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Re: CHW to Jansy
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Dear Jansy,
Oh dear. I fear that the nuances of conversation do not travel easily across
the ether, nor do attempts at wit, however feeble. I am not being hostile
--- to anyone. To start at your end, imho means in my humble opinion. I should
perhaps write imhhhho. [What does "Imho" mean?]
Yes, you are insistent, but I greatly enjoy your opinions and
contributions.[Yes, CHW, aint I insistent?]
Wherever else they come from, Shade and Kinbote indubitably sprout from the
airy imagination of VN. [Are you, CHW,implying that VN's characters are all
mirror images of VN, with no other clear voice?]. No, I'm not saying that S and
K are mirror images of VN, but they are both his creatures and his
products. As you rightly observe.
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
MND: thus Shake says. He was anticipating Kinbote, if not Conmal.
[I gather that the accusation of plagiarism applies to Carlyle, not to the
other authors who used it. I was curious about VN's reading: would he have
been familiar with Carlyle?] "Plagiarism" was, OTT if you will, a joke. Yes,
it's a commonplace thought. Why, in English, does womb rhyme with tomb? I
really don't know if VN read Carlyle or Bartlett --- probably. He seems to have
read everybody.
[Schopenhauer was not another Will so... is the name Arthur also used
euphemistically?] Schopenhauer wrote The World as Will and Idea, 1818. See
W.Wallace, no relation, Schopenhauer, 1890.
Partridge wrote Shakespeare's Bawdy. A sudden thought: does that apostrophe
s indicate a genitive or an elision?
Another thought: the delightful and affectionate account of the life, career
and poetic offerings of Edsel Ford, The Ozarks Poet, here, as posted earlier:
_http://www.rogersarkansas.com/museum/donationOfTheMonth/01-05.asp_
(http://www.rogersarkansas.com/museum/donationOfTheMonth/01-05.asp)
which I have just been reading more attentively, persuades me Ford was,
indeed, very much in VN's mind at the time he was bodying forth Pale Fire. I do
wonder if VN knew about Hank Spruce, Ford's close friend.
Nothing succeeds like indefatigable industry. There are ants and there are
grasshoppers. There are hares and there are tortoises. We all know who wins in
the end. Hell, the tortoise even beat Achilles. As a pun, "tortoise" and
"taught us" seems to me somewhat to equate with "Ada or Ardo(u)r".
But I must suppress all these burrs. Apologies to all those who feel annoyed.
Charles
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