Subject
Re: R: [NABOKV-L] "Pale Fire" CHW to MR
From
Date
Body
In a message dated 04/11/2006 18:43:50 GMT Standard Time, kubea@LIBERO.IT
writes:
Like Einstein his temperament and circumstances made him run the gauntlet of
early professional woes (and indeed like Einstein, his early failures led
him to work in a Patent Office). But his touch for Latin nuance is generally
ranked of the highest in the annals of classical scholarship. Though I too
admire his poetry, his palmary distinction lies in his uncanny, praeternatural
sensitivity to textual error, to the proper fingerprint of an author's style
smudged almost beyond recognition and retrieval by centuries of fumbled
handling. Had he devolved that intensity of verbal focus on his poetry, he may have
ranked among the major poets. He didn't, unfortunately, but we now read
Propertius and many other poets with clearer penetration because he transformed
his creative gift into a dazzling philological acumen for the mot juste in
classical poetry.
Peter,
I bow to your superior knowledge of the quality of Housman's scholarship.
Still, whether he was a major or a minor poet, art is long, and I wonder if in
500 years he will be remembered less for his verse (?) than his scholarship.
A useless reflection.
Einstein, as I understand it, was initially boxed out of academe largely
because he was infinitely more gifted than his teachers. Professorial
mediocrities approve, recruit and promote in their own image, and, as McLuhan once
said, are terrified of those reaching for outer realities. Play it safe, is the
rule by thumb.
Charles
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