-------- Original Message --------
Thanks to Sergey for the Donne quotation linking two pervasive
themes in PF!
To Jansy: Another post of mine seems to have disappeared. (To
the kindly editors: Thanks for finding my previous vagrant!
However, you don't need to search too hard for this one.) "The
Book of Ephraim" by James Merrill is indeed poetry, or at least
verse, and section N (beginning with the word "Notes") is mostly
in the heroic measure, a lot of it being couplets. So there is
an answer to Carolyn's challenge.
I didn't quite say that Shade's "Disjointed notes..." or "Man's
life as commentary..." /is/ the book or the poem. I'd say the
reader can take both that way, though, ironically, and thus
they're linked as you'd been saying.
That word "is"--very tricky.
On that subject, to Jerry Katsell: You said Shade's waxwing "is"
the Bohemian Waxwing, /Bombycilla garrulus/. I think we're
suppposed to think of Cedar Waxwings because of the references
to cedars and junipers elsewhere in the book. Brian Boyd has
explored this, and if I can quote myself, if the first line of
the poem suggests "cedar" then there are two parallel cedars at
the end of the Foreword and the beginning of the poem, like an
ornamental gateway, and repeated in the first note (Kinbote's
junipers).
In addition to Don Johnson's comments about the plumage,
immature waxwings of all kinds are mostly gray, so I can
answer your comment about "ashy" by imagining an immature
CW (though I'm sure all of us would rather imagine the adult,
so beautifully colored up close).
I disagree with Matt Roth, who says the "ashen fluff" is
the reflection--I think it's the dead bird or its feathers
on the window. But I agree with his and Don Johnson's argument
that the BW is very rare in Ithaca and much rarer still in New
Wye (which I don't think we can place in New England). Of
course, Nabokov could enjoy inventing a great rarity.
We should certainly have the BW in mind too. It would
correspond to the Zemblan /sampel/, and it fits with the
"American and European" natural-history theme, as do robins,
willowherb/fireweed, and cedar/juniper (again).
So which /is/ it? In my opinion, you lose nothing by
imagining it as a CW as long as you remember the existence
of the BW (and the nonexistence of /B. shadei/).
Jerry Friedman is keeping a copy of this post.