Subject
ADA's Baron Klim Avidov and Gorky's Klim Samgin
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A.Sklyarenko:... the word dobro ("good") has sexual connotations (see note 7 to my piece), the first line of Kunyaev's poem, Dobro dolzhno byt' s kulakami, has a third meaning yet (for the second meaning see note 3)...
JM: During a college admission exam in Sao Paulo, the candidates were invited to intepret a line of a poem and state what the author had had in mind. One of the participants answered: "nothing" and failed the answer. His complaint was not accepted, even after he informed that he (Oswaldo Montenegro) was the author of the line in question and he knew what he had had in mind ( ie: nothing). Nevertheless from this day onward every college changed its rules concerning interpretation of a text, so as to avoid applying examples from live authors. After all, the meaning that is read into a work of art doesn't depend on what the author claims he intended to express and, besides, as Kinbote remarks: To this statement my dear poet would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.
I tried to imagine what would VN have said concerning our insistent conjectures in scholarly articles and also here, in the List. I suppose he'd have invited us to find ever more fitting answers by his typically baffling comments. Perhaps instead of "eternity", he reserved "infinity" for his readers...
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JM: During a college admission exam in Sao Paulo, the candidates were invited to intepret a line of a poem and state what the author had had in mind. One of the participants answered: "nothing" and failed the answer. His complaint was not accepted, even after he informed that he (Oswaldo Montenegro) was the author of the line in question and he knew what he had had in mind ( ie: nothing). Nevertheless from this day onward every college changed its rules concerning interpretation of a text, so as to avoid applying examples from live authors. After all, the meaning that is read into a work of art doesn't depend on what the author claims he intended to express and, besides, as Kinbote remarks: To this statement my dear poet would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.
I tried to imagine what would VN have said concerning our insistent conjectures in scholarly articles and also here, in the List. I suppose he'd have invited us to find ever more fitting answers by his typically baffling comments. Perhaps instead of "eternity", he reserved "infinity" for his readers...
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/