Subject
Forward to bot-fly and starling (CHW and MR reply to JM)
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If "foreward" was a deliberate pun on "foreword", wouldn't it suggest "forewarning" [ie fore-guard"] as much as, if not more, than "forward" ? The reader is alerted to traps ahead.
CHW
JM: Your pun on "foreword" escaped me when you wrote it for the first time
(forward,foreward). You mean you think that Shade is sick and his cave
is a hospital "ward"?
MR: Ha! Actually, just a typo. And thanks for pointing me to the archive.
I should have checked there first.
JM: May I suggest to you and to the List one of the works about Pale Fire
that discusses many items we've been bringing up with interesting additional
information? The title is " Parasitism and Pale Fire's Camouflage: The King-Bot, the
Crown Jewels and the Man in the Brown Macintosh" by James Ramey. It was
published in Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 41, n.2, 2004.
MR: Yes, that's a fine article, especially the work he does with the bot-fly. I
love his discovery that "bot" is the next word after "Boswellian" in Webster's
2nd. (His article actually inspired me to go buy a copy of that dictionary for
myself). The starling as parasite would work better if it was actually a brood
parasite--a bird like the cowbird, which lays its own eggs in another bird's nest
and lets the host bird raise the chicks. Alas, this isn't the case for our starling.
By the way, the starling's ability to mimic (always an interest of VN) is at the
heart of Shakespeare's reference to it. In the first part of King Henry the Fourth,
Hotspur says:
He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll hollo ‘Mortimer!’
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion. (I,iii)
A similar reference to this ability is mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diary entry
for 22 May:
“Up, and all the morning at the office busy. At noon with my people to dinner,
where good discourse and merry. After dinner comes Mr. Martin, the purser,
and brings me his wife’s starling, which was formerly the King’s bird, that do
speak and whistle finely, which I am mighty proud of and shall take pleasure
in it.”
I once tried to worry all this together into a poem, but it (so far) hasn't worked.
Best,
Matthew Roth
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CHW
JM: Your pun on "foreword" escaped me when you wrote it for the first time
(forward,foreward). You mean you think that Shade is sick and his cave
is a hospital "ward"?
MR: Ha! Actually, just a typo. And thanks for pointing me to the archive.
I should have checked there first.
JM: May I suggest to you and to the List one of the works about Pale Fire
that discusses many items we've been bringing up with interesting additional
information? The title is " Parasitism and Pale Fire's Camouflage: The King-Bot, the
Crown Jewels and the Man in the Brown Macintosh" by James Ramey. It was
published in Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 41, n.2, 2004.
MR: Yes, that's a fine article, especially the work he does with the bot-fly. I
love his discovery that "bot" is the next word after "Boswellian" in Webster's
2nd. (His article actually inspired me to go buy a copy of that dictionary for
myself). The starling as parasite would work better if it was actually a brood
parasite--a bird like the cowbird, which lays its own eggs in another bird's nest
and lets the host bird raise the chicks. Alas, this isn't the case for our starling.
By the way, the starling's ability to mimic (always an interest of VN) is at the
heart of Shakespeare's reference to it. In the first part of King Henry the Fourth,
Hotspur says:
He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll hollo ‘Mortimer!’
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion. (I,iii)
A similar reference to this ability is mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diary entry
for 22 May:
“Up, and all the morning at the office busy. At noon with my people to dinner,
where good discourse and merry. After dinner comes Mr. Martin, the purser,
and brings me his wife’s starling, which was formerly the King’s bird, that do
speak and whistle finely, which I am mighty proud of and shall take pleasure
in it.”
I once tried to worry all this together into a poem, but it (so far) hasn't worked.
Best,
Matthew Roth
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