I was much amused by the poem The Exile by VN that Jansy passed along,
due to its scansion of the name Baudelaire which recalled a post that I wrote
a couple weeks ago, I think, but never sent because I didn't think it purposeful enough.
Now it seems to have at least a little relevance.
The post concerned Matt & Tiff's interpretation of Kinbote's comment to line 231
regarding some dashes in a variant he claims to have.
[I hope to send out soon a post on amphibrachs & anapests & such.]
Here is a scan of the relevant lines from The Exile:
Verlaine had been also a teacher somewhere
in England. And what about great Baudelaire,
alone in his Belgi-an hell?
[Actually, in isolation these lines might be scanned as iambic pentameter!
Verlaine had been also a teacher somewhere
in England. And what about great Baud'laire,
alone in his Belgian hell? ]
Here is the post that never went out till now:
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
I was reading Matt Roth and Tiffany DeRewal's article,JOHN SHADE’S DUPLICATE SELVES:
AN ALTERNATIVE SHADEAN THEORY OF PALE FIRE
and came across this:
The reference here to Swift and his descent into madness should immediately bring to mind
Kinbote’s note to line 231, where he reveals a variant written by Shade: “And minds that died
before arriving there: / Poor old man Swift, poor —, poor Baudelaire” (167). Kinbote imagines
himself to be the two missing syllables, but “John Shade” fits equally well and seems a more
likely choice, given Shade’s apparent reluctance to reveal the name he has in mind.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Line 231: How ludicrous, etc.
A beautiful variant, with one curious gap, branches off at this point in the draft (dated July 6):
Strange Other World where all our still-born dwell,
And pets, revived, and invalids, grown well,
And minds that died before arriving there:
Poor old man Swift, poor ---, poor Baudelaire
What might that dash stand for? Unless Shade gave prosodic value to the mute e in "Baudelaire," which I am quite certain he would never have done in English verse (cp. "Rabelais," line 501), the name required here must scan as a trochee. Among the names of celebrated poets, painters, philosophers, etc., known to have become insane or to have sunk into senile imbecility, we find many suitable ones. Was Shade confronted by too much variety with nothing to help logic choose and so left a blank, relying upon the mysterious organic force that rescues poets to fill it in at its own convenience? Or was there something else--some obscure intuition, some prophetic scruple that prevented him from spelling out the name of an eminent man who happened to be an intimate friend of his? Was he perhaps playing safe because a reader in his household might have objected to that particular name being mentioned? And if it comes to that, why mention it at all in this tragical context? Dark, disturbing thoughts.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––...“John Shade” fits equally well...
It may seem pedantic to say but this overstates the case a little.
Myself, scanning, John Shade, in isolation, I hear: John Shade.
Which is iambic, versus Kinbote, which, as he points out, is trochaic.
Shade clearly intends John Shade in lines 272-4:
How could you, in the gloam of Lilac lane,
Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade,
Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder blade.
John Shade, could be forced-in, promoted, as they say,
but it's not as natural, technically speaking.
Poor old man Swift, poor John Shade, poor Baud'laire
(Actually: Poor old man Swift, poor John Shade, poor Baud'laire
is considered, by many, an acceptable, though not common, exception)
But one can also reconsider Kinbote's argument about the e in Baudelaire.
Shade is perhaps fluent in French, and Rabelais does scan as a trochee in line 150,
but the practical poet in Shade might not feel constrained to this rule,
and use, or think of, Baudelaire as the circumstances required.
In this case a single monosyllable would suffice, e.g. Shade:
And minds that died before arriving there:
Poor old man Swift, poor Shade, poor Baudelaire
This reading maintains the parallelism of the word poor occurring on an upbeat. Yet
Poor old man Swift, poor John Shade, poor Baud'laire
can be said to sound agreeable
if only for the breaking of the mold.
It certainly sounds natural enough.
None of this of course is seen to change
the misinterpretation Kinbote makes,
which is to say that I agree with Matt.
These several scans amuse analysis,
a little puzzle, multiple solutions.