I have been reading the Nabokov-l exchange on Lorrie Moore’s "Referential."  I wonder about the ethics and legality (copyright) about scanning and posting the whole story.   Reasonable people can debate the merits of Moore’s story: I’ve read it twice and reread “Signs and Symbols.”  Moore is obviously indebted to “Signs and Symbols,” but “Referential” is much more than a crude take-off; it is its own story.  That prompts a suggestion: it might be worth an MLA panel, not probably on just these two stories but on the poetics of indebtedness, inspiration, homage, maybe “take-off,” in both directions: what Nabokov got from his predecessors and what later writers get from him.  APOLOGY and DISCLAIMER: I probably can’t chair such a session myself because MLA occurs the week before our semester classes begin.  I am interim department chair and hope to be replaced by then, but attending MLA at all, much less presiding over a session, is problematic because of pre-semester meetings and administrative duties.  There are probably quite a few International Vladimir Nabokov Society members more qualified anyway.

 

Eric Hyman

Professor of English

Interim Chair

Department of English

Butler 123

Fayetteville State University

1200 Murchison Road

Fayetteville, NC 28301-4252

(910) 672-1416

ehyman@uncfsu.edu

 

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