Subject
Re: Yet another reconsideration of Pale Fire
From
Date
Body
R S Gwynn..." although the Johnson/Boswell relationship is analogous to JS (SJ reversed) and CK (move the initials JB one letter and you get KC, CK reversed). Interesting."
JM: Almost a transcendent code-breaking! "...move initials JB one letter and you get KC." Interesting, indeed.
Alexey Sklyarenko: "John = Ivan, Johnson is the English counterpart of Russian Ivanov. In Vivian Calmbrood's poem Chenston (the fictitious poet to whom Pushkin ascribed "The Covetous Knight") mentions a certain Johnson whom they beat with a candlestick for a marked article."
JM: Thanks, I see there's no allusion to Dr. Samuel Johnson. In Maxim Shrayer's "Poetry, Exile, and Prophetic Mystification in 'Vasiliy Shishkov'," (1939) we find a reference to "Night Journey," when its playfulness is contrasted with the "Vassily Shishkov" cycle and Nabokov's new authorial persona*.
.......................................................................................................................................................
* - MS: "The Poets" was printed in Contemporary Annals in July 1939 and attracted the attention of émigré critics. Before discussing the possible reasons why Adamovich allowed himself to be deceived by Nabokov's mystifying scheme--and hailed the birth of a new poet--I would like to outline another motive for Nabokov's choice of the name "Vasiliy Shishkov." It goes back to Khodasevich, who had a number of reasons to dislike both G. Ivanov and Adamovich....During a joint evening of poetry in 1936 in Paris, Nabokov heard Khodasevich read "Zhizn' Vasiliia Travnikova" (The Life of Vasilii Travnikov), a fictional account of the life and works of Aleksandr Pushkin's elder contemporary, whom Khodasevich invented not only to trap his literary enemies but also to reaffirm his own place in what he saw as the kernel tradition in Russian poetry....A brilliant performance, "The Life of Vasilii Travnikov" beguiled the audience and elicited much praise from Adamovich, who was generally reluctant to pay Khodasevich his due....Khodasevich's mystification worked perfectly, which not only created a precedent for Nabokov's invented poet, Vasiliy Shishkov, but also offered concrete tips...Just as the inception of these two mystifications reveals many affinities, their reception also follows a similar pattern, especially when in both cases the herald of the two "new" poets--Travnikov and Shishkov--was Adamovich... Three years later, Adamovich gave an enthusiastic endorsement to another "discovered" poet, Vasiliy Shishkov, in his regular column in The Latest News: If Nabokov in his earlier mystification, "Night Journey," and Khodasevich in "The Life of Vasilii Travnikov," seem to partake of a playful and witty sensibility of the Pushkinian Golden Age, then Nabokov of the "Vasiliy Shishkov" cycle employs literary mystification to communicate with the readers directly and without any mediating stylization. Constructing a new authorial persona for himself and lurking behind the semitransparent veil of mystification, Nabokov created a genuine voice which is unparalleled by his other poems. In the poems of the "Vasiliy Shishkov" cycle, love, language/silence, and death are intoned by a relentless and at times clairvoyant poet....Rather than noting the meter of "The Poets," which is not at all unusual for twentieth-century Russian prosody, Adamovich probably saw in the poem a sober, direct, naked voice prophesying the end of Russian culture in European exile. (published in Zembla)
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/
JM: Almost a transcendent code-breaking! "...move initials JB one letter and you get KC." Interesting, indeed.
Alexey Sklyarenko: "John = Ivan, Johnson is the English counterpart of Russian Ivanov. In Vivian Calmbrood's poem Chenston (the fictitious poet to whom Pushkin ascribed "The Covetous Knight") mentions a certain Johnson whom they beat with a candlestick for a marked article."
JM: Thanks, I see there's no allusion to Dr. Samuel Johnson. In Maxim Shrayer's "Poetry, Exile, and Prophetic Mystification in 'Vasiliy Shishkov'," (1939) we find a reference to "Night Journey," when its playfulness is contrasted with the "Vassily Shishkov" cycle and Nabokov's new authorial persona*.
.......................................................................................................................................................
* - MS: "The Poets" was printed in Contemporary Annals in July 1939 and attracted the attention of émigré critics. Before discussing the possible reasons why Adamovich allowed himself to be deceived by Nabokov's mystifying scheme--and hailed the birth of a new poet--I would like to outline another motive for Nabokov's choice of the name "Vasiliy Shishkov." It goes back to Khodasevich, who had a number of reasons to dislike both G. Ivanov and Adamovich....During a joint evening of poetry in 1936 in Paris, Nabokov heard Khodasevich read "Zhizn' Vasiliia Travnikova" (The Life of Vasilii Travnikov), a fictional account of the life and works of Aleksandr Pushkin's elder contemporary, whom Khodasevich invented not only to trap his literary enemies but also to reaffirm his own place in what he saw as the kernel tradition in Russian poetry....A brilliant performance, "The Life of Vasilii Travnikov" beguiled the audience and elicited much praise from Adamovich, who was generally reluctant to pay Khodasevich his due....Khodasevich's mystification worked perfectly, which not only created a precedent for Nabokov's invented poet, Vasiliy Shishkov, but also offered concrete tips...Just as the inception of these two mystifications reveals many affinities, their reception also follows a similar pattern, especially when in both cases the herald of the two "new" poets--Travnikov and Shishkov--was Adamovich... Three years later, Adamovich gave an enthusiastic endorsement to another "discovered" poet, Vasiliy Shishkov, in his regular column in The Latest News: If Nabokov in his earlier mystification, "Night Journey," and Khodasevich in "The Life of Vasilii Travnikov," seem to partake of a playful and witty sensibility of the Pushkinian Golden Age, then Nabokov of the "Vasiliy Shishkov" cycle employs literary mystification to communicate with the readers directly and without any mediating stylization. Constructing a new authorial persona for himself and lurking behind the semitransparent veil of mystification, Nabokov created a genuine voice which is unparalleled by his other poems. In the poems of the "Vasiliy Shishkov" cycle, love, language/silence, and death are intoned by a relentless and at times clairvoyant poet....Rather than noting the meter of "The Poets," which is not at all unusual for twentieth-century Russian prosody, Adamovich probably saw in the poem a sober, direct, naked voice prophesying the end of Russian culture in European exile. (published in Zembla)
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/