Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001463, Wed, 20 Nov 1996 10:56:19 -0800

Subject
More on poshlost' (fwd)
Date
Body
From: A BenAmos <abenam@essex.ac.uk>

In relation to the current discussion in NABOKV-L, I would like to pass
on the following remark I got in answer to my own ponderings about
poshlost', in the Nabokovian as well as the extra-Nabokovian sense.

Anat Ben-Amos
Department of Literature
University of Essex
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom
E-mail: abenam@essex.ac.uk

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Mne pochti postoianno prikhoditsia dumat' o poniatiiakh poshlosti i
tsinizma, kotorye dlia menia sviazany sleduiushchim obrazom: Poshlost' -
eto vera v ogranichennost' sposobnostei cheloveka (o protivopostavlenii
poshlosti i banal'nosti est' zamechatel'nyi kommentrii gde-to v zametkakh
Pushkina, no ia ne mogu seichas naiti eto),i tsinizm - eto stremlenie k poshlomu ob'iasneniiu motivov postupkov
okruzhaiushchikh.

[I almost constantly have to think of the meaning of poshlost'
and cynicism, which for me are linked in the following way: Poshlost' is
the belief in the limited capability of human beings (there is a marvelous
comment on the juxtaposition of poshlost' to banality in one of Pushkin's
notes, which I am unable to find now), while cynicism is the striving to
poshlost' while explaning the motivations to the acts of others.]

Alexey Vernitskii