Vladimir Nabokov

Revised list of Occultists in PALE FIRE

By MARYROSS, 17 April, 2024

I previously posted a list of personages alluded to in Pale Fire who had mystical, spiritist, or occult interests (https://thenabokovian.org/node/52032). I have upgraded that list here.

 

 

Virtually every personage mentioned or alluded to in Pale Fire was associated with mysticism and/or spiritism and/or the occult. I have compiled a list below. Note how many were members of the SPR, the esoteric/scientific society that is the template for Shade’s IPH. This is particularly important for my focus: Pale Fire’s hidden structure of Jungian alchemy and archetype. Although there are no direct mentions of Jung in PF, Jung’s doctoral dissertation entitled “The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits,” presented to the SPR in 1919, put forth the theory of poltergeists that PF’s Jane Provost describes as “an outward extension or expulsion of insanity,” and Kinbote calls “voo-doo psychiatry.”

I have also been posting on allusions to Freemasonry which I find throughout Pale Fire. 

Questions, quibbles, or additions: I do not claim to be an expert in these areas or with any of the personages alluded to. My research has been largely through internet searches. The point is to demonstrate how pervasive the spiritual theme is through Pale Fire, without which I believe that novel cannot be completely understood. Please do let me know if there is anything or anyone to add or correct. 

Thanks, Mary

 

 

[Brief commentary is in square brackets]

“*” indicates the name, or title, is actually found in PF

“@” indicates “alluded to”

“(?)” indicates a strong supposition

 

 

“During the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, beginning with the Freemasons and the establishment of multiple Masonic lodges and degrees, there was an explosion of ‘secret’ societies, many of which were associated in the public mind with hermetic philosophies in general and alchemical philosophies in particular.”

(Jennifer N. Wunder, Keats, Hermeticism, and the Secret Societies, Routledge, London & New York 2008, p.4)  She includes as Hermetic based Swedenborgianism, Rosicrucianism and Masonic 

 

 

Society for Psychical Research (SPR, British) 

 

 

@Andersen, Hans Christian 1805-1875: @C80.86 Little Mermaid [comb & mirror are accouterments of Melusina, mermaid figure in alchemy], @P318. The Ugly Duckling [reversed]

@(Bergson, Henri) 1859-1941: [VN was reputed to admire his philosophy]

@Carroll, Lewis: (1832-1898): @Through the Looking Glass [mirror opposites, chess Passim.] 

*Coates, James (?): *F.13, *P767, *P797 [Wrote books on spiritualism, Photographing the Invisible

*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930: @P27, * “Sherlock Holmes,”  @The Empty House [Reversed boots], *C27.61; P370 @“Grimpen,” @Hound of the Baskervilles [Grimpen mire]

*Eliot, T.S. 1888-1965: *C347-48.149; @ P370-374, @Four Quartets [“grimpen, Chtonic, sempiternal”]

*Freud, Sigmund 1856-1939: *P644.45; *P929.54; *C579.175; *C172.121; 

(James, William) 1842-1910): Varieties of Religious Experience [President of SPR; VN reputed to have admired him. Raised Swedenborgian, developed Pragmatism]

*Joyce, James 1882-1941: *C403-4.151, *C12.59 Finnegans Wake; “Odysseys”; [multiple personalities trope, Eternal Return trope, literary canon, passim]

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Lang, Andrew 1844-1912: *P682, *C682.188 [Founder of SPR, Poet and collector of fairy tales.]

(?)Myers, F.W.H. 1843-1901:[Founder of SPR had theories of multiple personalities; mediumship, and life after death tropes; VN’s notes on his work are in the Berg Collection] 

Pound, Ezra 1885-1972: @Cantos [Cantos deals with monomyth theme] [Friend of Yeats, interest in Gnosis]

(?)Ruskin, John 1819-1900: [Critic, essayist, poet, writer (including one fairytale). He was sexually abstinent, but attracted to young girls]

*Southey, Robert 1774-1843: *C12.59, *C376.150, @God’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishop; [author of Goldilocks and the Three Bears]

(?)Stevenson, R. L. 1850-1894: [Trope of the psychological ‘double’ @Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

*Tennyson, Lord Alfred 1809-1892: *C920.205, *In Memoriam [“garland briefer than a girls”] 

*Wallace, Alfred Russel 1823-1913: *C80.85; @ C549.173 [“…once we deny a Higher Intelligence…”] [VN preferred Wallace’s theory of evolution to Darwin’s]

@Wilde, Oscar 1854-1900: @F.19 The Picture of Dorian Gray, [“his misshapen body…cancelation”]

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

 

 

 

American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR)

 

 (?)James, William) 1842-1910): @ Varieties of Religious Experience, passim. [President of SPR; VN reputed to have admired him. Raised Swedenborgian, developed Pragmatism]

(?)James, Henry) 1843-1916: [Turn of the Screw, The Jolly Corner, also wrote criticism.] [Raised Swedenborgian.] @The Aspern Papers [critic pursuing dead poet’s papers foiled by fierce older poet’s wife]

*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930: @P27.25, * “Sherlock Holmes”, @The Empty House [Reversed boots]; *C27.61, P370 @“Grimpen”@Hound of the Baskervilles [Grimpen mire]

@Houdini, Harry 1974-1926:  @C681.188, @I.233, [“Hodinski/Hodyna”(?)  reads like description of VN, i.e. “conjuror” “poet of genius” etc.]

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939:  *C172.121

 

 

The Ghost Club (a fore-runner to the SPR)

 

@Dickens, Charles 1812-1870:@Bleak House [trope of “minor” character (Nemo) becomes “major” –like Sybil and Balthasar; “Nemo=nobody=odno=Odon/Nodo see also Verne]

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

(?)Huxley, Lord Julien)

(?)Huxley, Aldous

 

 

Rosicrucians

 

(?)Jakob Boehme 1575-1624): [Boehme was alchemist known as “The Shoemaker”, possibly referencing Botkin and “Jakob” Gradus]

*Dante 1265-1321: *C47-48.70 “Dante’s Bust”; @Divine Comedy: @FW.14 “inferno”; @C130.92 “paradise”; @C433-434 “Paradiso”; @P537.42 “paradise”; @C949 “Paradise”; @C962.217 “inferno”;

(?)Hugo, Victor 1882-1885:

*Kipling, Rudyard 1865-1936: *C962.217 *Rhyme of the Three Sealers

@Maier, Michael 1568-1622: @F.20 “a fusion of image and music, a line of verse”; [Alchemist; Atalanta Fugiens alchemical multi-media text; could also refer to Andrei Bely’s compositions] [connection to the Vanessa atalanta]

*Goethe, J.W. von 1749-1832: @P.662-4.46 The Alderking; *C662.183 “The Alderking”; [Other possible thematic allusions: @The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily [fairytale based on alchemic book, Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz; @?Faust ]

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler 1850-1919: @P640.45, “floating mandolin” [a medium, she played the mandolin] https://www.crcsite.org/rosicrucian-library/contemporary-writings/ella-wheeler-wilcox/

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

 

 

 

Freemasons:

 

*Baudelaire, Charles: *C231.130, “poor Baudelaire”; *C998.222, “to read in the original Baudelaire and Dumas”; @?The Jewels; @C22 Fleurs du Mal “bloom of remoteness” (Verse references Hermetic/masonic/alchemic motifs:“On evil’s pillow, / Satan Trismegistus rocks our spirits—enchanted by / the subtle chemist, the will’s / precious metals turn to vapor”); @ Au Lecteur [“–Hypocrite lecteur, –mon semblable, mon frère” [quoted by Eliot in The Wasteland]

*Boswell, James 1740-1795: *Epigraph; *C172.120;

(?)Burns, Robert) 1759-1796

@Butler, Samuel: C629.182,*Hudibras [anti-religion mock-heroic poem about freemasonry]

*Byron, Lord, G.G., 1788-1824: *C962.218

@Carlyle, Thomas 1795-1881: @Sartor Sartoris [Masonic references throughout; Plot about editor who turns a biography into his own story]

*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930: @P27.25, *Sherlock Holmes, The Empty House [Reversed boots], *C27.61; P370 @“Grimpen” Hound of the Baskervilles [Grimpen mire]

*Dumas, Alexandre (Pere) 1802-1870: *C998.222; 

* Freud, Sigmund 1856-1939: *P644.45, *P929.54, *C579.175, *C172.121 [Jewish Freemasonry, B’nai Brith]

*Goethe, J.W. von 1749-1832: @P.662.46; *C662.183 The Alderking; [@The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily [fairytale based on alchemic book Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,

(?)Hentzner, Paul 1558-1623 German traveller Hentzner’s Travels in England [Published by Horace Walpole, a freemason]

*Hogarth, William 1697 – 1764: *F.19; C629.182,*Hudibras [ illustrated S. Butler’s Hudibras]@C922. “Grubby Group” The Distrest Poet  [etching of a Grub St. poet, see “Pope”; caricatured masons]

@Houdini, Harry: @C681.188, @I.233, [“Hodinski/Hodyna”? reads like description of VN, i.e. “conjuror” “poet of genius” etc.]

*Houghton, Florence: *C949.214 [Harvard’s Houghton Library conflated with the haunted Masonic Houghton Mansion formerly owned by Florence Houghton] 

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”]; (?)@C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster,’ and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation,’ passim.]

*Kipling, Rudyard 1865-1936: *C962.217 *Rhyme of the Three Sealers

@Mallarme, Stephan 1842-1898: Symbolist, @ L’Apres Midi d’un faune [trope of “faunlets”;

*Mesmer, Franz Anton 1734-1815: *C42.62 “mesmerized”; *C949.211 “mesmeric”;

*Pope, Alexander 1688-1744: @P85.88 [Pun]; *P384.36; @C347.143 “curious Germans;” *Phryne [suggests alchemists] [Phryne also mocks hack writers from Grub St.];*C384.150 @Essay on Man; *C417.156 *Essay on Man; *C691.191;@C899.205 [parody Essay on Criticism]; @C922.206 The Dunciad, Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers  [“Grubby Group” refers to hack writers in Pope’s day from “Grub St.”]; *C937 *Essay on Man [“hero” = “Hero’s Journey theme]; @I.239 Variants [“The sot a hero, lunatic a king” refers to both Shade and Kinbote]; 

@Pushkin, Alexander 1799-1837: @P997-98 Feast in Time of Plague [negro with wheelbarrow; @Eugene Onegin [Tropes of literary criticism and autobiography]; @ Philomen and Baucis The old “fairy-tale” couple who help King Charles escape; @ Queen of Spades [possibly an allusion to Sybil as a spider]

*Schiller, F.C.S. 1759-1805: @C922.206, Pegasus in the Yoke;

*Scott, Sir Walter 1771-1832: *C71.81, *Lord Ronald’s Coronach, @C71.82 Lord Ronald’s Coronach [Otar, Fleur, Fifalda]; The Lady of the Lake [@Hazel -“Advancing from the hazel shade”] 

*Shakespeare, Wm. 1564-1616: Timon of Athens, Hamlet, Mac Beth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Sonnets;           @C433-434 “Curdy Buff”(Coeur de boeuf) [possibly refers to Marlowe’s lover, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (boeuf/ox), both men candidates for the “real” Shakespeare @“Shalksbore”]

*Swift, Jonathan 1667-1745:  @P413.37 Rape of the Lock [Belinda before the mirror]; @C413.156 ROTL [nymphet/Lolita]*C231.130;  I.Variants [K answers his own question]; *C270.133 @Cadenus and Vanessa; @C275.134 [“Ombre” suggests card game in The Rape of the Lock]; [other allusions to ROTL: “Bodkins,” elemental spirits, Belinda/Lord Petre = Hazel/Pete Dean reversed]; @ Philomen and Baucis [The old “fairy-tale” couple who help King Charles escape]

?@Verne, Jules 1828 -1905: [? @Botkin = nobody: Nemo = nobody trope of “minor” character becomes “major” “Nemo=nobody,” see also Dickens] 

@Wilde, Oscar 1854-1900: @F.19 The Portrait of Dorian Gray [“waste products eliminated from his intrinsic self”] 

@Young, Edward: @P957 “Night Rote” [pun on Night Thoughts ‘night wrote’]

 

 

Swedenborgians:

 

(?)Balzac, Honoré de)

(?)Blake, William)

@Browning, Robert (and Elizabeth): @347.143 Pippa Passes; @P671.71 [“Sea Horse”@ My Last Duchess], *C671-672 My Last Duchess; *C682.188, “Fra Pandolf,” character in My Last Duchess

@Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 1772-1834:  @P403-500 [@ Frost at Midnight]

*Dostoevsky, Fyodor: *C172.121; *C181.126; [@The Double Multiple personality trope]

*Frost, Robert 1874-1963: @P1-2.25 Of a Winter Evening (aka Questioning Faces); @P19-22.25 A Patch of Old Snow; *P426.37; @P490 [“frost”]; *C426.156 @Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening; @C34-35.61 A Cabin in the Clearing [“dewdrops from the eaves/are you and I eavesdropping on their unrest”]

(?)James, William) 1842-1910): @ Varieties of Religious Experience, passim. [President of SPR; VN reputed to have admired him. Raised Swedenborgian, developed Pragmatism]

(?)James, Henry) 1843-1916: [Turn of the Screw, The Jolly Corner, also wrote criticism.] [Raised Swedenborgian.] @The Aspern Papers [critic pursuing dead poet’s papers foiled by fierce older poet’s wife]

*Keats , John 1795-1821: @P98.27 On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer; *C98.90; 

 (?)Pound, Ezra

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939:  *C172.121

 

 

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn [influenced by Rosicrucianism]

 

*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930: (@P27.25, *Sherlock Holmes, The Empty House [Reversed boots], *C27.61, P370 @“Grimpen” Hound of the Baskervilles [Grimpen mire])

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

 

 

Theosophists

 

@Carroll, Lewis: (@Through the Looking Glass [mirror opposites trope. Passim.] 

*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930: @P27.25, *Sherlock Holmes, The Empty House [Reversed boots], *C27.61, P370 @“Grimpen” Hound of the Baskervilles [Grimpen mire])

*Eliot, T.S. 18888-1965: @C347-48.149, @ P370-374.36, Four Quartets [“grimpen, Chtonic, sempiternal”]

*Joyce, James 1882-1941: *C403-4.151, *C12.59 Finnegans Wake; “Odysseys”; [multiple personalities trope, Eternal Return trope, literary canon, passim]

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

 

 

Spiritism:

 

(Browning, Elizabeth B.): (Robert Browning became disenchanted) 

@Dickens, Charles 1812-1870:@Bleak House [trope of “minor” character becomes “major,” like Sybil and Balthasar; “Nemo=nobody” see also Verne]

*Hardy, Thomas: @C34-35.61, Friends Beyond, [“stillicide”]

(Hugo, Victor) 1882-1885: 

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Kingsley, Charles 1819-1875: @C691.189, [chauffer “Kingsley”]

*Lang, Andrew 1844-1912: *P682, *C682.188) [Poet and collector of fairy tales.]

 (Mann, Thomas) 

(Owens, Robert Dale 1801-1877:) @C80.85 “American medium,” Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1859)

*Poe, E. A. 1809-1849: @P961 Thingum Bob; @C62 Black Cat; @C130 Ultima Thule; *C334.149 Tamerlane

*Turgenev, Ivan 1818-1883: C62.77 @Smoke [“heliotropes”]

@Wilcox, Ella Wheeler 1850-1919: @P640.45, “floating mandolin” [medium, poet who played the mandolin]

 

 

Mesmerism:

 

*Arnold, Mathew: C1000.224, @Gypsy Scholar*“clutching the inviolable shade”; [“Still nursing the unconquerable hope” {Hazel}] [‘thou possest an immortal lot….”because “thou waitest for the spark from heaven” = esoteric “divine spark”] [@The Forsaken Merman]

 (Browning, Elizabeth B.): (Robert Browning became disenchanted) 

@Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 1772-1834:  @P403-500 [@ Frost at Midnight, see http://thenabokovian.org/nabokovian-back-issues/73-2014fa]

@Dickens, Charles 1812-1870:@Bleak House [trope of “minor” character (Nemo) becomes “major,” like Sybil and Balthasar in PF; “Nemo=nobody” see also Verne]

*Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930: @P27.25, *Sherlock Holmes, @The Empty House [Reversed boots], *C27.61; P370 @“Grimpen” Hound of the Baskervilles [Grimpen mire])

*Freud, Sigmund 1856-1939: *P644.45, *P929.54, *C579.175, *C172.121

*Goethe, J.W. von 1749-1832: @P.662.46 “Who rides so late in the night and the wind…etc.”; *C662.183 The Alderking; [@The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, fairytale based on alchemic book “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,”; @Faust]  

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Kingsley, Charles 1819-1875: @C691.189, [chauffer “Kingsley”]

*Mesmer, Franz Anton: *C42.62 “mesmerized”, *C949.211 “mesmeric”

*Poe, E. A.: @P961 Thingum Bob; @C62 Black Cat; @C130 Ultima Thule; *C334.149 *“Tamerlane”;

*Southey, Robert 1774-1843: *C12.59, *C376.150, @God’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishop

*Tennyson, Lord Alfred 1809-1892: *C920.205, *In Memoriam [“garland briefer than a girls”] 

 

 

Club des Hashischins (Hashish)

 

*Baudelaire, Charles: *C231.130, “poor Baudelaire”; *C998.222, “to read in the original Baudelaire and Dumas”; @?The Jewels; @C22 Fleurs du Mal “bloom of remoteness” (“On evil’s pillow, / Satan Trismegistus rocks our spirits—enchanted by / the subtle chemist, the will’s / precious metals turn to vapor”);@ Au Lecteur [“–Hypocrite lecteur, –mon semblable, mon frère” [quoted by Eliot in The Wasteland]

*Dumas, Alexandre (Pere) 1802-1870: *C998.222 

 

(Balzac, Honore)

(Hugo, Victor) 1882-1885:

 

Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement

 

*La Fontaine, Jean de 1621-1695: *P243, *C238.130 La Cigale et la Fourmi; [@The Astrologer Who Stumbled into a Well (Satire)]

 

@Poussin, Nicolas 1594-1665: @C286.134 “Even in Arcady am I” [Et in Arcadia Ego, Esoteric saying, painted by Poussin: Les Bergers d’Arcadie.] @C629.181 “"Even in Arcady am I," says Dementia, chained to her gray column.” [Paintings indicate Masonic, alchemic, ideas. Possibly member of Compagnie du St. Sacrament (secret society) or other secret societies.]

 

 

The “Metaphysical Poets:”

 

*Crashaw, Richard 1613-1621: *P683; @P958.55 “Hebe’s Cup” Music’s Duel 

*Donne, John 1572-1631: *C678.184, *Holy Sonnet X;

*Marvell, Andrew 1621-1678: *C678.184 *The Nymph on the Death of Her Fawn;

 

 

Christian Theosophy:

 

*Schiller, F.C.S.  1759-1805 @C922.206, Pegasus in the Yoke;

*Goethe, J.W. von 1749-1832: @P.662.46; *C662.183 The Alderking; [@The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, fairytale based on alchemic book “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,”; @?Faust] 

 

 

Christian Mysticism

 

(?)Bunyan, John)

*Chateaubriand, Rene 1768-1848: C691.189, [“yellow & maroon butterflies” species unknown] [@Atala, Indian Princess of American Acadie, suggesting Atalanta myth]

*Crashaw, Richard 1613-1621: *P683, P958.55 Music’s Duel [“Hebe’s Cup”];

*Dante 1265-1321: *C47-48.70 “Dante’s Bust”; @Divine Comedy: @FW.14 “inferno”; @C130.92 “paradise”; @C433-434 “Paradiso”; @P537.42 “paradise”; @C949 “Paradise”; @C962.217 “inferno”;

*Dostoevsky, Fyodor: *C172.121; *C181.126;  @The Double [multiple personality trope];

*Faulkner, William  1897-1962: C181.125 [Faulkner foreword to 1953 The Faulkner Reader, “saying No to death” was his main theme] 

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Eliot, T.S. 18888-1965: @C347-48.149, @ P370-374.36, Four Quartets [“grimpen, Chtonic, sempiternal”]

*Goldsmith, Oliver 1728-1774: [“Wordsmith College” - conflated with Wordsworth passim.]

@Rasputin, Grigori 1869-1916: Eastern Orthodox, mystic visions, @C62.74, “…strangled, poisoned, and drowned…” [all methods used to kill Rasputin]

*St. Augustine 354-430: *C502.174, *C172.120, @Confessions, Soliloquies [influenced by Neo-Platonism]

*Tolstoy, Leo 1828-1910: *C181.126 “Tolstoian,” “Vronski” @Anna Karinin;P213-4.31 The Death of Ivan Ilych [“All his life the example of a syllogism he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic - Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal...”] [Christian anarchist]

 

 

Rational Humanism Christian

 

*Rabelais, Francois 1483-1553: *P501.41; *C231.130, *C502 *grand peut-etre;

*Sandburg, Carl 1878-1967: *C949.209

*Schweitzer, Albert 1875-1965: C922.206

 

 

The Royal Society of London: (science of the day was influenced by alchemy)

 

*Charles II 1630-1685: Patron of the Royal Society, he had interests in alchemy, hermetic and cabbalistic ideas of the era. He became a freemason. He was reputed to be homosexual.  Exiled in 1646, he was restored to the throne in 1660. Kinbote’s fantasy based on Charles II.

*Flatman, Thomas 1635-1688: *894.204 [Poet and Miniaturist painter, painted portrait of Charles II.] *I.Flatman.232

Glanvill, Joseph 1636-1680: C1000.224, "still clutching the inviolable shade"; [Glanvill’s story of the “Gypsy Scholar” is recounted in Mathew Arnold’s poem]; Glanvill was an appolgist for alchemy, telepathy and psychical research]

(?)Newton, Sir Isaac

(?)Spencer, Herbert 1820-1903: *C42.72 Spencer House [Philosopher of natural selection; attribution may belong to W.R. Spencer, poet]

 

The Royal Society of Edinburgh

 

*Scott, Sir Walter 1771-1832: *C71.81, *Lord Ronald’s Coronach;  @C71.82 Lord Ronald’s Coronach [Otar, Fleur, Fifalda]; The Lady of the Lake [“Advancing from the hazel shade”] 

 

Alchemy (and alchemic/hermetic imagery)

 

*Baudelaire, Charles 1821-1867: *C231.130, @C998 ‘bloom of remoteness’ Fleurs du Mal; @passim Au Lecteur [“–Hypocrite lecteur, –non semblable, mon frère,” “Cradled in evil, that Thrice-Great Magician/The Devil, rocks our souls, that can't resist;/And the rich metal of our own volition/Is vaporised by that sage alchemist.”]) 

(@Jakob Boehme) 1575-1624):  [Boehme was alchemist known as “The Shoemaker”, possibly referencing Botkin and Gradus]

@Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 1772-1834:  @P403-500 [@ Frost at Midnight, see http://thenabokovian.org/nabokovian-back-issues/73-2014fa]

 (Flatman, Thomas?) 1635-1688: *894.204 [Poet and Miniaturist painter, painted portrait of Charles II.] *I.Flatman.232

*Goethe, J.W. von 1749-1832: @P.662.46; *C662.183 The Alderking; @The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily [fairytale based on alchemic book “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,”@?Faust] 

 (Johnson, Ben): @ passim: The Alchemist

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Keats , John 1795-1821: @P98.27 On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer; *C98.90; 

@Maier, Michael 1568-1622: @F.20 Atalanta Fugiens [alchemical text “a fusion of image and music, a line of verse”] 

*Marat, Jean-Paul 1743-1793: *P894 ‘Sit like a king there, and like Marat bleed”; [alchemic process called ‘the King in his bath.’] @ C493:169, “minor poets have even tried such fancy releases as vein tapping in the quadruped tub”  [Marat was a doctor/scientist/alchemist]

*Milton, John 1608-1674:  *C962.217; @ Comus “Cedarn” [“About the cedarn alleys fling”] [meaning “cedar-ed” or “cedar-en” in a description of idyllic Hesperus/Arcadia] [Comus treats the PF theme of body/soul/spirit.]

*Parmentier, Antoine-Augustin 1737-1813: [“Pharmacist” studied and promoted the potato] *C177 “I subjected to as many exquisite metamorphoses as Parmentier had his pet tuber undergo”; @ P502, C171 [Rabelais’ “Grand Peut-etre”]

@Perrault, Charles 1628-1703: @C929.207, * “Little Red Riding Hood” [Theme of child-seduction] [Fairytales]

@Poussin, Nicolas 1594-1665: @C286.134 “Even in Arcady am I” (Et in Arcadia Ego, Esoteric saying, painted by Poussin: Les Bergers d’Arcadie.) @C629.181 “"Even in Arcady am I," says Dementia, chained to her gray column.” [Paintings indicate Masonic, alchemic, ideas. Possibly member of Compagnie du St. Sacrament (secret society) or other secret societies.]

@Ripley, George c.1415-1490: English alchemist possibly alluded to in “Rippleson Caves.”

*Scott, Sir Walter 1771-1832: *C71.81, *“Lord Ronald’s Coronach”; @C71.82 Lord Ronald’s Coronach [Otar, Fleur, Fifalda]; @The Lady of the Lake [“Advancing from the hazel shade”] 

*Shelley, P.B. 1792-1822: @P783.49 “mon blon”; *C172.121; *C134.149; *C782.197 Mont Blanc

*Shakespeare, Wm. 1564-1616: Timon of Athens, Hamlet, Mac Beth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Sonnets;           @C433-434 “Curdy Buff”(Coeur de boeuf) [possibly refers to Marlowe’s lover, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (boeuf/ox), both men candidates for the “real” Shakespeare @“Shalksbore”]

*Teniers, David (the Younger) 1610-1690: *C130.95 [Painted peasants as in Fete Flammande, but also known for non-satiric paintings of alchemists.]

 

 

School of Night: (Poets, Science (alchemy), Philosophy, & Religion)

 

*Chapman, George 1559-1634: *P98.27, @C98, Keats’ On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer;

(Raleigh, Sir Walter) 1552-1618:

@Christopher Marlowe 1564-1493: @C334.149 “Tamerlane” Tamburlaine [cf. Poe’s Tamerlane] [@C433-434 “Curdy Buff”(Coeur de boeuf) possibly refers to Marlowe’s lover, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (boeuf/ox), both men candidates for the “real” Shakespeare @“Shalksbore”]

 

 

Transcendentalists

 

@Whitman, Walt 1819-1892: @C12.58 ‘The Good Gray Poet’ sobriquet reversed “bad grey poet”

 

 

Natural Mystics, Visionaries

 

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Shelley, P.B. 1792-1822: *C172.121; @P783.49 “mon blon”; *C782.197 Mont Blanc

*Wordsworth, Wm. 1770-1850: @“Wordsmith College” conflated with Goldsmith passim; Tintern Abbey source of “New Wye”;

*Byron, Lord, G.G., 1788-1824: *C962.218;

*Proust, Marcel 1871-1922: *P224.31; *C181.126; C181.126, C691.190 [“Marcel”]; @I.235 “Marcel,”A La Recherche de Temps perdue,” “Marcel”; @C47-48.68 *“Time Lost”;

*Pasternak, Boris 1890-1969: @894.203 *Dr. Zhivago 

?(Blake, William)

 

 

Mythology

 

*Byron, Lord, G.G., 1788-1824: *C962.218;

Campbell, Joseph: @possibly “Mr. Campbell,” Kinbotes tutor, C71; C130; C962; C149; [Campbell’s chess game initiates K’s parodied “Hero’s Journey”]

*Chapman, George 1559-1634: *P98.27, @C98, Keats’ On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer;

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 1772-1834:  @P403-500 [@ Frost at Midnight, see http://thenabokovian.org/nabokovian-back-issues/73-2014fa]

*Dante, Alighieri 1265-1321: *C47-48.70 “Dante’s Bust”; @Divine Comedy: @FW.14 “inferno”; @C130.92 “paradise”; @C433-434 “Paradiso”; @P537.42 “paradise”; @C949 “Paradise”; @C962.217 “inferno”;

*Eliot, T.S. 1888-1965: @C347-48.149, @ P370-374.36, Four Quartets [“grimpen, Chtonic, sempiternal”]

*Freud, Sigmund 1856-1939: *P644.45, *P929.54, *C579.175, *C172.121

*Goethe, J.W. von 1749-1832: @P.662.46; *C662.183 The Alderking; [@The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily [fairytale based on alchemic book “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,”; @?Faust]

*Joyce, James 1882-1941: *C403-4.151, *C12.59 Finnegans Wake; “Odysseys”; [multiple personalities trope, Eternal Return trope, literary canon, passim]

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Keats , John 1795-1821: @P98.27 On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer; *C98.90;

*Lang, Andrew 1844-1912: (*P682, *C682.188) [Poet and collector of fairy tales.]

*Milton, John 1608-1674: @Comus “Cedarn” “About the cedarn alleys fling” (990) [meaning “cedar-ed” or “cedar-en” in a description of idyllic Hesperus/Arcadia] [Comus treats the PF theme of body/soul/spirit.]

@Ovid 43BC-17/18 AD: @C149.109: Myth of Philomon & Baucis  [old farm couple “like personages in an old tedious tale offered the drenched fugitive a welcome shelter” (Retold by: Hawthorne, La Fontaine, Swift, Gogol, Pound); Jung called his “Wise Old Man” archetype “Philomon”] @Atalanta myth, Marriage of Art and Nature (major myth of alchemy);

*Schiller, F.C.S. 1759-1805: @C922.206, Pegasus in the Yoke;

*Shelley, P.B. 1792-1822: *C172.121; @P783.49 “mon blon”; *C782.197 Mont Blanc

*Torfaeus, Thormodus 1636-1719: *C80.85 [Icelandic historian translated Norse sagas into Danish and Latin]

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

 (etc. Virtually all the poets)

 

 

Fairytales

 

@Andersen, Hans Christian: @C80.86 Little Mermaid [comb & mirror are accouterments of Melusina], @P318. The Ugly Duckling {reversed}] 

@Carroll, Lewis: (@Through the Looking Glass [mirror opposites. Passim.] 

*La Fontaine, Jean de 1621-1695: *P243, *C238.130 La Cigale et la Fourmi; [@The Astrologer Who Stumbled into a Well (Satire)]

@Grimm Brothers,   @C929.207, *Little Red Riding Hood, 

*Kipling, Rudyard 1865-1936: *C962.217 *Rhyme of the Three Sealers;

*Lang, Andrew 1844-1912: (*P682, *C682.188) [Poet and collector of fairy tales.]

@Perrault, Charles 1628-1703: @C929.207, *Little Red Riding Hood, [Theme of child-seduction]

@Pushkin, Alexander 1799-1837: @P997-98 Feast in Time of Plague [negro with wheelbarrow; @Eugene Onegin [Tropes of literary criticism and autobiography]; @ Phiomen and Baucis The old “fairy-tale” couple who help King Charles escape; @ Queen of Spades possibly an allusion to Sybil as a spider; (Ruskin, John) 1819-1900:[Critic, essayist, poet, writer (including one fairytale). He was sexually abstinent, but attracted to young girls] 

*Southey, Robert 1774-1843: *C12.59, *C376.150, @God’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishop; [author of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

 

 

Astrology, Tarot, Numerology, etc.

 

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; @?C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Milton, John  1608-1674: Comus “Cedarn” “About the cedarn alleys fling” (990) [meaning “cedar-ed” or “cedar-en” in a description of idyllic Hesperus/Arcadia] [Comus treats the PF theme of body/soul/spirit.]

@Pushkin, Alexander 1799-1837: @P997-98 Feast in Time of Plague [negro with wheelbarrow; @Eugene Onegin [Tropes of literary criticism and autobiography]; @ Phiomen and Baucis The old “fairy-tale” couple who help King Charles escape; @ Queen of Spades possibly an allusion to Sybil as a spider;*Shakespeare, Wm.

(probably others, esp. Romantics)

 

 

Spinozian Pantheism

 

@Einstein, Albert 1879-1955: @C130.101 “Eystein” [“…fact that ‘reality’ is …communal eye” (“Eystein was also the name of several medieval Norse kings)]

*Flaubert, Gustave 1821-1880: *C385-386 Unwin, Timothy (1981), 'Flaubert and Pantheism,'. French Studies35(4): 394–406. doi:10.1093/fs/XXXV.4.394

*Turgenev, Ivan 1818-1883: C62.77 @Smoke [“heliotropes”]

*Chekhov, Anton 1860-1904: *C172.121

*Gogol, Nikolai, 1809-1852: *C172.121

 

Platonism & Neo-platonism

 

*Socrates 470-399 BC:  *P224.31;

*St. Augustine 354-430: *C502.174, *C172.120, @Confessions, Soliloquies [influenced by Neo-Platonism)

 

Eastern Religion:

 

*Eliot, T.S. 18888-1965: @C347-48.149, @ P370-374.36, Four Quartets [“grimpen, Chtonic, sempiternal”]

*Lermontov, Mikhail 1814-1841: *C47-48.68 *Hero of Our Time; @The Demon, [multiple personalities ‘double’trope]

@Leyden, John 1775-1811: @P471 “ruby ring” The Mermaid; 

*Tolstoy, Leo 1828-1910: [Christian anarchist]*C181.126 “Tolstoian” “Vronski” @Anna Karinin;

*Yeats, W. B 1865-1939: *C172.121 

 

Symbolists  [derived from Theosophy, Masonic & Rosicrucian mysticism]

 

@Bely, Andrei 1880-1934: @F.20 [‘a fusion of image and music, a line of verse’; this also is a description of alchemists’multi-media works, like Michael Meier’s Atalanta Fugiens

*Baudelaire, Charles 1821-1867: *C231, C998 Fleurs du Mal, @Au Lecteur [“–Hypocrite lecteur, –non semblable, mon frère” (quoted by Eliot in The Wasteland); “Cradled in evil, that Thrice-Great Magician/The Devil, rocks our souls, that can't resist;/And the rich metal of our own volition/Is vaporised by that sage alchemist.”])

*Cocteau, Jean 1889-1963: *C181.126  

*Gide, Andre 1869-1951: *C691.190

(Huysmans, Joris-Karl)

@Mallarme, Stephan 1842-1898: Symbolist, [@C130.96, L’Apres Midi d’un faune, [Trope of “faunlet”, “He was a regular faunlet]

@Pasternak, Boris 1890-1960: *C894.203 “Dr. Zhivago”;

*Verlaine, Paul 1844-1896: *C240.132, “…who stood like a stature of Verlaine…”; [Decadent, converted to Catholicism 1874]; 

 

 

Psychologists

 

*Freud, Sigmund 1856-1939: *P644.45, *P929.54, *C579.175, *C172.121 

*Fromm, Erich, *C929.207 The Forgotten Language

@Jung, Carl 1875-1961: @C230.129, The Psychological Foundation of Belief in Spirits [“outward extension…voo-doo psychiatry”; (?)@C149.212-213 [“doctor” mentioned 3X]; [“shadow,’ ‘mask,’ ‘trickster’ and other archetypes (multiple personality trope) passim]; [@references to alchemy, numerology, passim] [theme of psychological ‘Individuation’]

*Pfister, Oskar  *C929.207 The Psychoanalytical Method; 

 

 

Philosophers

 

*Aristotle: 384-322 BC: *C810 [see Franklin Lane]

@Hegel, Georg W. F. 1770-1831: @ spiral theme passim.

@Plato c.424-348 BC: @ Neoplatonism passim; @ Otar, “platonic friend”

*Socrates c.470-399 BC: *P224

(?)Spencer, Herbert 1820-1903: @C42.72 Spencer House [Philosopher of natural selection; attribution may belong to W.R. Spencer, poet]

 

 

Artists

 

@Bosch, Hieronymus c.1450-1516: P226“Flemish hells” @ Garden of Earthly Delights

https://vk.com/wall-65622344_3357?lang=en

*Cocteau, Jean 1889-1963: *C181.126; Symbolist, esoteric associations

*Hogarth, William 1697 – 1764: F.19 [Satirized mores of the day, esp. drunkenness; Rake’s Progress series depicting dissolution; Marriage a-la-Mode satire of marriage.] 

@C922. “Grubby Group” The Distrest Poet  [etching of a Grub St. poet, see “Pope”];

*Teniers, David (the Younger) 1610-1690: *C130.95 <Painted peasants as in Fete Flammande, but also known for non-satiric paintings of alchemists.>

@Poussin, Nicolas 1594-1665: @C286.134 “Even in Arcady am I” (Et in Arcadia Ego, Esoteric saying, painted by Poussin Les Bergers d’Arcadie.) @C629.181 “"Even in Arcady am I," says Dementia, chained to her gray column.” [Paintings indicate Masonic, alchemic, ideas. Possibly member of Compagnie du St. Sacrament (secret society.]

*Picasso, Pablo 1881-1973: *C12.59 Chandelier, pot et casserole émaillé; *C47-48 “Picasso: earth boy leading raincloud horse” Jeune garcon au cheval [Influenced by Symbolism, occult, magic, primitivism] 

@David, Jacques-Louis 1748-1825: @P894.53 “Sit like a king there, and like Marat bleed”; [Death of Marat

@Botticelli, Sandro 1445-1510: Primavera; ]Fleur = Flora; ‘Botticelli’=‘shoemaker’ =‘Botkin’; Alchemic, Hermetic, allegories in paintings.] [Designed early Tarot deck]

@Millet, Jean-Francois (and/or Van Gogh who copied Millet) 1814-1875: @ F.14 “gestures of a sower.” The Sower;