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Re: [NABOKOV-L] Musing about orbicles
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Stan Kelly-Bootle: My own idle browsing for 'orbicle of jasp' (which always struck me as VN portraying Shade as the most jarring un-poet!) found Vladimir Mylnikov's essay A and Z of Zembla, at http://pmeyer.web.wesleyan.edu/nabokov/alphabet.html
JM: Another available response to "orbicle of jasp," by Molly Lehman, is less critical of John Shade's poetic talents than SKB's, rather it dwells on Kinbote's own commentary before we discover ourselves in the midst of Lehman's commentaries about the role of the literary annotator, and her initially daring (?) comparison between Kinbote/Pale Fire and Nabokov/Eugene Onegin. Cf. Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire and the Role of the Literary ... - mollylehman.wordpress.com/.../vladimir-nabokovs-pale-fir...*
I'm all ears to follow the experts...
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* "...Kinbote seems to be out of touch with his audience; he has a poor sense of what we would and would not know, and frequently, he misses the point altogether...Some departures seem much like those in Eugene Onegin. Like Nabokov, Kinbote makes use of his position as commentator to praise both the text and the poet. Shade's lines "How to locate in blackness, with a gasp / Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp" (PF, 45) are, Kinbote tells us in the only annotation he devotes to them, "The loveliest couplet in this canto" (PF, 181). But according to what standards is this the "loveliest"? Like Nabokov, Kinbote's own personal preferences are being invoked; here, it is his idea of loveliness that is being used as a gauge. This evaluation, however, comes in a form (the annotation) that attempts to assign this preference the authority of scholarship...As with Eugene Onegin...we are seeing ...Kinbote's attempt to control our responses to Shade's poem. Kinbote wants us to read the poem as he reads it ...The difference, however, between Nabokov's liberties as commentator and Kinbote's emerges when we realize that Kinbote's dictation of our responses, commanding of our attentions and informing us of certain meanings, beyond being merely infused with personality, has a certain agenda behind it..."
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JM: Another available response to "orbicle of jasp," by Molly Lehman, is less critical of John Shade's poetic talents than SKB's, rather it dwells on Kinbote's own commentary before we discover ourselves in the midst of Lehman's commentaries about the role of the literary annotator, and her initially daring (?) comparison between Kinbote/Pale Fire and Nabokov/Eugene Onegin. Cf. Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire and the Role of the Literary ... - mollylehman.wordpress.com/.../vladimir-nabokovs-pale-fir...*
I'm all ears to follow the experts...
........................................................................................................................................................................
* "...Kinbote seems to be out of touch with his audience; he has a poor sense of what we would and would not know, and frequently, he misses the point altogether...Some departures seem much like those in Eugene Onegin. Like Nabokov, Kinbote makes use of his position as commentator to praise both the text and the poet. Shade's lines "How to locate in blackness, with a gasp / Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp" (PF, 45) are, Kinbote tells us in the only annotation he devotes to them, "The loveliest couplet in this canto" (PF, 181). But according to what standards is this the "loveliest"? Like Nabokov, Kinbote's own personal preferences are being invoked; here, it is his idea of loveliness that is being used as a gauge. This evaluation, however, comes in a form (the annotation) that attempts to assign this preference the authority of scholarship...As with Eugene Onegin...we are seeing ...Kinbote's attempt to control our responses to Shade's poem. Kinbote wants us to read the poem as he reads it ...The difference, however, between Nabokov's liberties as commentator and Kinbote's emerges when we realize that Kinbote's dictation of our responses, commanding of our attentions and informing us of certain meanings, beyond being merely infused with personality, has a certain agenda behind it..."
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/