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[NABOKOV-L] [THOUGHTS] refrain quatrain in CK notes
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Pale Fire, another pit stop.
While I was rereading the lines I'd last selected to post, now taken out of their context, there were one or two things which called my attention.
Here they are:
1. ...our King's Queen, whose favorite trees were the jacaranda and the maidenhair, copied out in her album a quatrain from John Shade's collection of short poems Hebe's Cup, which I cannot refrain from quoting here...
(a) the sound of quatrain and refrain brought so close together, with CK's information about various lines of Shade's other poems ( which the reader obviously cannot know if not through CK's own quotes), invited me to explore their particular insertion in CK's notes and his intentions.
The other meaning of "refrain" might indicate a clue present in another, poetical, "refrain".
(b) jacaranda and maidenhair are out of place in the note. They are not indicators of Disa's familiar landscape, though. Maidenhair will be extensively explained in ADA ( I remember this has already been discussed in the list - which I haven't checked to be able to avoid redundancies, sorry Matt... )
2. CK Line 957: Night Rote
I remember one little poem from Night Rote (meaning "the nocturnal sound of the sea") that happened to be my first contact with the American poet Shade....
If CK is writing in America and in English why would he need to offer a translation of Shade's "Rote" as the nocturnal sound of the sea.
The only dictionary I have by me now explains "learning by rote" (of doubtful etymology) as being linked to memorizing without comprehension... Perhaps this word refers to the see in VN's favorite Webster... or are we here confronted with another sample of CK's meddling, now to insinuate that the word used by Shade is in Zemblan?
I hope those in the know will clarify me about this point.
"Night Rote" ( Rote, in German, means red, redness)
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While I was rereading the lines I'd last selected to post, now taken out of their context, there were one or two things which called my attention.
Here they are:
1. ...our King's Queen, whose favorite trees were the jacaranda and the maidenhair, copied out in her album a quatrain from John Shade's collection of short poems Hebe's Cup, which I cannot refrain from quoting here...
(a) the sound of quatrain and refrain brought so close together, with CK's information about various lines of Shade's other poems ( which the reader obviously cannot know if not through CK's own quotes), invited me to explore their particular insertion in CK's notes and his intentions.
The other meaning of "refrain" might indicate a clue present in another, poetical, "refrain".
(b) jacaranda and maidenhair are out of place in the note. They are not indicators of Disa's familiar landscape, though. Maidenhair will be extensively explained in ADA ( I remember this has already been discussed in the list - which I haven't checked to be able to avoid redundancies, sorry Matt... )
2. CK Line 957: Night Rote
I remember one little poem from Night Rote (meaning "the nocturnal sound of the sea") that happened to be my first contact with the American poet Shade....
If CK is writing in America and in English why would he need to offer a translation of Shade's "Rote" as the nocturnal sound of the sea.
The only dictionary I have by me now explains "learning by rote" (of doubtful etymology) as being linked to memorizing without comprehension... Perhaps this word refers to the see in VN's favorite Webster... or are we here confronted with another sample of CK's meddling, now to insinuate that the word used by Shade is in Zemblan?
I hope those in the know will clarify me about this point.
"Night Rote" ( Rote, in German, means red, redness)
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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