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Now that the NYHT interview is posted, a comment:
I am puzzled by VN's statement that "The clearest revelation of
personality
is to be found in the creative work in which a given individual
indulges."
VN seems to be saying this in order to help readers interpret PF, but I
wonder if he also means this more generally. That is, would he want
this
insight applied to Vladimir Nabokov, in addition to John Shade and V.
Botkin? The statement seems important in that it would appear to give
readers license to discover Shade's personality through a close reading
of
his poem, a critical perspective that would have been anathema to the
New
Critics who ruled the mid-20th Century.
Eliot, for instance, says "the poet has, not a 'personality' to
express,
but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality,
in
which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected
ways.
Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no
place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may
play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality. . . . Poetry
is
not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not
the
expression of personality, but an escape from personality." ("Tradition
and
the Individual Talent")
Given VN's statement above, which seems utterly contrary to Eliot's
view,
might we say that Pale Fire presented to the audience of its
day--perhaps
especially to the professional critic--an especially difficult task:
the
rejection of the New Critical model, at least within the bounds of the
novel. (As I said, I'm interested in whether or not VN would have
accepted
having the critical lens he proposes turned on himself.) And if there
is
indeed a difference in how we are to read Shade, as opposed to VN, the
critical quandry becomes all the more complex and interesting, no?
Matt Roth