Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0012102, Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:59:15 -0800

Subject
Fwd: RE: Nabokov's Lips to Lips & Vinnichenko
Date
Body
Re Mikhail Nazarenko's interesting paper:


"Leopard - eto vse zhe ne panthera" ["But leopard and panther are not the same
thing"]

-- In fact, they are.
The black panther is just a so-called melanistic form of a leopard, especially
common in Asia. Same species.

Nabokov knew that of course; is it too much to expect such an esotheric
knowledge from modern literaturoveds?

Also, anybody familiar with Russian poetry would recall Gumilev's most famous
line "Leopard, ubityi mnoyu, brodit v komnate moei" ["The leopard that I killed
is walking in my room"].


Victor Fet <fet@marshall.edu>

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