At the beginning 0f his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions that crystal land outside the window:
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land! (ll. 1-12)
"That crystal land" brings to mind William Blake's poem The Crystal Cabinet (1797):
THE MAIDEN caught me in the wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And lock’d me up with a golden key.
This Cabinet is form’d of gold
And pearl and crystal shining bright,
And within it opens into a world
And a little lovely moony night.
Another England there I saw,
Another London with its Tower,
Another Thames and other hills,
And another pleasant Surrey bower,
Another Maiden like herself,
Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
Threefold each in the other clos’d—
O, what a pleasant trembling fear!
O, what a smile! a threefold smile
Fill’d me, that like a flame I burn’d;
I bent to kiss the lovely Maid,
And found a threefold kiss return’d.
I strove to seize the inmost form
With ardour fierce and hands of flame,
But burst the Crystal Cabinet,
And like a weeping Babe became—
A weeping Babe upon the wild,
And weeping Woman pale reclin’d,
And in the outward air again
I fill’d with woes the passing wind.
Blake's poem tells the tale of an unhappy and unsuccessful love affair. It is a crossing of worlds for the speaker, who exists in one world at the beginning of the poem (“caught me in the wild”), is captured and “lock’d up” in a second world (“another England there I saw”) and is finally tossed out and falls into a third world (“a weeping Babe upon the wild”).
In Blake’s mythology, there were three worlds in which one could live (or three levels to one world). Eternity is representative of our natural world as we live in it; in a nutshell, it is reality. Higher up we have Beulah, which is like heaven. In Beulah, there is no conflict and all is at peace, all is one. The lower of the worlds is Ulro. Ulro is the realm of torment, suffering, and death, the material world. Ulro has no contact with Eternity and is where all the fallen souls end up.
In this poem, we have a speaker who becomes the object (victim perhaps) of an erotic possessive maiden. The first two stanzas are fairly simple narrative to follow, with the only real outstanding metaphor is in line 4 (“Lock’d me up”) which is a play on words for copulation (“put me into her cabinet”) as well as a pun on John Locke, the philosopher who related the minds of all newborn humans as empty “cabinets.” It is at line 7 where the poem begins to shed its simple narrative and enter the world of Blake mythology.
The reference to “threefold” in line 15 is how the reader can become aware which world the speaker has entered, the third of Blake’s worlds being Beulah. While in this new world, the speaker makes an attempt to apprehend the essence of his existence there and tries to make his transient moment permanent. This is one of the causes that will lead to his fall to Ulro. The other leading factor to the cause is how the speaker trades places with his maiden and becomes the possessive force in the relationship (“I strove to seize the inmost form / With ardor fierce & hands of flame”).
In his Commentary Kinbote (Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) describes Shade's house and mentions a bright goblet of liquor that quietly traveled from filing cabinet to lectern, and from lectern to bookshelf, there to hide if need be behind Dante's bust:
Windows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages. But this observer never could emulate in sheer luck the eavesdropping Hero of Our Time or the omnipresent one of Time Lost, Yet I was granted now and then scraps of happy hunting. When my casement window ceased to function because of an elm's gross growth, I found, at the end of the veranda, an ivied corner from which I could view rather amply the front of the poet's house. If I wanted to see its south side I could go down to the back of my garage and look from behind a tulip tree across the curving downhill road at several precious bright windows, for he never pulled down the shades (she did). If I yearned for the opposite side, all I had to do was walk uphill to the top of my garden where my bodyguard of black junipers watched the stars, and the omens, and the patch of pale light under the lone streetlamp on the road below. By the onset of the season here conjured up, I had surmounted the very special and very private fears that are discussed elsewhere (see note to line 62) and rather enjoyed following in the dark a weedy and rocky easterly projection of my grounds ending in a locust grove on a slightly higher level than the north side of the poet's house.
Once, three decades ago, in my tender and terrible boyhood, I had the occasion of seeing a man in the act of making contact with God. I had wandered into the so-called Rose Court at the back of the Ducal Chapel in my native Onhava, during an interval in hymnal practice. As I mooned there, lifting and cooling my bare calves by turns against a smooth column, I could hear the distant sweet voices interblending in subdued boyish merriment which some chance grudge, some jealous annoyance with one particular lad, prevented me from joining. The sound of rapid steps made me raise my morose gaze from the sectile mosaic of the court - realistic rose petals cut out of rodstein and large, almost palpable thorns cut out of green marble. Into these roses and thorns there walked a black shadow: a tall, pale, long-nosed dark-haired young minister whom I had seen around once or twice strode out of the vestry and without seeing me stopped in the middle of the court. Guilty disgust contorted his thin lips. He wore spectacles. His chenched hands seemed to be gripping invisible prison bars. But there is no bound to the measure of grace which man may be able to receive. All at once his look changed to one of rapture and reverence. I had never seen such a blaze of bliss before but was to perceive something of that splendor, of that spiritual energy and divine vision, now, in another land, reflected upon the rugged and homely face of old John Shade. How glad I was that the vigils I had kept all through the spring had prepared me to observe him at his miraculous midsummer task! I had learned exactly when and where to find the best points from which to follow the contours of his inspiration. My binoculars would seek him out and focus upon him from afar in his various places of labor: at night, in the violet glow of his upstairs study where a kindly mirror reflected for me his hunched-up shoulders and the pencil with which he kept picking his ear (inspecting now and then the lead, and even tasting it); in the forenoon, lurking in the ruptured shadows of his first-floor study where a bright goblet of liquor quietly traveled from filing cabinet to lectern, and from lectern to bookshelf, there to hide if need be behind Dante's bust; on a hot day, among the vines of a small arborlike portico, through the garlands of which I could glimpse a stretch of oilcloth, his elbow upon it, and the plump cherubic fist propping and crimpling his temple. Incidents of perspective and lighting, interference by framework or leaves, usually deprived me of a clear view of his face; and perhaps nature arranged it that way so as to conceal from a possible predator the mysteries of generation; but sometimes when the poet paced back and forth across his lawn, or sat down for a moment on the bench at the end of it, or paused under his favorite hickory tree, I could distinguish the expression of passionate interest, rapture and reverence, with which he followed the images wording themselves in his mind, and I knew that whatever my agnostic friend might say in denial, at that moment Our Lord was with him. (note to ll. 47-48)
William Blake is the author of the Drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy. Almost the whole clan of Gradus (Shade's murderer) seems to have been in the liquor business.
John Shade and Charles Kinbote live in New Wye (a small University town). The Wye is a river in England and Wales. Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 is a poem by William Wordsworth. Shade lives in the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith. Goldsworth + Wordsmith = Goldsmith + Wordsworth. William Blake's poem The Tyger brings to mind crouching tigers that wait their hapless prey in Oliver Goldsmith's poem The Deserted Village. In VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert mentions felis tigris goldsmithi.
Btw., Shade's "crystal land" also brings to mind William Blake's poem The Land of Dreams:
Awake, awake my little Boy!
Thou wast thy Mother's only joy:
Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?
Awake! thy Father does thee keep.
"O, what land is the Land of Dreams?
What are its mountains, and what are its streams?
O Father, I saw my Mother there,
Among the lillies by waters fair.
Among the lambs clothed in white
She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.
I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn -
O when shall I return again?"
Dear child, I also by pleasant streams
Have wandered all night in the Land of Dreams;
But though calm and warm the waters wide,
I could not get to the other side.
"Father, O Father, what do we here,
In this land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the Morning Star."
(The author establishes the Land of Dreams as a space that imparts knowledge and experience. This dream space reflects, similarly, the longing for transcendence as well as a yearning for happiness. Also, the Land of Dreams, functions as a halfway expanse, a passage. In this intermediate space, imagination is the path to learn and to experience things that can’t be encountered in the everyday world. Therefore, ‘The Land of Dreams’ shows a tension between the dream, with its own space and peculiarities, and the daytime.
The tone of this poem is very nostalgic as it is always portraying a place that can no longer be reached. Both the father and the kid are constantly longing to return to that beautiful scenario that brought them joy.)