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Re: THOUGHTS re: stranger-danger; midges-midgets]
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Jerry Friedman: But I think the significance Nabokov found in wordplay is something different. You and I reject it because
we reject the supernatural. But I think we have to remember that, whatever our reasons for doing so (Occam's razor, the value to science of this stance,
etc.), we can't prove that he was wrong.
JM: Second thoughts on my answer to SK-B: "As I suspected, although the Bard concludes that "life is a stage", articulate art always signifies something.As I had not suspected, jokes depend on an expected (silent and failed) meaning: it seems there's not a chance of any true cosmic laughter after all!" followed by HH: "Unless it can be proven to me unless this can be proven (and if it can, then life is a joke), I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art."
Stan's explanation and examples ( and JF's admission) let it clear that post-modern thought departs from a premiss, "God is Dead", to reject transcendence ( there is nothing but "text"). Signification results from the infinite mirrored self-references that point one to the other.
And yet, it is impossible to understand the poignancy of HH's contrition and self-condemnation if we don't reason that he is addressing words towards an external point of reference (that is clearly not the reader), to weigh his project of "articulate art".
Of course, in Nabokov, thinks are never clear-cut ( only sentences!).
HH rejects faith and transcendence while he, at the same time, recognizes the importance of what has happened between Lolita and himself. Therefore he invokes an "external logic" ( a "magic word") in order to prove something. He seems not to believe that life is a joke and that, as Macbeth concluded, nothing remains of human joy and pain but dust.
Second Item: There was a commentary on the ancient manuscrit about Igor's Tale, related to slovo , quoted in the List, where it is stated that "Vladimir's reign divides the pagan and Christian eras, the 'two ends of time' recognized by the poet and given such thematic importance" (A.J.V.Haney). It reminded me of Nabokov's own "chronophobia" and his insistence on the theme of the two darknesses at the extremities of life.
I would have dismissed this "two ends of time" reference had I not learned, through a vague remark, that Nabokov himself had translated this ancient manuscript. I asked for more information about this element, but got no answer.
In B.Boyd's Russian Years, page 174, there is only a reference to the Song of Igor: "In his formal studies at Cambridge Nabokov's greatest gain was probably the deep love he acquired for the medieval masterpieces he may not otherwise have encountered Aucassin and Nicolette and the work of Chrétien de Troyes* - that could share a shelf in his mind with the medieval Russian Song of Igor's Campaign, dear to him from schooldays."
......................
If VN enjoyed Chrétien de Troyes, then VN must have had some acquaintance with Adam d'Arras, le Bossu
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we reject the supernatural. But I think we have to remember that, whatever our reasons for doing so (Occam's razor, the value to science of this stance,
etc.), we can't prove that he was wrong.
JM: Second thoughts on my answer to SK-B: "As I suspected, although the Bard concludes that "life is a stage", articulate art always signifies something.As I had not suspected, jokes depend on an expected (silent and failed) meaning: it seems there's not a chance of any true cosmic laughter after all!" followed by HH: "Unless it can be proven to me unless this can be proven (and if it can, then life is a joke), I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art."
Stan's explanation and examples ( and JF's admission) let it clear that post-modern thought departs from a premiss, "God is Dead", to reject transcendence ( there is nothing but "text"). Signification results from the infinite mirrored self-references that point one to the other.
And yet, it is impossible to understand the poignancy of HH's contrition and self-condemnation if we don't reason that he is addressing words towards an external point of reference (that is clearly not the reader), to weigh his project of "articulate art".
Of course, in Nabokov, thinks are never clear-cut ( only sentences!).
HH rejects faith and transcendence while he, at the same time, recognizes the importance of what has happened between Lolita and himself. Therefore he invokes an "external logic" ( a "magic word") in order to prove something. He seems not to believe that life is a joke and that, as Macbeth concluded, nothing remains of human joy and pain but dust.
Second Item: There was a commentary on the ancient manuscrit about Igor's Tale, related to slovo , quoted in the List, where it is stated that "Vladimir's reign divides the pagan and Christian eras, the 'two ends of time' recognized by the poet and given such thematic importance" (A.J.V.Haney). It reminded me of Nabokov's own "chronophobia" and his insistence on the theme of the two darknesses at the extremities of life.
I would have dismissed this "two ends of time" reference had I not learned, through a vague remark, that Nabokov himself had translated this ancient manuscript. I asked for more information about this element, but got no answer.
In B.Boyd's Russian Years, page 174, there is only a reference to the Song of Igor: "In his formal studies at Cambridge Nabokov's greatest gain was probably the deep love he acquired for the medieval masterpieces he may not otherwise have encountered Aucassin and Nicolette and the work of Chrétien de Troyes* - that could share a shelf in his mind with the medieval Russian Song of Igor's Campaign, dear to him from schooldays."
......................
If VN enjoyed Chrétien de Troyes, then VN must have had some acquaintance with Adam d'Arras, le Bossu
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/