Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0026621, Thu, 12 Nov 2015 18:55:18 -0800

Subject
Re: birds, nests & Gradus in Pale Fire
Date
Body
Deear Alexey,

Speaking of Lastochka - didn't VN have a poem with the words lastuchku
tu in it? Or am I inventing (or unintentionally parodying)?

Carolyn
On Nov 11, 2015, at 5:09 PM, Alexey Sklyarenko wrote:

At the beginning (and at the end) of his poem Shade (whose parents
were ornithologists) compares himself to the shadow of the waxwing. In
his poem Tam, gde zhili sviristeli (“Where the Waxwings Lived…” 1908)
Velimir Khlebnikov (whose father was an ornithologist)
mentionsbesporyadok dikiy teney (a wild confusion of shadows) and
staya lyogkikh vremirey (a flock of light timefinches):

В беспорядке диком теней,
Где, как морок старых дней,
Закружились, зазвенели
Стая лёгких времирей.

Vremiri (“timefinches”) is Khlebnikov’s neologism derived from vremya
(time). In its singular form, vremir’ rhymes with snegir’ (bullfinch).
Snigir’(“The Bullfinch,” 1800) is a poem by Derzhavin written after
Suvorov’s death. In his book on Derzhavin (1931) Hodasevich quotes
Lastochka (“The Swallow,” 1794, a poem completed after the death of
Derzhavin’s first wife), Snigir’ and mentions numerous birds that were
sung by Derzhavin (who loved all winged creatures):

Как он любил всё крылатое! Недаром воспел не только орла, соловья,
лебедя и павлина, но и ласточку, ястреба, сокола, голубя, аиста,
пеночку, зяблика, снигиря, синичку, желну, чечётку, тетерева, бекаса
и, наконец, даже комара...

In the next paragraph Hodasevich mentions Count Ksaveriy Petrovich
Branitski, his wife (the beloved niece of Prince Potyomkin,
Catherine’s favorite who died while traveling with his niece to
Nikolayev) and their little daughter Eliza (who later married Count
Vorontsov, the target of Pushkin’s epigrams, “Half-milord, etc.”):

26 июля прибыли в Киев, провели там три дня, помолились в Лавре,
осмотрели достопримечательности и поехали под Белую Церковь, в имение
графини Браницкой, той самой племянницы Потёмкина, на руках у которой
он умер дорогою в Николаев. Перед памятью дяди графиня благоговела; в
его честь был воздвигнут ею род пантеона, где бюст Державина высился
среди прочих. Графа Ксаверия Петровича не случилось дома. Зато Элиза,
кокетливая и быстроглазая дочка графини, в любезности не отставала от
матери. Державину был оказан приём зараз торжественный и сердечный --
как автору "Водопада" и старому другу.

The Count’s Polish name, Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, brings to mind
John Francis Shade, the American poet, and Charles Xavier Vseslav
(Charles the Beloved), the last self-exiled king of Zembla. The
Count’s Russian patronymic, Petrovich, reminds one of ptentsy gnezda
Petrova (“the fledglings of Peter’s nest”), as in Poltava (1828)
Pushkin calls the generals of Peter I (the tsar who opposed the
Swedish king Charles XII). In Canto One of his poem Shade speaks of
his dead parents and mentions “a preterist (one who collects cold
nests):”

I was an infant when my parents died.
They both were ornithologists. I've tried
So often to evoke them that today
I have a thousand parents. Sadly they
Dissolve in their own virtues and recede,
But certain words, chance words I hear or read,
Such as "bad heart" always to him refer,
And "cancer of the pancreas" to her.
A preterist: one who collects cold nests. (ll. 71-79)

Actually, preterists (from the Latin praeter, a prefix denoting that
something is “past” or “beyond”) are the adherents of preterism, a
Christian eschatological view that interprets some (Partial Preterism)
or all (Full Preterism) prophesies of the Bible as events which have
already happened. The author of the futurological Doski sud’by
(“Plates of Destiny”), Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) was a true
futurist. In his essay on Mayakovski (VN’s “late namesake,” the most
famous Russian futurist), Dekol’tirovannaya loshad’ (“Decolletted
Horse,” 1927), Hodasevich speaks of Mayakovski’s counter-revolution
within Khlebnikov’s revolution and uses the phrase povorot na sto
vosem’desyat gradusov (the 180-degree turn):

Маяковский быстро сообразил, что заумная поэзия -- белка в колесе. Для
практического человека, каким он был, в отличие от полоумного
визионера Хлебникова, тупого теоретика Кручёных и несчастного шута
Бурлюка, -- в "зауми" делать было нечего. И вот, не теоретизируя
вслух, не высказываясь прямо, Маяковский, без лишних рассуждений, на
практике своих стихов, подменил борьбу с содержанием (со всяким
содержанием) -- огрублением содержания. По отношению к руководящей
идее группы это было полнейшей изменой, поворотом на сто восемьдесят
градусов. Маяковский молча произвел самую решительную контрреволюцию
внутри хлебниковской революции. В самом основном, в том пункте, где
заключался весь пафос, весь (положим -- бессмысленный) смысл
хлебниковского восстания в борьбе против содержания, -- Маяковский
пошел хуже чем на соглашательство: не на компромисс, а на капитуляцию.
Было у футуристов некое "безумство храбрых". Они шли до конца.
Маяковский не только не пошёл с ними, не только не разделил их
гибельной участи, но и постепенно сумел, так сказать, перевести
капитал футуризма на свое имя. Сохранив славу новатора и
революционера, уничтожил то самое, во имя чего было выкинуто знамя
переворота. По отношению к революции футуристов Маяковский стал
нэпманом.

According to Kinbote, the name of the man who killed Shade is Gradus.
It seems that to be completed Shade’s unfinished poem needs two lines:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By its own double in the windowpane.

Gradus is thus Kinbote’s double and Shade is Kinbote’s shadow. Shade,
Kinbote (“the waxwing”) and Gradus seem to represent three different
aspects of V. Botkin, the American scholar of Russian descent who went
mad after his daughter’s death. There is a hope that, when Kinbote
commits suicide, Botkin will be “full” again.

Khlebnikov’s vremiri also bring to mind Tolstoy’s Voina i mir (“War
and Peace,” 1869). In Tolstoy’s novel Pierre Bezukhov, in an attempt
to prove that he the man destined to kill Napoleon, makes calculations
based on the book of Revelation. Leo Tolstoy is the author of Pyotr
Khlebnik (“Peter the Baker,” 1894), a play. In Eugene Onegin (One:
XXXV: 12-14) Pushkin mentions khlebnik, nemets akkuratnyi (the baker,
a punctual German) who has more than once already opened his vasisdas
(“a small spy-window or transom with a mobile screen or grate”):

И хлебник, немец аккуратный,
В бумажном колпаке, не раз
Уж отворял свой васисдас.

In his EO Commentary (vol. II, p. 143) VN points out that in line 9 of
this stanza, prosnulsya utra shum priyatnyi (morn’s pleasant hubbub
has awoken), is very close to a line in Poltava, pt. II, l. 319,
razdalsya utra shum igrivyi (morn’s frisky hubbub has resounded).

Gradus + ostov = gosudarstvo

ostov – frame, framework; shell; skeleton
gosudarstvo – State

Alexey Sklyarenko
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