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THOUGHTS: Gradus in PF and Graden in Faust
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Alexey Skylarenko writes:
Liebe Carolyn und die ganze Bande,
I hope you'll find this interesting:
As you know, Gradus, the name of one of Pale Fire's three main characters, is the Latin word meaning "step" or "degree" (gradus is also Russian for "degree", in the English word's meteorological, geographical, geometrical and "alcoholic" sense; pod gradusom is colloquial for "drunk"). German for "degree" is the Latin word minus the suffix: Grad (its nominative plural form is practically the homograph of the English word grade). This word occurs, for instance, in Goethe's Faust, in the following lines (Part One, the Hexenkueche scene, Mephistopheles' words addressed to the witch who concocted the perilous drink that should make of Faust a young man again):
Denn meinem Freund wird dieser Trunk nicht schaden:
Er ist ein Mann von vielen Graden,
Der manchen guten Schluck getan.
("So this drink won't do any harm to my friend: / He is a man of many degrees / Who has had a gulp of it before." Ich entschuldige mich bei Goethes Schatten wegen dieser schrecklichen Uebersetzung)
In his Commentary to Shade's poem and in the Index (composed by Shade?), Kinbote mockingly calls Jakob Gradus (alias Jack Degree) Vinogradus (vinograd is Russian for "grape"). Note that Gradus murders Shade when the latter goes with Kinbote to K's place to sample K's Tokay wine. Tokay + B = Bokay + T (Bokay is a place in the mountains of Zembla, or "Semberland") Sudarg of Bokay is a mirror maker of genius mentioned in the Index, and practically a palindrome of "Jakob Gradus". Sudarg + o + soft sign = gosudar' (Russian for "sovereign")
alles gute,
your gelehrte Lerche
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Liebe Carolyn und die ganze Bande,
I hope you'll find this interesting:
As you know, Gradus, the name of one of Pale Fire's three main characters, is the Latin word meaning "step" or "degree" (gradus is also Russian for "degree", in the English word's meteorological, geographical, geometrical and "alcoholic" sense; pod gradusom is colloquial for "drunk"). German for "degree" is the Latin word minus the suffix: Grad (its nominative plural form is practically the homograph of the English word grade). This word occurs, for instance, in Goethe's Faust, in the following lines (Part One, the Hexenkueche scene, Mephistopheles' words addressed to the witch who concocted the perilous drink that should make of Faust a young man again):
Denn meinem Freund wird dieser Trunk nicht schaden:
Er ist ein Mann von vielen Graden,
Der manchen guten Schluck getan.
("So this drink won't do any harm to my friend: / He is a man of many degrees / Who has had a gulp of it before." Ich entschuldige mich bei Goethes Schatten wegen dieser schrecklichen Uebersetzung)
In his Commentary to Shade's poem and in the Index (composed by Shade?), Kinbote mockingly calls Jakob Gradus (alias Jack Degree) Vinogradus (vinograd is Russian for "grape"). Note that Gradus murders Shade when the latter goes with Kinbote to K's place to sample K's Tokay wine. Tokay + B = Bokay + T (Bokay is a place in the mountains of Zembla, or "Semberland") Sudarg of Bokay is a mirror maker of genius mentioned in the Index, and practically a palindrome of "Jakob Gradus". Sudarg + o + soft sign = gosudar' (Russian for "sovereign")
alles gute,
your gelehrte Lerche
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/