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Re: [Thoughts] Art's higher level correction
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]".Q: Is the capacity to recall and to celebrate patches of past time a special quality of yours? A: No, I don't think so. I could name many writers, English, Russian, and French, who have done it at least as well as I have. Funny, I notice that when mentioning my three tongues, I list them in that order because it is the best rhythmic arrangement: either dactylic, with one syllable skipped, "English, Russian, and French," or anapestic, "English, Russian, and French." Little lesson in prosody."
Jansy Mello: Let's píck up one of VN's answers to the BBC-2 (1969) interview, when he is disturbed by an intruding thought and escapes this quandary by offering the interviewer a "little lesson in prosody." To find out the cause of his "resistance" (his hidden personal "truth") is of no interest to me, but the fact that the example he offered carried me away to a particular moment in Pale Fire.
And minds that died before arriving there:
Poor old man Swift, poor —, poor Baudelaire
Not that the lines that came to my mind fit the bill (the "and" is missing; "Baudelaire" can be pronounced in two ways), but, should the disguised reference be found, the omitted name must be more easily uncovered using style, not logic - as the commentator clearly realizes when he wonders about "the many writers, English, Russian, and French" that he could have named:
"What might that dash stand for? Unless Shade gave prosodic value to the mute e in "Baudelaire," which I am quite certain he would never have done in English verse (cp. "Rabelais," line 501), the name required here must scan as a trochee. Among the names of celebrated poets, painters, philosophers, etc., known to have become insane or to have sunk into senile imbecility, we find many suitable ones. Was Shade confronted by too much variety with nothing to help logic choose and so left a blank, relying upon the mysterious organic force that rescues poets to fill it in at its own convenience? Or was there something else — some obscure intuition, some prophetic scruple that prevented him from spelling out the name of an eminent man who happened to be an intimate friend of his? Was he perhaps playing safe because a reader in his household might have objected to that particular name being mentioned? And if it comes to that, why mention it at all in this tragical context? Dark, disturbing thoughts." *
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* Here we see that the author is telling the reader that Kinbote was (momentarily) aware of his insanity, although most of the time he is careful to show CK's mad innocence, as in: "It is so easy for a cruel person to make the victim of his ingenuity believe that he has persecution mania, or is really being stalked by a killer, or is suffering from hallucinations. Hallucinations! Well did I know that among certain youthful instructors whose advances I had rejected there was at least one evil practical joker; I knew it ever since the time I came home from a very enjoyable and successful meeting of students and teachers...and found in my coat pocket a brutal anonymous note saying: "You have hal.....s real bad, chum," meaning evidently "hallucinations," although a malevolent critic might infer from the insufficient number of dashes that little Mr. Anon, despite teaching Freshman English, could hardly spell."
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Jansy Mello: Let's píck up one of VN's answers to the BBC-2 (1969) interview, when he is disturbed by an intruding thought and escapes this quandary by offering the interviewer a "little lesson in prosody." To find out the cause of his "resistance" (his hidden personal "truth") is of no interest to me, but the fact that the example he offered carried me away to a particular moment in Pale Fire.
And minds that died before arriving there:
Poor old man Swift, poor —, poor Baudelaire
Not that the lines that came to my mind fit the bill (the "and" is missing; "Baudelaire" can be pronounced in two ways), but, should the disguised reference be found, the omitted name must be more easily uncovered using style, not logic - as the commentator clearly realizes when he wonders about "the many writers, English, Russian, and French" that he could have named:
"What might that dash stand for? Unless Shade gave prosodic value to the mute e in "Baudelaire," which I am quite certain he would never have done in English verse (cp. "Rabelais," line 501), the name required here must scan as a trochee. Among the names of celebrated poets, painters, philosophers, etc., known to have become insane or to have sunk into senile imbecility, we find many suitable ones. Was Shade confronted by too much variety with nothing to help logic choose and so left a blank, relying upon the mysterious organic force that rescues poets to fill it in at its own convenience? Or was there something else — some obscure intuition, some prophetic scruple that prevented him from spelling out the name of an eminent man who happened to be an intimate friend of his? Was he perhaps playing safe because a reader in his household might have objected to that particular name being mentioned? And if it comes to that, why mention it at all in this tragical context? Dark, disturbing thoughts." *
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* Here we see that the author is telling the reader that Kinbote was (momentarily) aware of his insanity, although most of the time he is careful to show CK's mad innocence, as in: "It is so easy for a cruel person to make the victim of his ingenuity believe that he has persecution mania, or is really being stalked by a killer, or is suffering from hallucinations. Hallucinations! Well did I know that among certain youthful instructors whose advances I had rejected there was at least one evil practical joker; I knew it ever since the time I came home from a very enjoyable and successful meeting of students and teachers...and found in my coat pocket a brutal anonymous note saying: "You have hal.....s real bad, chum," meaning evidently "hallucinations," although a malevolent critic might infer from the insufficient number of dashes that little Mr. Anon, despite teaching Freshman English, could hardly spell."
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/