Subject
Humbert Humbert's Courts and Hermetic Sessions
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The ammount of information that a single Nabokovian sentence may contain is quite astounding. After I copied down the concluding paragraphs from "Lolita" my attention was arrested by: "When I started, fifty-six days ago, to write Lolita, first in the psychopathic ward for observation, and then in this well-heated, albeit tombal, seclusion, I thought I would use these notes in toto at my trial, to save not my head, of course, but my soul. In mind-composition, however, I realized that I could not parade living Lolita. I still may use parts of this memoir in hermetic sessions, but publication is to be deferred.[ ] ". The higlighting of "hermetic sessions" has developped in part from James Twiggs's reference to the very few readers who would have used the phrase "divine love" in the 1950s...and that a discussion "of VN's Gnosticism was still several years away."
On my part I entertained conjectures about HH's emphasis on "mortal morality" ( 'The moral sense in mortals is the duty/We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty.'), and to what kind of human or heavenly Judges he might be addressing while he is trying to save "not his head but his soul."
I discovered that he could be referring to the Hermetic societies, or to their chief social event, the Tribunal session, or something other along that line*. While reading HH's confessions we can discover that he invokes not only the members of a Jury (he sometimes relates to angels).but, quite often in the last chapters, he summons up the Reader.
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* Hermetic society in the canonic setting is complex and nuanced. While the Order of Hermes is limited in size...and a Tribunal probably holds less than ten score magi, these come from long and disparate magical lineages and traditions [...] The social foundation of the Order is its democratic system of Tribunals....The chief Hermetic social event is without a doubt the Tribunal session, including the periodic regional Tribunals and the magnificent Grand Tribunal session. A second ritual common in nearly all covenants is the yearly casting of the Aegis of the Hearth, traditionally at the winter solstice. Hermetic society knows other social events, however, although these are often more limited in scope. Hermetic Society www.redcap.org/page/hermetic_societyEm cache
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On my part I entertained conjectures about HH's emphasis on "mortal morality" ( 'The moral sense in mortals is the duty/We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty.'), and to what kind of human or heavenly Judges he might be addressing while he is trying to save "not his head but his soul."
I discovered that he could be referring to the Hermetic societies, or to their chief social event, the Tribunal session, or something other along that line*. While reading HH's confessions we can discover that he invokes not only the members of a Jury (he sometimes relates to angels).but, quite often in the last chapters, he summons up the Reader.
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* Hermetic society in the canonic setting is complex and nuanced. While the Order of Hermes is limited in size...and a Tribunal probably holds less than ten score magi, these come from long and disparate magical lineages and traditions [...] The social foundation of the Order is its democratic system of Tribunals....The chief Hermetic social event is without a doubt the Tribunal session, including the periodic regional Tribunals and the magnificent Grand Tribunal session. A second ritual common in nearly all covenants is the yearly casting of the Aegis of the Hearth, traditionally at the winter solstice. Hermetic society knows other social events, however, although these are often more limited in scope. Hermetic Society www.redcap.org/page/hermetic_societyEm cache
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/