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Re: reply to Jansy re metamorphoses
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Mary H. Efremov "exile abounds in VN's writing...most of his Russian characters are ex-pats, the dream of a nobleman to see buckwheat in bloom inspires the young man in glory,all of the nostalgia and dreams of the past, are about losing one's beloved home( and past).".
Jansy Mello: Reading M.H.E's observation that "exile abounds in VN's writing," I was reminded of how contagious an ex-patriate's nostalgia can be. The Lieder my great-grandparents valued ( Goethe's "Nur wer die Sennsuch kennt weiss was Ich leide" or the popular "nun ade Du mein lieb Heimatland", aso) still strike a "nostalgic" note in my heart (an echo of the Romantic spirit that moved them at that time).
Mary's observation about "losing one's past" is pertinent and, in VN's case, it's a central issue, together with his writer's distress at having to abandon his native Russian and write in another language and cultural context*.
However the XXIth Century world is, in a way, the world of exiles (voluntary or involuntary, spatial or ideological), often experienced in all sorts of non-literary ways. . .
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* - From the recently mentioned article by Vladimir Zoric "Radiating Nests: metalingual Tropes in Poetry of Exile": "There is, meanwhile, another trope of unhomeliness in modernist perceptions of language, one according to which the very act of signification represents a trespass in a foreign land. The world we once dully tried to objectify through the use of symbolic substitutes has changed its aspect: it cannot house us anymore. or, as Rilke acknowledged in “The Duino Elegies” (“Duineser Elegien”): “wir nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind / in der gedeuteten Welt” ( “we don’t feel very securely at home / in this interpreted world.”)
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Jansy Mello: Reading M.H.E's observation that "exile abounds in VN's writing," I was reminded of how contagious an ex-patriate's nostalgia can be. The Lieder my great-grandparents valued ( Goethe's "Nur wer die Sennsuch kennt weiss was Ich leide" or the popular "nun ade Du mein lieb Heimatland", aso) still strike a "nostalgic" note in my heart (an echo of the Romantic spirit that moved them at that time).
Mary's observation about "losing one's past" is pertinent and, in VN's case, it's a central issue, together with his writer's distress at having to abandon his native Russian and write in another language and cultural context*.
However the XXIth Century world is, in a way, the world of exiles (voluntary or involuntary, spatial or ideological), often experienced in all sorts of non-literary ways. . .
.............................................................
* - From the recently mentioned article by Vladimir Zoric "Radiating Nests: metalingual Tropes in Poetry of Exile": "There is, meanwhile, another trope of unhomeliness in modernist perceptions of language, one according to which the very act of signification represents a trespass in a foreign land. The world we once dully tried to objectify through the use of symbolic substitutes has changed its aspect: it cannot house us anymore. or, as Rilke acknowledged in “The Duino Elegies” (“Duineser Elegien”): “wir nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind / in der gedeuteten Welt” ( “we don’t feel very securely at home / in this interpreted world.”)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/