Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014382, Thu, 14 Dec 2006 22:40:56 -0500

Subject
Royal weeds and Shakespeare's herbals; translation
From
Date
Body
> This begs the question, of course, as to whether
>> VN would have relied on his dictionary for botanical definitions.
>> Being a lepidopterist, he surely had a deeper knowledge of these
>> plants. Then again, being a transplant to America, and having
>> written PF in Europe, he may have used his dictionary to confirm
>> certain botanical details.

I haven't rechecked the sources (Rowse again?) but many long years ago I
read that Shakespeare had 'borrowed' verbatim some of his botanical
descriptions from contemporary gardening books and herbals. Which only
goes
to show that LitCrits can oft wrongly jump into statements such as "Here
we
see the young Bard [substitute other writers' names] thoroughly familiar
with his local flora ..." [I paraphrase.] In a similar vein, Oxfordians
assume that only the Courtly-bred can write so accurately about Customs-
Royal. Then we Stratfordians ask: where did de Vere learn so much about
low-life beggars and murderers?

Re-VN on translation: I repeat: his essay "The Art of Translation"
appended
to his "Lectures on Russian Literature"

Ullo der PENNY: I lived near your LANE, like. All is forgiven.

skb

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