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Re: THOUGHTS: Poor old man Swift
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Matthew Roth: Just a trifle I ran across while reading about the last days of Swift in Craik's "The Life of Jonathan Swift" (1894):"Looking at himself in the glass, he was said to have exclaimed in pity, 'Poor old man!'." I wonder if this provides the origin of Shade's variant line, "Poor old man Swift, poor --, poor Baudelaire." In which case, was John Shade also looking in the glass when he wrote that line?
JM: Kinbote suggests his name to fill in the blank ( poor mad Kinbote). The poet, himself, was paring his fingernails. We know that he used a mirror while he shaved in the bath-tub ( or was it only VN?).
Your information about Swift's exclamation, and its link to the variant, is wonderful!
While I re-read the lines in question, and I don't know if any entomologist has already called attention to it (should it be an incongruent detail, I mean), I was struck by the reference to singing cicadas. I understand that, in the US, cicadas come out in July. I'd always thought that the squat and frog-eyed emerald case (line 238) had been a cicada's but the empty hulk was found in cold March, on the day Hazel died. This suggested to me that this insect had recently emerged from it: is it possible?
The clogged ant, as the companion piece to the emerald case, reinforces the allusion to a cicada by a reference to La Fontaine (although it is the cicada that is alive, not the ant).
In the meantime, I enjoyed again the elegant way Shade, in a few lines, mentions his birthday, Sybil's pregnancy (Hazel is also "in a case," in Nice) and announces her death, while discussing after-life.
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JM: Kinbote suggests his name to fill in the blank ( poor mad Kinbote). The poet, himself, was paring his fingernails. We know that he used a mirror while he shaved in the bath-tub ( or was it only VN?).
Your information about Swift's exclamation, and its link to the variant, is wonderful!
While I re-read the lines in question, and I don't know if any entomologist has already called attention to it (should it be an incongruent detail, I mean), I was struck by the reference to singing cicadas. I understand that, in the US, cicadas come out in July. I'd always thought that the squat and frog-eyed emerald case (line 238) had been a cicada's but the empty hulk was found in cold March, on the day Hazel died. This suggested to me that this insect had recently emerged from it: is it possible?
The clogged ant, as the companion piece to the emerald case, reinforces the allusion to a cicada by a reference to La Fontaine (although it is the cicada that is alive, not the ant).
In the meantime, I enjoyed again the elegant way Shade, in a few lines, mentions his birthday, Sybil's pregnancy (Hazel is also "in a case," in Nice) and announces her death, while discussing after-life.
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/