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Re: J. Rea on Knaves and Jacks]
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João A. Rea wrote: Let's also rememer that English "varlet" (a variant spelling of "valet) arising by the vagaries of r-less and r-ful dialects in contact), has
a "deprecatory meaning" not unlike that of "knave". Joa~o (my computer won't let my tilda dance over above the 'o')
Jackie Mello : Why did he change "depreciatory" into "deprecatory"? Anyway, both indicate a Royal dismissal of servants and pages.
Returning to Pale Fire, JM on Jack Grey, or Vinogradus plus a Red Admiral:
Don's message made me think about the different meanings the "Red Admiral" butterfly could acquire in the novel:
1. an inefficient warning signal to protect one of the characters;
2. the soul of a resentful woman transformed by death into an inspiring symbol;
3. a caricature or a bungled representation ( like the one of the butterfly in a famous triptych, probably Bosch's);
4.Swift's Vanessa;
etc.
In the note to line 408 (A Male hand), once more close to Gradus, we spot the Red Vanessa ( "heraldic butterfly volant en arrière")
"He retrieved his car and drove up to a higher level on the hillside. From the same road bay, on a misty and luminous September day, with the diagonal of the first silver filament crossing the space between two balusters, the King had surveyed the twinkling ripples of Lake Geneva and had noted their antiphonal response, the flashing of tinfoil scares in the hillside vineyards. Gradus as he stood there, and moodily looked down at the red tiles of Lavender's villa snuggling among its protective trees...From far below mounted the clink and tinkle of distant masonry work, and a sudden train passed between gardens, and a heraldic butterfly volant en arrière, sable, a bend gules, traversed the stone parapet, and John Shade took a fresh card.
Here we find joined by Charles Kinbote's hand ( although he uses sometimes the expression "one") a very present John Shade writing Pale Fire, Gradus, the Red Admiral and himself, the King Charles II, the Beloved. We have responding echoes, two kinds of "bend" ( "gules" indicates a red diagonal), vineyards and vinograd, tinfoil scares and clink tinkle that echoes again in feigned remoteness the tinkle of the horseshoe game heard in the distance when these four ( Gradus, Kinbote, Shade and Butterfly ) meet again.
Why could this "volant en arrière" mean? The sinister bend or a flight in reverse[ cf. "Spacetime itself is decay; Gradus is flying west; he has reached gray-blue...]?
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a "deprecatory meaning" not unlike that of "knave". Joa~o (my computer won't let my tilda dance over above the 'o')
Jackie Mello : Why did he change "depreciatory" into "deprecatory"? Anyway, both indicate a Royal dismissal of servants and pages.
Returning to Pale Fire, JM on Jack Grey, or Vinogradus plus a Red Admiral:
Don's message made me think about the different meanings the "Red Admiral" butterfly could acquire in the novel:
1. an inefficient warning signal to protect one of the characters;
2. the soul of a resentful woman transformed by death into an inspiring symbol;
3. a caricature or a bungled representation ( like the one of the butterfly in a famous triptych, probably Bosch's);
4.Swift's Vanessa;
etc.
In the note to line 408 (A Male hand), once more close to Gradus, we spot the Red Vanessa ( "heraldic butterfly volant en arrière")
"He retrieved his car and drove up to a higher level on the hillside. From the same road bay, on a misty and luminous September day, with the diagonal of the first silver filament crossing the space between two balusters, the King had surveyed the twinkling ripples of Lake Geneva and had noted their antiphonal response, the flashing of tinfoil scares in the hillside vineyards. Gradus as he stood there, and moodily looked down at the red tiles of Lavender's villa snuggling among its protective trees...From far below mounted the clink and tinkle of distant masonry work, and a sudden train passed between gardens, and a heraldic butterfly volant en arrière, sable, a bend gules, traversed the stone parapet, and John Shade took a fresh card.
Here we find joined by Charles Kinbote's hand ( although he uses sometimes the expression "one") a very present John Shade writing Pale Fire, Gradus, the Red Admiral and himself, the King Charles II, the Beloved. We have responding echoes, two kinds of "bend" ( "gules" indicates a red diagonal), vineyards and vinograd, tinfoil scares and clink tinkle that echoes again in feigned remoteness the tinkle of the horseshoe game heard in the distance when these four ( Gradus, Kinbote, Shade and Butterfly ) meet again.
Why could this "volant en arrière" mean? The sinister bend or a flight in reverse[ cf. "Spacetime itself is decay; Gradus is flying west; he has reached gray-blue...]?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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