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SUBLIME grouses...
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Sending again this message. I fear the one below remained unposted since I received no UCLA confirmation and a warning sign from McCaffee...
----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: nabokv-L@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 5:31 PM
Subject: SUBLIME grouses...
Stan K-B noted that Don seemed "to rule out the real possibility that VN chose 'sublimated' precisely because it has several meanings/resonances. Isn't deliberate ambiguity one of the 'tricks' that distinguishes poetry and poetic-prose..." "Others more versed [sic] in Freud and Chemistry [!] may point out that the FORMAL meaning is NOT 'repressed': '[of a desire/impulse] RAISED, diverted or transferred from the primitive or instinctual level to one socially or culturally preferable.'...", "words SELDOM have ONE CORRECT MEANING - and that MUST be the meaning intended by the author."
Dear S K-B, indeed, repression is one of the "Triebschicksalle", sublimation another.
I share your opinion that VN played with "sublimated" various meanings and resonances.
Among the animals, only humans are allowed the privilege to grouse and sublimate - except in comic strips and cartoons, where we might find Snoopy leading a rich cultural life with his typewriter, while emulating Clifford's lines "It was a dark and stormy night" ( both Umberto Eco and George Steiner have quoted this touching doggy effort, but only Steiner mentioned Clifford, and only Eco carried "Snoopy" among the entries in the Index).
I initially held that "sublimation" might accomodate Don's interpretation of Shade's idea of " the rather plain-looking grouse " turning into an "elegant, showy pheasant", because I was straining to avoid the image of anything "sublime" residing in this process.
Although these lines suggest the metamorphosis Jerry Friedman considered while referring to Don's connection bt. a sublimated grouse and Hazel's (possible) transformation, in my opinion this cannot be deduced from Shade's lines. I suggest to those who entertain the "integrationist" view that Shade found here a very neat way to describe how a backyard pheasant was turned into an imaginary (he didn't actually see the bird, only its footprints in the snow!) "sublime and glorious" foreign king!
Jerry Friedman observed that, although tempting, there is no connection bt. the line "Life as a message scribbled in the dark" and what was
"espied on a pine's bark" ( but he conceded that it might indicate Shade's train of thought).
I thought that line 236 ( following Kinbote's marginal markings and the rhyme "dark" and "bark") had joined both "Anonymous." and "Espied on a pine's bark," in more than one sense. Also the intervals suggested to me a link between lines 231-234, lines 235-236 and the rest.
There is also an interesting contrast bt. lines 234-235 ( "Instead of poetry divinely terse,disjointed notes...") and Shade's incorrect presumptions that follow lines 974-976 ("And if my private universe scans right, so does the verse of galaxies divine"), a very indirect authorial self-appraisal though.
JF wrote: Thanks, though, for pointing out the connection between that "anonymous" aphorism and the strange lines 939-940. There is another link confirming these in the Foreword, but I forgot to underline this and will investigate it sometime in the future...
Barbara Wyllie, thank you for directing me and the List-members to the rich bibliography collected in Zembla. Unfortunately most works are impossible for me to access ( in the past, Jacob Wilkenfeld used to send me a selection of articles on VN and his help has been invaluable).
Thank you both, Peter Dale and CHW for the answers. I hope to return to them in the future.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
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----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: nabokv-L@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 5:31 PM
Subject: SUBLIME grouses...
Stan K-B noted that Don seemed "to rule out the real possibility that VN chose 'sublimated' precisely because it has several meanings/resonances. Isn't deliberate ambiguity one of the 'tricks' that distinguishes poetry and poetic-prose..." "Others more versed [sic] in Freud and Chemistry [!] may point out that the FORMAL meaning is NOT 'repressed': '[of a desire/impulse] RAISED, diverted or transferred from the primitive or instinctual level to one socially or culturally preferable.'...", "words SELDOM have ONE CORRECT MEANING - and that MUST be the meaning intended by the author."
Dear S K-B, indeed, repression is one of the "Triebschicksalle", sublimation another.
I share your opinion that VN played with "sublimated" various meanings and resonances.
Among the animals, only humans are allowed the privilege to grouse and sublimate - except in comic strips and cartoons, where we might find Snoopy leading a rich cultural life with his typewriter, while emulating Clifford's lines "It was a dark and stormy night" ( both Umberto Eco and George Steiner have quoted this touching doggy effort, but only Steiner mentioned Clifford, and only Eco carried "Snoopy" among the entries in the Index).
I initially held that "sublimation" might accomodate Don's interpretation of Shade's idea of " the rather plain-looking grouse " turning into an "elegant, showy pheasant", because I was straining to avoid the image of anything "sublime" residing in this process.
Although these lines suggest the metamorphosis Jerry Friedman considered while referring to Don's connection bt. a sublimated grouse and Hazel's (possible) transformation, in my opinion this cannot be deduced from Shade's lines. I suggest to those who entertain the "integrationist" view that Shade found here a very neat way to describe how a backyard pheasant was turned into an imaginary (he didn't actually see the bird, only its footprints in the snow!) "sublime and glorious" foreign king!
Jerry Friedman observed that, although tempting, there is no connection bt. the line "Life as a message scribbled in the dark" and what was
"espied on a pine's bark" ( but he conceded that it might indicate Shade's train of thought).
I thought that line 236 ( following Kinbote's marginal markings and the rhyme "dark" and "bark") had joined both "Anonymous." and "Espied on a pine's bark," in more than one sense. Also the intervals suggested to me a link between lines 231-234, lines 235-236 and the rest.
There is also an interesting contrast bt. lines 234-235 ( "Instead of poetry divinely terse,disjointed notes...") and Shade's incorrect presumptions that follow lines 974-976 ("And if my private universe scans right, so does the verse of galaxies divine"), a very indirect authorial self-appraisal though.
JF wrote: Thanks, though, for pointing out the connection between that "anonymous" aphorism and the strange lines 939-940. There is another link confirming these in the Foreword, but I forgot to underline this and will investigate it sometime in the future...
Barbara Wyllie, thank you for directing me and the List-members to the rich bibliography collected in Zembla. Unfortunately most works are impossible for me to access ( in the past, Jacob Wilkenfeld used to send me a selection of articles on VN and his help has been invaluable).
Thank you both, Peter Dale and CHW for the answers. I hope to return to them in the future.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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