company; and, without any previous notice, fall upon his knees behind a chair, repeat the Lord's Prayer and then resume his seat at table. He has played this freak over and over, perhaps five or six times in the course of an evening. It is not hypocrisy, but madness." Although this claim is similar to what the Thrales reported, Boswell wrote: "There is, I am convinced, great exaggeration in this, not probably on Smith's part, who was one of the most truthful of men, but on his reporter's.". Early on, when Johnson was unable to pay off his debts, he began to work with professional writers and identified his own situation with theirs.During this time, Johnson witnessed Christopher Smart's decline into "penury and the madhouse", and feared that he might share the same fate. In joking about Christopher Smart's madness, his writing for the Universal Visiter, and his own contributions, Johnson claimed: "for poor Smart, while he was mad, not then knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write ... I hoped his wits would return to him. Mine returned to me, and I wrote in 'the Universal Visitor' no longer".[18] The truth was that Johnson wrote for the Universal Visiter as an "act of charity" to the ailing Smart. Hester Thrale Piozzi, in her British Synonymy Book 2, did not joke about Johnson's possible madness, and claimed...that Johnson was her "friend who feared an apple should intoxicate him"...She made it clear who she was referring to when she wrote in Thraliana that "I don't believe the King has ever been much worse than poor Dr Johnson was, when he fancied that eating an Apple would make him drunk." To Hester Thrale, what separated Johnson from others who were placed in asylums for madness-like Christopher Smart-was his ability to keep his concerns and emotions to himself. However, Johnson was receiving a treatment of sorts, and it is possible that it involved a set of fetters and padlock. John Wiltshire later determined that these instruments were not symbolic, but actually used in private treatment.
...............................................................................................................
Johnson in passing on Christopher Smart Sun, June 25, 2006 " 'Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.' " Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who was confined in a mad-house, he had, at another time, the following conversation with Dr. Burney:
--BURNEY. 'How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to recover?'
JOHNSON. 'It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.'
BURNEY. 'Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise.'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he was _carried_ back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him[1169]; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.'
"My Cat Geoffrey" Christopher Smart was a friend of Samuel Johnson who died raving in a madhouse. 300 years later, in the best of ironies, ...
www.tribes.tribe.net/drjohnson/.../ee27adde-e1a0-405c-8978-2f71a11bfeca -
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/