Subject
QUERY: Elysian mash-up
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The portion of Shade's poem from lines 567 to 588, what I term the
Elysian life passage:
Time means succession, and succession, change:
Hence timelessness is bound to disarrange
Schedules of sentiment. We give advice
To widower. He has been married twice:
He meets his wives; both loved, both loving, both
Jealous of one another. Time means growth,
And growth means nothing in Elysian life.
Fondling a changeless child, the flax-haired wife
Grieves on the brink of a remembered pond
Full of a dreamy sky. And, also blond,
But with a touch of tawny in the shade,
Feet up, knees clasped, on a stone balustrade
The other sits and raises a moist gaze
Toward the blue impenetrable haze.
How to begin? Which first to kiss? What toy
To give the babe? Does that small solemn boy
Know of the head-on crash which on a wild
March night killed both the mother and the child?
And she, the second love, with instep bare
In ballerina black, why does she wear
The earrings from the other’s jewel case?
And why does she avert her fierce young face?
seem to me to be a pastiche (the kids say Mash up these days) of
Hazel's tragedy along with other sad tales.I searched on Elysian life
in the archives, nothing. I'm just wondering if there are any other
readings, resolved allusions, etc., that have been made about this
section other than to call it a vague, mash-up of everyday tragedies?
Particularly I'm interested in The earrings of the other's jewel case
and its relation to the phrase empty emerald case.
TIA, –GSL
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Elysian life passage:
Time means succession, and succession, change:
Hence timelessness is bound to disarrange
Schedules of sentiment. We give advice
To widower. He has been married twice:
He meets his wives; both loved, both loving, both
Jealous of one another. Time means growth,
And growth means nothing in Elysian life.
Fondling a changeless child, the flax-haired wife
Grieves on the brink of a remembered pond
Full of a dreamy sky. And, also blond,
But with a touch of tawny in the shade,
Feet up, knees clasped, on a stone balustrade
The other sits and raises a moist gaze
Toward the blue impenetrable haze.
How to begin? Which first to kiss? What toy
To give the babe? Does that small solemn boy
Know of the head-on crash which on a wild
March night killed both the mother and the child?
And she, the second love, with instep bare
In ballerina black, why does she wear
The earrings from the other’s jewel case?
And why does she avert her fierce young face?
seem to me to be a pastiche (the kids say Mash up these days) of
Hazel's tragedy along with other sad tales.I searched on Elysian life
in the archives, nothing. I'm just wondering if there are any other
readings, resolved allusions, etc., that have been made about this
section other than to call it a vague, mash-up of everyday tragedies?
Particularly I'm interested in The earrings of the other's jewel case
and its relation to the phrase empty emerald case.
TIA, –GSL
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/