Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014020, Sat, 11 Nov 2006 05:01:06 +1300

Subject
Re: Serious & unserious poets
Date
Body
Just to add to the discussion. I had lunch yesterday with Helen Vendler at Harvard, probably the greatest writer on poetry in English alive )magisterial books on Shakspeareøs sonnets, Keatsøs odes, Wallace Stevens, and much much more, and more coming on the 20C long poem). She thinks PF a great poem, unqualifiedly.

Brian Boyd )excuse Danish keyboard I canøt master. A long story).


________________________________

From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Steven
Sent: Thu 9/11/2006 5:58 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Serious & unserious poets


But Nabokov himself didn't claim it was a great poem -- simply the greatest 'invented' poem. A distinction with a difference, I think, considering how the small number of such works limits the field.


On Nov 6, 2006, at 9:56 PM, NABOKV-L wrote:


It's more of a game to him, a chess problem

to work out. Thus, we are not bound to consider the author's

relationship to his poem as a factor in considering its merits.

We can judge the poem by its purely internal merits.


Steven




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