Subject
QUERY: Clark Ashton Smith's "Fire of Snow" and PF
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"Metaphorical" sends this query:
Don't know if there's any connection to Nabokov's Pale Fire, but I recently
came across the poem "Fire of Snow" by Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), which
reads:
"Pale fire of snow had lit the dusk for me:
Astray with mind half-consciously intent
I had not thought the wood so imminent--
Pregnant with pine and sombre cypress-tree.
Darker than sleep, and mute with mystery
Like far-off death, where questing dreams are spent,
Their winding caverns deepened as I went
Therein, and paused in old expectancy.
"Pale fire of snow had lit the dusk for me.
but the black stillness held where once the wind
Had parted boughs in music, that the gleam
of stars might enter; all was strangely blind,
Like midnight thickening 'neath the middle sea--
Filled with the silence of a time-slain dream."
The poem appears to have been published in 1915 according to the
bibliographic entry here:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/190/fire-of-snow
I find no mention of it in connection with VN in my various searches, but
certain of the images resonate:
"Astray with mind half consciously intent..." Kinbote's intent dreams of
flight from Zembla, under the guiding influence of Hazel's spirit.
"Like far-off death, where questing dreams are spent,
Their winding caverns deepened as I went"
The "tunnel" through which Charles the Beloved crawls to the dressing room
of Iris Acht (I8, or off the chessboard, death, as Bran Boyd notes in "Magic
of Artistic discovery). Death, where questing dreams (of Kinbote's Zembla,
and of Hazel's rebirth as the Red Vanessa) are spent?
Maybe a long stretch, but I'd be curious to know if anyone has heard mention
or has thoughts.
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
Don't know if there's any connection to Nabokov's Pale Fire, but I recently
came across the poem "Fire of Snow" by Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), which
reads:
"Pale fire of snow had lit the dusk for me:
Astray with mind half-consciously intent
I had not thought the wood so imminent--
Pregnant with pine and sombre cypress-tree.
Darker than sleep, and mute with mystery
Like far-off death, where questing dreams are spent,
Their winding caverns deepened as I went
Therein, and paused in old expectancy.
"Pale fire of snow had lit the dusk for me.
but the black stillness held where once the wind
Had parted boughs in music, that the gleam
of stars might enter; all was strangely blind,
Like midnight thickening 'neath the middle sea--
Filled with the silence of a time-slain dream."
The poem appears to have been published in 1915 according to the
bibliographic entry here:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/190/fire-of-snow
I find no mention of it in connection with VN in my various searches, but
certain of the images resonate:
"Astray with mind half consciously intent..." Kinbote's intent dreams of
flight from Zembla, under the guiding influence of Hazel's spirit.
"Like far-off death, where questing dreams are spent,
Their winding caverns deepened as I went"
The "tunnel" through which Charles the Beloved crawls to the dressing room
of Iris Acht (I8, or off the chessboard, death, as Bran Boyd notes in "Magic
of Artistic discovery). Death, where questing dreams (of Kinbote's Zembla,
and of Hazel's rebirth as the Red Vanessa) are spent?
Maybe a long stretch, but I'd be curious to know if anyone has heard mention
or has thoughts.
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