Subject
raffolait d'une de ses juments
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The incomparable Alexei Sklyarenko recently cited the Ada text below...
“Pferd is, of course, German for "horse" and belongs to the "equine" theme in Ada (according to Lucette's mother Marina, "the Zemskis were terrible rakes (razvratniki), one of them loved small girls, and another
raffolait d'une de ses juments and had her tied up in a special way... when he dated her in her stall:" 1.37).”
I don’t know whether scholiasts have previously noted that the elder Zemski’s “passion for one of his mares” tied up in a special harness when he dated her in her stall is VN’s gender inversion of a bit of popular Russian folklore about the voracious Russian Empress Catherine the Great and her favorite stallion.
Scholarship marches on!
D.Barton Johnson
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“Pferd is, of course, German for "horse" and belongs to the "equine" theme in Ada (according to Lucette's mother Marina, "the Zemskis were terrible rakes (razvratniki), one of them loved small girls, and another
raffolait d'une de ses juments and had her tied up in a special way... when he dated her in her stall:" 1.37).”
I don’t know whether scholiasts have previously noted that the elder Zemski’s “passion for one of his mares” tied up in a special harness when he dated her in her stall is VN’s gender inversion of a bit of popular Russian folklore about the voracious Russian Empress Catherine the Great and her favorite stallion.
Scholarship marches on!
D.Barton Johnson
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/