Subject
Re: Pale Fire's "Harfar Baron of Shalksbore"
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Date
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Dear Mike,
As an admirer of Nabokov and Shakespeare--who I have no doubt was Edward de
Vere--I too am curious about VN's exact views on the authorship question.
Have you read Philip Howerton's essay on Nabokov's poem "Shakespeare"? If
not, you can find it here:
http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_papers/nabokovs-premonition.htm
It seems obvious that VN was at least a doubter of the traditional
authorship myth. I suspect he was an Oxfordian too, but as far as I know
there's no proof of this outside of allusions like the ones you've cited
(which do count for something, maybe a lot).
I can't help but wonder if somewhere in his unpublished correspondence
Nabokov discusses the Oxford theory. Or if perhaps Andrew Field, who wrote
a fictionalized autobiography of de Vere-Shakespeare, was privy to VN's
strong opinions on the "unthinkably great bard."
Brian
PS Below is a slightly revised version of a post on this topic I recently
sent to this list (before Dmitri Nabokov's death).
Dear Mr. Boyd (and other Stratfordian Nabokophiles):
While I'm no fan of Roland Emmerich's "Anonymous", his film is correct in
its supposition that "William Shakespeare" was a pen name used by Edward de
Vere.
I can't express how depressing it is to me that the Stratfordian myth has
deceived eyes as keen as yours, and many others' down the centuries--if not
the eyes of Henry and William James, Emerson, Whitman, Twain, Freud, and
other perceptive doubters in the myth, listed here:
http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=39
And not Nabokov's nose either, judging by his 1924 poem "Shakespeare"
(below). Maybe he modified his views later in life, but I can't see why he
would. I think he knew a fellow noble when he smelled one. (I'm very
curious to know if he ever said anything specifically about Shakespeare's
identity to his son, who translated the poem and must have some opinion of
it--and possibly his father's later view of it.)
I beg you to take a close, unbiased look at the evidence for de Vere's
authorship, which though circumstantial is overwhelming. Please read Mark
Anderson's "Shakespeare by Another Name", Richard Paul Roe's new 300-page,
lavishly illustrated "The Shakespeare Guide to Italy" (which documents in
minute detail Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of a country that de
Verelived and traveled widely in) and--to address your statement that
many of
the plays were written after de Vere's death in 1604--the following links:
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/tempest/kositsky-stritmatter%20Tempest%20Table.htm
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/chronogate.htm
Nabokov's poem:
Shakespeare
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv'ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard--in all of this
you were like other men... Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre's alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm's echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff's visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear...
You are among us, you're alive; your name, though,
your image, too - deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved Lethe.
It's true, of course, a usurer had grown
accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work
(that Shakespeare--Will--who played the Ghost in Hamlet,
who lives in pubs, and died before he could
digest in full his portion of a boar's head)...
The frigate breathed, your country you were leaving,
To Italy you went. A female voice
called singsong through the iron's pattern
called to her balcony the tall inglesse,
grown languid from the lemon-tinted moon
and Verona's streets. My inclination
is to imagine, possibly, the droll
and kind creator of Don Quixote
exchanging with you a few casual words
while waiting for fresh horses--and the evening
was surely blue. The well behind the tavern
contained a pail's pure tinkling sound... Reply
whom did you love? Reveal yourself - whose memoirs
refer to you in passing? Look what numbers
of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,
what countless names Brantome has for the asking!
Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!
No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
by God from your existence, you recalled
those secret manuscripts, fully aware
that your supremacy would rest unblemished
by public rumor's unashamed brand,
that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
faceless you'd stay, like immortality
itself--then vanished in the distance, smiling.
Copyright 1979 Vladimir Nabokov Estate
English version copyright 1988 Dmitri Nabokov
If Nabokov believed Shakespeare was the Stratford man, how to explain this
poem? Specifically the lines "It's true, of course, a usurer had
grown/accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work/(that Shakespeare--Will--who
played the Ghost in Hamlet,/who lives in pubs, and died before he
could/digest in full his portion of a boar's head)..." and "How many names
Brantome has for the asking!" (Brantome being Pierre de Bourdeille,
seigneur de Brantôme, who according to Wikipedia "spent his last years in
writing his Memoirs of the illustrious men and women whom he had known.")
More on Nabokov's poem (written 4 years after the Oxford theory was put
forward) here:
http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_papers/nabokovs-premonition.htm
A couple comments:
1) Nabokov wrote this in 1924, four years after the publication of J.T.
Looney's "Shakespeare Identified." I'd guess he hadn't read it, and maybe
never did, or he would have been convinced. With his sense of humor he
would also probably have gotten a kick out of the fact that a man with what
one Stratfordian has wittily called "the unimprovable name of John Thomas
Looney" solved the greatest literary hoax in history.
2) De Vere didn't "regretlessly relinguish" his laurels or vanish "in the
distance, smiling." He parted his name from his works with the utmost
anguish. The very personal Sonnets (clearly written by an older, lamed man
whose fortunes had fallen--they are certainly not exercises, and their
secret may have been revealed in Hank Whittemore's "The Monument") reveal
his intense sorrow that "I once gone, to all the world must die."
Best regards,
Brian
PS In glancing through your fascinating "Stalking Nabokov," I happened to
notice a passage about Shakespeare's supposed ignorance that Bohemia was
landlocked, and it brought to mind Mark Anderson's note, in mapping de Vere's
travels, that "Bohemia during its most prosperous years had two seacoasts"
and "the first patch of foreign coastline Edward de Vere encountered on his
1575 trip down the Adriatic Sea out of Venice was land ruled by the
then-King of Bohemia."
http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2010/06/shakespeares-italy-teaser.html
On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 6:25 PM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
> Mike Marcus writes:
>
>
> I'm new here.
> It's known that VN took an interest in the contested authorship of
> Shakespeare. Pale Fire tells us that Harfar's nickname was Curdy Buff, i.e.
> coeur de boeuf, ox heart, which sound like an allusion to the Earl of
> Oxford, Edward de Vere, whose name has been touted for almost a century as
> the "real" Shakespeare, who was known casually amongst his circle as "Ox"
> (this came out in some hearings when he was accused of just about
> everything under the sun in the early 1580s). Not only that but the name
> Shalksbore seems to allude to the earl's family crest, which was a blue
> boar. I note that some people gloss Harfar as being a reversal of a
> Norwegian nickname, Fairhair, but it also sounds (a bit) like a rather
> slurred version of Edward, which was Vere's first name (Vere was a lush).
> Baron for Earl, and it's a fairly full house, Harfar Baron Shalksbore /
> Edward Earl Shakespeare. Nabokov's mention of Curdy's "admirers" might
> refer to those promoting him as "Shakespeare", and the previ!
> ous sentence claiming that Shalksbore is "the most probable derivation of
> 'Shakespeare'" somewhat emphasizes this. Curdy has this entourage of
> acrobats -- de Vere brought a young boy back with him from his Italian
> jaunt in the mid-1570s who was described as an acrobat, though he was
> principally a singer; what else Vere got up to with him is an open
> question, though the earl seems to have been bisexual. I wonder whether
> bareback had the same connotation for Nabokov in 1962 as it does today
> (unprotected homosexual sex); almost certainly not. Pale Fire tells us that
> Disa threw in the towel and her husband imported "sweet-voiced minions"
> from England -- precisely the de Vere situation, except his imports were
> from Italy.
> I suggested this to Professor Boyd a few weeks ago and he thought it
> measured up.
>
> Of course there's a mention of coeur de boeuf in Ada too. Greg told Van
> with distaste about "an ugly engine, surgically circumcised, terrifically
> oversized and high-colored, with such a phenomenal cœur de bœuf; nor had
> either of the fascinated, fastidious boys ever witnessed the like of its
> sustained, strongly arched, practically everlasting stream". This seems to
> refer to Percy de Prey, whom I'm assuming is also Edward de Vere (preying
> on youth?). "Everlasting" has a pun on the guy's name -- E. Ver, as it was
> sometimes spelled. There appear to be many other allusions to this man in
> Ada. For example, chapter 21 has a Philippe Verger and a Miss Vertograd;
> the first syllable of their respective surnames isn't coincidence. I
> suspect that when VN writes of "thousands if not millions of Vergers and
> Vertograds crackled and howled bound by enthusiasts to stakes erected in
> the public squares of Spain and other fire-loving countries", and compares
> the victims to lepers, he is invok!
> ing the treatment by the establishment of those that question the
> Shakespeare authorship.
>
> Certainly the Shakespeare period looms large in Ada. Philip Rack is
> perhaps a reference to Philip II of Spain (Spain again; rack = Spanish
> inquisition; yes, I know, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition), whose
> godson was Philip Sidney, lifelong rival of Vere. There is also a Ben
> Wright, possibly Ben Jonson, Ben [Play]wright. There is a great deal more
> in this vein.
>
> Vere was pronounced like the word for green in French. Green features very
> prominently in Ada, though because color is ubiquitous in VN I may be
> kidding myself on that.
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
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/
As an admirer of Nabokov and Shakespeare--who I have no doubt was Edward de
Vere--I too am curious about VN's exact views on the authorship question.
Have you read Philip Howerton's essay on Nabokov's poem "Shakespeare"? If
not, you can find it here:
http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_papers/nabokovs-premonition.htm
It seems obvious that VN was at least a doubter of the traditional
authorship myth. I suspect he was an Oxfordian too, but as far as I know
there's no proof of this outside of allusions like the ones you've cited
(which do count for something, maybe a lot).
I can't help but wonder if somewhere in his unpublished correspondence
Nabokov discusses the Oxford theory. Or if perhaps Andrew Field, who wrote
a fictionalized autobiography of de Vere-Shakespeare, was privy to VN's
strong opinions on the "unthinkably great bard."
Brian
PS Below is a slightly revised version of a post on this topic I recently
sent to this list (before Dmitri Nabokov's death).
Dear Mr. Boyd (and other Stratfordian Nabokophiles):
While I'm no fan of Roland Emmerich's "Anonymous", his film is correct in
its supposition that "William Shakespeare" was a pen name used by Edward de
Vere.
I can't express how depressing it is to me that the Stratfordian myth has
deceived eyes as keen as yours, and many others' down the centuries--if not
the eyes of Henry and William James, Emerson, Whitman, Twain, Freud, and
other perceptive doubters in the myth, listed here:
http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=39
And not Nabokov's nose either, judging by his 1924 poem "Shakespeare"
(below). Maybe he modified his views later in life, but I can't see why he
would. I think he knew a fellow noble when he smelled one. (I'm very
curious to know if he ever said anything specifically about Shakespeare's
identity to his son, who translated the poem and must have some opinion of
it--and possibly his father's later view of it.)
I beg you to take a close, unbiased look at the evidence for de Vere's
authorship, which though circumstantial is overwhelming. Please read Mark
Anderson's "Shakespeare by Another Name", Richard Paul Roe's new 300-page,
lavishly illustrated "The Shakespeare Guide to Italy" (which documents in
minute detail Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of a country that de
Verelived and traveled widely in) and--to address your statement that
many of
the plays were written after de Vere's death in 1604--the following links:
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/tempest/kositsky-stritmatter%20Tempest%20Table.htm
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/chronogate.htm
Nabokov's poem:
Shakespeare
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv'ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard--in all of this
you were like other men... Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre's alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm's echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff's visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear...
You are among us, you're alive; your name, though,
your image, too - deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved Lethe.
It's true, of course, a usurer had grown
accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work
(that Shakespeare--Will--who played the Ghost in Hamlet,
who lives in pubs, and died before he could
digest in full his portion of a boar's head)...
The frigate breathed, your country you were leaving,
To Italy you went. A female voice
called singsong through the iron's pattern
called to her balcony the tall inglesse,
grown languid from the lemon-tinted moon
and Verona's streets. My inclination
is to imagine, possibly, the droll
and kind creator of Don Quixote
exchanging with you a few casual words
while waiting for fresh horses--and the evening
was surely blue. The well behind the tavern
contained a pail's pure tinkling sound... Reply
whom did you love? Reveal yourself - whose memoirs
refer to you in passing? Look what numbers
of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,
what countless names Brantome has for the asking!
Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!
No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
by God from your existence, you recalled
those secret manuscripts, fully aware
that your supremacy would rest unblemished
by public rumor's unashamed brand,
that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
faceless you'd stay, like immortality
itself--then vanished in the distance, smiling.
Copyright 1979 Vladimir Nabokov Estate
English version copyright 1988 Dmitri Nabokov
If Nabokov believed Shakespeare was the Stratford man, how to explain this
poem? Specifically the lines "It's true, of course, a usurer had
grown/accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work/(that Shakespeare--Will--who
played the Ghost in Hamlet,/who lives in pubs, and died before he
could/digest in full his portion of a boar's head)..." and "How many names
Brantome has for the asking!" (Brantome being Pierre de Bourdeille,
seigneur de Brantôme, who according to Wikipedia "spent his last years in
writing his Memoirs of the illustrious men and women whom he had known.")
More on Nabokov's poem (written 4 years after the Oxford theory was put
forward) here:
http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_papers/nabokovs-premonition.htm
A couple comments:
1) Nabokov wrote this in 1924, four years after the publication of J.T.
Looney's "Shakespeare Identified." I'd guess he hadn't read it, and maybe
never did, or he would have been convinced. With his sense of humor he
would also probably have gotten a kick out of the fact that a man with what
one Stratfordian has wittily called "the unimprovable name of John Thomas
Looney" solved the greatest literary hoax in history.
2) De Vere didn't "regretlessly relinguish" his laurels or vanish "in the
distance, smiling." He parted his name from his works with the utmost
anguish. The very personal Sonnets (clearly written by an older, lamed man
whose fortunes had fallen--they are certainly not exercises, and their
secret may have been revealed in Hank Whittemore's "The Monument") reveal
his intense sorrow that "I once gone, to all the world must die."
Best regards,
Brian
PS In glancing through your fascinating "Stalking Nabokov," I happened to
notice a passage about Shakespeare's supposed ignorance that Bohemia was
landlocked, and it brought to mind Mark Anderson's note, in mapping de Vere's
travels, that "Bohemia during its most prosperous years had two seacoasts"
and "the first patch of foreign coastline Edward de Vere encountered on his
1575 trip down the Adriatic Sea out of Venice was land ruled by the
then-King of Bohemia."
http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2010/06/shakespeares-italy-teaser.html
On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 6:25 PM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
> Mike Marcus writes:
>
>
> I'm new here.
> It's known that VN took an interest in the contested authorship of
> Shakespeare. Pale Fire tells us that Harfar's nickname was Curdy Buff, i.e.
> coeur de boeuf, ox heart, which sound like an allusion to the Earl of
> Oxford, Edward de Vere, whose name has been touted for almost a century as
> the "real" Shakespeare, who was known casually amongst his circle as "Ox"
> (this came out in some hearings when he was accused of just about
> everything under the sun in the early 1580s). Not only that but the name
> Shalksbore seems to allude to the earl's family crest, which was a blue
> boar. I note that some people gloss Harfar as being a reversal of a
> Norwegian nickname, Fairhair, but it also sounds (a bit) like a rather
> slurred version of Edward, which was Vere's first name (Vere was a lush).
> Baron for Earl, and it's a fairly full house, Harfar Baron Shalksbore /
> Edward Earl Shakespeare. Nabokov's mention of Curdy's "admirers" might
> refer to those promoting him as "Shakespeare", and the previ!
> ous sentence claiming that Shalksbore is "the most probable derivation of
> 'Shakespeare'" somewhat emphasizes this. Curdy has this entourage of
> acrobats -- de Vere brought a young boy back with him from his Italian
> jaunt in the mid-1570s who was described as an acrobat, though he was
> principally a singer; what else Vere got up to with him is an open
> question, though the earl seems to have been bisexual. I wonder whether
> bareback had the same connotation for Nabokov in 1962 as it does today
> (unprotected homosexual sex); almost certainly not. Pale Fire tells us that
> Disa threw in the towel and her husband imported "sweet-voiced minions"
> from England -- precisely the de Vere situation, except his imports were
> from Italy.
> I suggested this to Professor Boyd a few weeks ago and he thought it
> measured up.
>
> Of course there's a mention of coeur de boeuf in Ada too. Greg told Van
> with distaste about "an ugly engine, surgically circumcised, terrifically
> oversized and high-colored, with such a phenomenal cœur de bœuf; nor had
> either of the fascinated, fastidious boys ever witnessed the like of its
> sustained, strongly arched, practically everlasting stream". This seems to
> refer to Percy de Prey, whom I'm assuming is also Edward de Vere (preying
> on youth?). "Everlasting" has a pun on the guy's name -- E. Ver, as it was
> sometimes spelled. There appear to be many other allusions to this man in
> Ada. For example, chapter 21 has a Philippe Verger and a Miss Vertograd;
> the first syllable of their respective surnames isn't coincidence. I
> suspect that when VN writes of "thousands if not millions of Vergers and
> Vertograds crackled and howled bound by enthusiasts to stakes erected in
> the public squares of Spain and other fire-loving countries", and compares
> the victims to lepers, he is invok!
> ing the treatment by the establishment of those that question the
> Shakespeare authorship.
>
> Certainly the Shakespeare period looms large in Ada. Philip Rack is
> perhaps a reference to Philip II of Spain (Spain again; rack = Spanish
> inquisition; yes, I know, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition), whose
> godson was Philip Sidney, lifelong rival of Vere. There is also a Ben
> Wright, possibly Ben Jonson, Ben [Play]wright. There is a great deal more
> in this vein.
>
> Vere was pronounced like the word for green in French. Green features very
> prominently in Ada, though because color is ubiquitous in VN I may be
> kidding myself on that.
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
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/