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Fw [NABOKV-L] Larks, Vanessas and bad omens
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Jansy Mello: After the news about a massive ressurgence of Red Admirals in New York this time, insects which were at times regarded as being "the butterflies of doom" due to the 1881 pattern discerned in the underside of their wings, C.Kunin reported on the skylarks in Pasadena remembering that, at least in Russian poetry, these birds were associated to madness and evil.
After I recalled that the song I was taught as young child to widen my vocabulary in French describes how the feathers of an "alouette"(lark) must be plucked, I did some more checking on the Lark theme. To my surprise, also French Canadians (such as, in PF, were Sybil Shade's relatives), and various Europeans, ate these birds ("a "mauvette") which are reputed to carry "bad messages," thus confirming C.Kunin's link between larks and butterflies, in connection to something Nabokovian.
Here is an explanation about the song as extracted from the wikipedia: "Ethnomusicologist Conrad LaForte points out that, in song, the lark (l'alouette) is the bird of the morning, and that it is the first bird to sing in the morning, hence waking up lovers and causing them to part, and waking up others as well, something which is not always appreciated. In French songs, the lark also has the reputation of being a gossip, a know-it-all, and cannot be relied on to carry a message, as she will tell everyone; she also carries bad news. However the nightingale, being the first bird of spring, in Europe, sings happily all the time, during the lovely seasons of spring and summer. The nightingale (i.e., rossignol) also carries messages faithfully and dispenses advice, in Latin, no less, a language which lovers understand. LaForte explains that this alludes to the Middle Ages, when only a select few still understood Latin. And so, as the lark makes lovers part or wakes up the sleepyhead, this would explain why the singer of "Alouette" wants to pluck it in so many ways, if he can catch it, as Laporte notes, this bird is flighty as well. The lark was eaten in Europe, and when eaten is known as a "mauviette", which is also a term for a sickly person."
It is my opinion that Nabokov was more impressed by the skylark's "fiery spirit," and the red admiral's charm , than by any links to them as harbingers of evil, or madness.
In Lolita, we find a flower that grows in the Northern Hemisphere: the larkspur (" One summer noon, just below timberline, where heavenly-hued blossoms that I would fain call larkspur crowded all along a purly mountain brook, we did find, Lolita and I, a secluded romantic spot"). With so many birds flying about Nabokov's novels, I risk to affirm that the skylark is almost conspicuously absent from them. It seems to me that not even the peasants in "Ada" hunted and ate them.
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After I recalled that the song I was taught as young child to widen my vocabulary in French describes how the feathers of an "alouette"(lark) must be plucked, I did some more checking on the Lark theme. To my surprise, also French Canadians (such as, in PF, were Sybil Shade's relatives), and various Europeans, ate these birds ("a "mauvette") which are reputed to carry "bad messages," thus confirming C.Kunin's link between larks and butterflies, in connection to something Nabokovian.
Here is an explanation about the song as extracted from the wikipedia: "Ethnomusicologist Conrad LaForte points out that, in song, the lark (l'alouette) is the bird of the morning, and that it is the first bird to sing in the morning, hence waking up lovers and causing them to part, and waking up others as well, something which is not always appreciated. In French songs, the lark also has the reputation of being a gossip, a know-it-all, and cannot be relied on to carry a message, as she will tell everyone; she also carries bad news. However the nightingale, being the first bird of spring, in Europe, sings happily all the time, during the lovely seasons of spring and summer. The nightingale (i.e., rossignol) also carries messages faithfully and dispenses advice, in Latin, no less, a language which lovers understand. LaForte explains that this alludes to the Middle Ages, when only a select few still understood Latin. And so, as the lark makes lovers part or wakes up the sleepyhead, this would explain why the singer of "Alouette" wants to pluck it in so many ways, if he can catch it, as Laporte notes, this bird is flighty as well. The lark was eaten in Europe, and when eaten is known as a "mauviette", which is also a term for a sickly person."
It is my opinion that Nabokov was more impressed by the skylark's "fiery spirit," and the red admiral's charm , than by any links to them as harbingers of evil, or madness.
In Lolita, we find a flower that grows in the Northern Hemisphere: the larkspur (" One summer noon, just below timberline, where heavenly-hued blossoms that I would fain call larkspur crowded all along a purly mountain brook, we did find, Lolita and I, a secluded romantic spot"). With so many birds flying about Nabokov's novels, I risk to affirm that the skylark is almost conspicuously absent from them. It seems to me that not even the peasants in "Ada" hunted and ate them.
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/