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Re: Oceanus Nox
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JM: [I wonder if ...may be related to Lucette's "willow-green shorts" (BB, 198.11-12, motif red-green; willow-green). I was unable to check "willow-green" on line...]
Here it is: 64.27-30: green nightgown . . . the nuance of willows: An echo of "Memoire," ll. 11-12 (see above, 64.15-65.02n.). Cf. 198.10-12: "Lucette . . . . in willow-green shorts"; 417.25, "Lucette, still in her willow green nightie." Especially in view of Marina's "when I was playing Ophelia, the fact that I had once collected flowers--" on the previous page (and "Elsie de Nord" as an allusion to Elsinore at the beginning of the chapter), the willow also evokes Gertrude's description of Ophelia's death, in the speech beginning "There is a willow grows aslant the brook . . . " (Hamlet 4.7.167), with its description of Ophelia's clothes that "spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up" (4.7.175-76). The willow was a conventional symbol of a rejected lover (cf. John Webster, The White Devil, ed. Elizabeth M. Brennan [London: Ernest Benn, 1966], 4.2.34 and n.). MOTIF: willow green.
Discussing Nabokov's criticism of freudian symbolism, Dave Haan (off list) brought up this quote: "What I object to is Mr. Rowe's manipulating my most innocent words so as to introduce sexual 'symbols' into them. The notion of symbol itself has always been abhorrent to me, and I never tire of retelling how I once failed a student-the dupe, alas, of an earlier teacher-for writing that Jane Austen describes leaves as 'green' because Fanny is hopeful, and 'green' is the color of hope." NYRB '71.
I wonder, now, if Nabokov would have deliberately associated Lucette to willow-green because the willow is a "conventional symbol of a rejected lover." If this connection was established on purpose then... wouldn't our conjurer have kept something else up his sleeves?
Nabokov's example, by quoting a student's explanation about Jane Austen's "green leaves" mus already be a malicious distortion on his part (only during Winter would Austen's description of green leaves demand any sort of interpretation, true?)
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Here it is: 64.27-30: green nightgown . . . the nuance of willows: An echo of "Memoire," ll. 11-12 (see above, 64.15-65.02n.). Cf. 198.10-12: "Lucette . . . . in willow-green shorts"; 417.25, "Lucette, still in her willow green nightie." Especially in view of Marina's "when I was playing Ophelia, the fact that I had once collected flowers--" on the previous page (and "Elsie de Nord" as an allusion to Elsinore at the beginning of the chapter), the willow also evokes Gertrude's description of Ophelia's death, in the speech beginning "There is a willow grows aslant the brook . . . " (Hamlet 4.7.167), with its description of Ophelia's clothes that "spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up" (4.7.175-76). The willow was a conventional symbol of a rejected lover (cf. John Webster, The White Devil, ed. Elizabeth M. Brennan [London: Ernest Benn, 1966], 4.2.34 and n.). MOTIF: willow green.
Discussing Nabokov's criticism of freudian symbolism, Dave Haan (off list) brought up this quote: "What I object to is Mr. Rowe's manipulating my most innocent words so as to introduce sexual 'symbols' into them. The notion of symbol itself has always been abhorrent to me, and I never tire of retelling how I once failed a student-the dupe, alas, of an earlier teacher-for writing that Jane Austen describes leaves as 'green' because Fanny is hopeful, and 'green' is the color of hope." NYRB '71.
I wonder, now, if Nabokov would have deliberately associated Lucette to willow-green because the willow is a "conventional symbol of a rejected lover." If this connection was established on purpose then... wouldn't our conjurer have kept something else up his sleeves?
Nabokov's example, by quoting a student's explanation about Jane Austen's "green leaves" mus already be a malicious distortion on his part (only during Winter would Austen's description of green leaves demand any sort of interpretation, true?)
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
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