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Re: VN on allegory?
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>Perhaps "metaphoric" is a term that is better than "allegoric" in dealing with how VN uses his life in his work. "Allegoric" is a prose term; "metaphoric" is a poetic one. We are, after all, dealing with a poet here.
Kakoe b schast'e ili gore
Ni pelo v prezhnie goda,
Metafor, dazhe allegoriy
Ya ne chuzhdalsya nikogda.
Whatever happiness or grief
Would sing in the past years,
I have never shunned
Metaphors, or even allegories.
The first stanza of a Russian poem (the fifth one in the cycle "Seven Poems") written in the nineteen fifties. There is an allegory (or metaphor?) of death in the second (and last) stanza. I apologize to Nabokov's shadow for my translation.
I also apologize to Borges' shadow for misspelling the title of his story ("Aleph").
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Kakoe b schast'e ili gore
Ni pelo v prezhnie goda,
Metafor, dazhe allegoriy
Ya ne chuzhdalsya nikogda.
Whatever happiness or grief
Would sing in the past years,
I have never shunned
Metaphors, or even allegories.
The first stanza of a Russian poem (the fifth one in the cycle "Seven Poems") written in the nineteen fifties. There is an allegory (or metaphor?) of death in the second (and last) stanza. I apologize to Nabokov's shadow for my translation.
I also apologize to Borges' shadow for misspelling the title of his story ("Aleph").
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/