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Blue reality
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Self-quote: But does “blue” have any existence apart from its perception by
humans? Can it in fact really be a substantive? Perhaps a philosopher on
the list knows the answer.
My thanks to SKB for his observations following this question. Mary Bellino’
s posts from 2005 were of the greatest interest, and I look forward to
reading J.L.Benson, and Pastoureau (at Mary Krimmel’s suggestion).
However I was thinking more along the lines of whether there might be some
philosophical distinction between the independent existence of “blue” and the
Juniper tree in the quad, when there’s no-one around to see it. There seems
to me a difference between the human perception of colours and the perception
of concrete objects. If you believe in God, like Knox, presumably not, since
both would continue to be observed indiscriminately. By extension, that
could mean that Zembla also has reality, since it is so vividly perceived by
Kinbote, and therefore also by God. Most fiction is, and most people in fiction
are, I suppose, much more real than the nameless multitudes who have led “real”
lives. Invited by, say, Hendrik van Loon, to dinner with either Shade or
Kinbote, I would definitely select Kinbote, anticipating an exceedingly
entertaining evening. Marooned on Juan Fernández for a few years, Shade, though
boring and dull (imho), would have to be preferred as a Friday.
The discussion of the differences between blue and azure, though partly
(only partly) my fault, is reaching absurd heights. However, George’s thoughtful
and rational remarks seek sensible answers. He wrote:
1) There is a tension in “azure” part of the quoted rhyme; we are forced to
speed up at it to fit in the rhyme, - kind of smashing really fast and hard
into something. I believe that even cliché words loose their life support
when such tension is achieved.
The thought that “azure” in this context suggests “smash” is appealing.
The waxwing is crushed against the glass. Beyond that I don’t sense much
tension in the word. The “ash” sound seems soft to me. Although I don’t think I
really pronounce “azure” as “ashure”.
2) Does branding certain word cliché prohibits their use regardless of
context, semantic and other spices? I think not. This cliché may be a trap.
Fully agree that so-called clichés may be perfectly appropriate, depending
on context. All words can, in a sense, be thought of as clichés, which I
suppose is why writers are so often tempted to invent new ones. Jerry’s remark
about “azure”: it's part of self-consciously elevated, exotic,
pre-20th-century poetic diction. Far from being one of Madox Ford's "fresh, usual words", it
smells musty to me. This may be what Charles meant by "poetastic", seems to
me exactly to the point. Frost’s early “zephyr” struck me as being of the
same ilk, and I felt that he deliberately avoided this sort of poetic diction
in his later poems.
3) Could lack of “azure” in RF’s poetry be just a sign of personal
preference? Or that he did not have a way to generate the above tension?
Yes, I think it is a matter of Frost’s personal search for the ideal in
poetry. On the other hand I think he was very capable of generating intense
emotional tension.
4) Should we place so such value in numeric order in OED and to the fact
that it does not list azure as noun denoting sky as other dictionaries do?
Poetry is arguably a thing of perfect rhyme but it is not a thing of perfect
order.
I was certainly surprised to find the OED listing “lapis lazuli” as the
first meaning of “azure”. Jerry Katsell’s discovery in Webster’s New World
Dictionary of the American Language of the 1950s: “of or like the color of a
clear sky; sky blue—n. 1. sky blue or any similar blue color; 2. [Poet.] the
blue sky” certainly supports the concept, in America, of “azure” as,
secondarily, a poetic synonym for “sky”, but doesn’t increase my respect for
Webster’s attention to the history of word usage. The phrase “Côte d’Azur”, I
suppose because of its juxtaposition of colour with coastal shore, has always
evoked for me the deep blue of the Mediterranean sea, but I may be alone in
this. Ask a random selection of New Yorkers what “azure” means and I’d
imagine 90% would say “blue”. Perhaps I’m wildly wrong.
5) Shade is the poet but VN is the writer of the novel containing the poem.
Isn’t that sufficient ground to place more weight on use of “azure” in the
4th meaning? If we use Shade’s poem to criticize VN as a poet let’s give
credit to Russian poetic heritage to which VN alludes.
All I’ve really been interested in, following Brian Boyd’s heated attack on
James Marcus, is to ruminate on why Marcus first remarked that the “diction
of Pale Fire dips into poetic flabbiness with the very second line ("false
azure" indeed)”, and to speculate on what could have been in his mind when
singling out that phrase. The reaction to what I’d thought was an inoffensively
sober interpretation of Marcus’s flippancy has escalated alarmingly.
The entire discussion of Pale Fire the novel still seems to me to hinge on
the reader’s judgement of the aesthetic quality of Shade’s verse composition,
and I’ll have yet another attempt at illustrating what I believe to be the
difference between verse and poetry.
Before me are two books. One is titled “Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling”
; the other is titled “The Collected Poems of Robert Frost”. It is quite
inconceivable to me, where I’m coming from, that any tolerably educated
publisher would ever contemplate switching these titles to read “Collected Verse of
Robert Frost” and “The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling”. Although I make
due allowance for other’s doubts, I will continue to trust myself --- on the
whole.
Charles
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