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Re: THOUGHTS
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Grigory Utgof,
Your message about creationism surprised me because you seemed to take this matter more at heart than most of us, namely, the idea that VN intended a polemic reference to creationism while mentioning the physical eye's evolution.
I don't doubt that when the matter was art, good writing and reading, Nabokov was a creationist for he always presented himself as enchanter and demiurgus that welded cosmic wordwolds of his own creation.And yet, as a scientist I don't believe he'd have held to the same view and denied what his own experience as lepideroptologist insistently demonstrated to him.
I was struck by a curious more clearly anglo-saxon distinction that shows its support of evolutionism already as something embedded as part of their language. Namely, the difference between the words "Apes" ( applicable to "apes" and sometimes even including the "monkeys" as part of the same category) and "Monkeys" ( never to be confused with the "Apes", from which mankind was seen as being a descendant).
In Portuguese the word is used for both ramifications, we only indicate the "Macacos" ( apeas and monkeys). I don't know if in Russian this distinction or blend is as clear as it is in the English.
Jansy Mello
----- Original Message -----
From: Grigori Utgof
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:19 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS
VN AND CREATIONISM
From what we know about VN as a scientist, we can say he was not a supporter of creationism. More to the point, his disapproval for creationism can be discerned from his well-known lecture "Good Readers and Good Writers": "However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous piece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement" (Nabokov, V. "Good Readers and Good Writers." In Nabokov 1980, 3). Considering creationism argues that the eye could not have evolved through gradual improvements and must have been created, the fact VN emphasized its evolutionary nature reads like a trace of polemics with the creationist platform.
Grigori Utgof
Tallinna Ülikool
Slaavi filoloogia osakond
Narva mnt. 29-326
10120 Tallinn
Eesti (Estonia)
E-post: utgof@tlu.ee
Skype: epistulae_morales
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Your message about creationism surprised me because you seemed to take this matter more at heart than most of us, namely, the idea that VN intended a polemic reference to creationism while mentioning the physical eye's evolution.
I don't doubt that when the matter was art, good writing and reading, Nabokov was a creationist for he always presented himself as enchanter and demiurgus that welded cosmic wordwolds of his own creation.And yet, as a scientist I don't believe he'd have held to the same view and denied what his own experience as lepideroptologist insistently demonstrated to him.
I was struck by a curious more clearly anglo-saxon distinction that shows its support of evolutionism already as something embedded as part of their language. Namely, the difference between the words "Apes" ( applicable to "apes" and sometimes even including the "monkeys" as part of the same category) and "Monkeys" ( never to be confused with the "Apes", from which mankind was seen as being a descendant).
In Portuguese the word is used for both ramifications, we only indicate the "Macacos" ( apeas and monkeys). I don't know if in Russian this distinction or blend is as clear as it is in the English.
Jansy Mello
----- Original Message -----
From: Grigori Utgof
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:19 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS
VN AND CREATIONISM
From what we know about VN as a scientist, we can say he was not a supporter of creationism. More to the point, his disapproval for creationism can be discerned from his well-known lecture "Good Readers and Good Writers": "However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous piece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement" (Nabokov, V. "Good Readers and Good Writers." In Nabokov 1980, 3). Considering creationism argues that the eye could not have evolved through gradual improvements and must have been created, the fact VN emphasized its evolutionary nature reads like a trace of polemics with the creationist platform.
Grigori Utgof
Tallinna Ülikool
Slaavi filoloogia osakond
Narva mnt. 29-326
10120 Tallinn
Eesti (Estonia)
E-post: utgof@tlu.ee
Skype: epistulae_morales
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 269.5.1/764 - Release Date: 4/17/2007 4:43 AM
Search the Nabokv-L archive with Google
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
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Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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