Subject
Re: on Shakespeare (1924)
From
Date
Body
Dear G.S.,
As the Oxfordian who cited Nabokov's 1924 "Shakespeare" as evidence (I
believe) of his anti-Stratfordianism, at the very least in his youth, I
should explain how I interpret the poem, which appears in full at the
bottom of this post.
First, I believe the voice in the poem is Nabokov's, and not that of a
purely fictional "I." I realize I differ with others here, including those
who know far more about VN's poetry and aesthetics than I do.
The poem begins, "Amid grandees of times Elizabethan/you shimmered too, you
followed sumptuous custom;/the circle of ruff, the silv’ry satin
that/encased your thigh..."
Right off the bat VN is identifying Shakespeare as a nobleman in habit and
dress. No one has ever argued that William Shaksper of Stratford was
aristocratic, whereas many anti-Stratfordian candidates, from Bacon to
Oxford, were of noble blood. (This needn't be taken as evidence of
Nabokov's snobbery. Contrary to popular belief, Oxfordians aren't snobs.
Nor were Walt Whitman or Charlie Chaplin, yet both were just as certain
that Shakespeare was a nobleman:
Whitman: “I am firm against Shaksper — I mean the Avon man, the actor.”
— *With Walt Whitman*, Traubel
Whitman: “Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European
feudalism — personifying in unparall'd ways the medieval aristocracy, its
towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, its own peculiar air and
arrogance (no mere imitation) — only one of the 'wolfish earls' so
plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower,
might seem to be the true author of those amazing works — works in some
respects greater than anything else in recorded history.”
— “November Boughs”
Chaplin: “In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will
reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of
them in Shakespeare … I am not concerned with who wrote the works of
Shakespeare … but I can hardly think it was the Stratford boy. Whoever
wrote them had an aristocratic attitude.” — *My Autobiography*, 364)
Later VN's poem reads, "concealing for all time your monstrous
genius/beneath a mask...." I don't see how William of Stratford could be
considered masked, whereas a yet-unidentified author would be.
In the lines "you’re alive; your name, though,/your image, too – deceiving,
thus, the world...", VN clearly implies that what the world knows of
Shakespeare's name and image (presumably the absurd engraving in the First
Folio and the blah bust in Stratford's Trinity Church) are deceptive.
The following lines I believe are self-explanatory:
"It’s true, of course, a usurer had grown/accustomed, for a sum, to sign
your work/(that Shakespeare – Will – who played the Ghost in Hamlet,/ who
lives in pubs, and died before he could/digest in full his portion of a
boar’s head)…"
This scenario is the one depicted in the recent film* Anonymous,* which has
serious historical and artistic flaws but is correct in its main premise.
Later, Nabokov again implies the true author's name is unknown: "Look what
numbers/of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,/what countless
names Brantome has for the asking!/Reveal yourself, god of iambic
thunder..." If VN were a Stratfordian when he wrote these lines, why would
he ask Shakespeare to reveal himself? Likewise, why would he use the phrase
"banished/by God from your existence" to describe the "rags-to-riches" man
from Stratford, who (allegedly) voluntarily retired to a comfortable life
at the peak of his powers?
Although J.T. Looney's "Shakespeare Identified" was published in 1920, I
don't believe Nabokov had read it by the time he wrote "Shakespeare" in
1924. (I suspect he did read it later, however, and found it at least
plausible.) Had VN read it by 1924, I doubt--though I can't prove--that he
would have imagined his hero "smiling" as, "faceless," he "vanished in the
distance." Resigning himself to oblivion grieved Edward de Vere
immeasurably, as he laments in Sonnet 72 ("My name be buried where** my
body is") and Sonnet 81 ("I, once gone, to all the world must die.")
Needless to say, I don't believe the Sonnets were literary exercises with a
fictional "I" either.
Cheers,
Brian Tomba
PS VN's fantasy of Shakespeare meeting Cervantes in Italy (a country de
Vere knew and loved so well that he was later mocked as the "Italianate
Englishman") may be more prescient than he realized. As Mark Anderson notes
on page 90 of *Shakespeare By Another Name,* Oxford and Cervantes may have
crossed paths in Palermo:
http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=%22de+vere+and+cervantes+crossed+paths%22&source=bl&ots=HdzIWBunKd&sig=Ky7XN4o_CupBfyBMpi4eu5_tS3g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nuj9T56cF4no6wHmob2OCw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22de%20vere%20and%20cervantes%20crossed%20paths%22&f=false
Shakespeare (1924)
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv’ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard – in all of this
you were like other men… Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre’s alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm’s echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff’s visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you’re alive; your name, though,
your image, too – deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved Lethe.
It’s true, of course, a usurer had grown
accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work
(that Shakespeare – Will – who played the Ghost in Hamlet,
who lives in pubs, and died before he could
digest in full his portion of a boar’s head)…
The frigate breathed, your country you were leaving,
To Italy you went. A female voice
called singsong through the iron’s pattern
called to her balcony the tall *inglesse*,
grown languid from the lemon-tinted moon
and Verona’s streets. My inclination
is to imagine, possibly, the droll
and kind creator of *Don Quixote
* exchanging with you a few casual words
while waiting for fresh horses – and the evening
was surely blue. The well behind the tavern
contained a pail’s pure tinkling sound… Reply
whom did you love? Reveal yourself – whose memoirs
refer to you in passing? Look what numbers
of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,
what countless names Brantome has for the asking!
Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!
No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
by God from your existence, you recalled
those secret manuscripts, fully aware
that your supremacy would rest unblemished
by public rumor’s unashamed brand,
that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
faceless you’d stay, like immortality
itself – then vanished in the distance, smiling.
Copyright 1979 Vladimir Nabokov Estate
English version copyright 1988 Dmitri Nabokov
On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 10:16 AM, G S Lipon <glipon@innerlea.com> wrote:
> "Zombies", is what I first thought, "they never stay dead."
>
> Nevertheless spent some not-altogether-useless time reading the posts and
> boning up on the improbable controversy.
> I'm afraid my first reading Nabokov's *Shakespeare(1924) *was not very
> deep.
>
> I absolutely hate to chide but I think some chiding is in order.
> One doesn't try to persuade by saying simply "Here! Look at this! See!"
> If one wants to persuade one ought to be willing to explain one's case, to
> argue,
> which Mr. Forte, Howerton, et al, fail to do.
>
> In their rush to find evidence for VN's support for their theories
> they have failed to produce, for their readers,
> and probably in their own minds,
> a comprehensive interpretation of the poem's meaning,
> a mental paraphrase of its basic gist.
>
> That the author was familiar with anti-Stratfordian theories is plainly
> obvious.
> That this, by itself, should be construed as the author's endorsement of
> these theories is plainly wrong.
>
> The poem assumes the reader has some familiarity with these theories
> & simply uses them as a basis for imagining the real author of the Plays
> of Shakespeare
> fleeing England at the time of Will's death.
>
> Following this fanciful depiction, which includes the real author meeting
> up with Cervantes,
> the poem concludes:
>
> Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
> you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!
>
> No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
> by God from your existence, you recalled
> those secret manuscripts, fully aware
> that your supremacy would rest unblemished
> by public rumor's unashamed brand,
> that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
> faceless you'd stay, like immortality
> itself--then vanished in the distance, smiling.
>
>
> Here the poem declares that *Shakespeare will, in fact, never reveal
> himself to us, *
> *and that, for the most part, all we possess of him is really just his
> writings.*
>
> This, of course, negates the imagined escape of the preceding lines,
> which stand as a kind of foil for this pretty definitive declaration.
> It also stands against the whole anti-Stratfordian crusade which, after
> all,
> tries to fit a different face, often with a fuller biography, upon the
> bard.
>
> It is a gross misreading to think that the poem supports anti-Stratfordism.
>
> Chidingly,
> /~gsl.
>
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
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/
As the Oxfordian who cited Nabokov's 1924 "Shakespeare" as evidence (I
believe) of his anti-Stratfordianism, at the very least in his youth, I
should explain how I interpret the poem, which appears in full at the
bottom of this post.
First, I believe the voice in the poem is Nabokov's, and not that of a
purely fictional "I." I realize I differ with others here, including those
who know far more about VN's poetry and aesthetics than I do.
The poem begins, "Amid grandees of times Elizabethan/you shimmered too, you
followed sumptuous custom;/the circle of ruff, the silv’ry satin
that/encased your thigh..."
Right off the bat VN is identifying Shakespeare as a nobleman in habit and
dress. No one has ever argued that William Shaksper of Stratford was
aristocratic, whereas many anti-Stratfordian candidates, from Bacon to
Oxford, were of noble blood. (This needn't be taken as evidence of
Nabokov's snobbery. Contrary to popular belief, Oxfordians aren't snobs.
Nor were Walt Whitman or Charlie Chaplin, yet both were just as certain
that Shakespeare was a nobleman:
Whitman: “I am firm against Shaksper — I mean the Avon man, the actor.”
— *With Walt Whitman*, Traubel
Whitman: “Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European
feudalism — personifying in unparall'd ways the medieval aristocracy, its
towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, its own peculiar air and
arrogance (no mere imitation) — only one of the 'wolfish earls' so
plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower,
might seem to be the true author of those amazing works — works in some
respects greater than anything else in recorded history.”
— “November Boughs”
Chaplin: “In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will
reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of
them in Shakespeare … I am not concerned with who wrote the works of
Shakespeare … but I can hardly think it was the Stratford boy. Whoever
wrote them had an aristocratic attitude.” — *My Autobiography*, 364)
Later VN's poem reads, "concealing for all time your monstrous
genius/beneath a mask...." I don't see how William of Stratford could be
considered masked, whereas a yet-unidentified author would be.
In the lines "you’re alive; your name, though,/your image, too – deceiving,
thus, the world...", VN clearly implies that what the world knows of
Shakespeare's name and image (presumably the absurd engraving in the First
Folio and the blah bust in Stratford's Trinity Church) are deceptive.
The following lines I believe are self-explanatory:
"It’s true, of course, a usurer had grown/accustomed, for a sum, to sign
your work/(that Shakespeare – Will – who played the Ghost in Hamlet,/ who
lives in pubs, and died before he could/digest in full his portion of a
boar’s head)…"
This scenario is the one depicted in the recent film* Anonymous,* which has
serious historical and artistic flaws but is correct in its main premise.
Later, Nabokov again implies the true author's name is unknown: "Look what
numbers/of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,/what countless
names Brantome has for the asking!/Reveal yourself, god of iambic
thunder..." If VN were a Stratfordian when he wrote these lines, why would
he ask Shakespeare to reveal himself? Likewise, why would he use the phrase
"banished/by God from your existence" to describe the "rags-to-riches" man
from Stratford, who (allegedly) voluntarily retired to a comfortable life
at the peak of his powers?
Although J.T. Looney's "Shakespeare Identified" was published in 1920, I
don't believe Nabokov had read it by the time he wrote "Shakespeare" in
1924. (I suspect he did read it later, however, and found it at least
plausible.) Had VN read it by 1924, I doubt--though I can't prove--that he
would have imagined his hero "smiling" as, "faceless," he "vanished in the
distance." Resigning himself to oblivion grieved Edward de Vere
immeasurably, as he laments in Sonnet 72 ("My name be buried where** my
body is") and Sonnet 81 ("I, once gone, to all the world must die.")
Needless to say, I don't believe the Sonnets were literary exercises with a
fictional "I" either.
Cheers,
Brian Tomba
PS VN's fantasy of Shakespeare meeting Cervantes in Italy (a country de
Vere knew and loved so well that he was later mocked as the "Italianate
Englishman") may be more prescient than he realized. As Mark Anderson notes
on page 90 of *Shakespeare By Another Name,* Oxford and Cervantes may have
crossed paths in Palermo:
http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=%22de+vere+and+cervantes+crossed+paths%22&source=bl&ots=HdzIWBunKd&sig=Ky7XN4o_CupBfyBMpi4eu5_tS3g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nuj9T56cF4no6wHmob2OCw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22de%20vere%20and%20cervantes%20crossed%20paths%22&f=false
Shakespeare (1924)
Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv’ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard – in all of this
you were like other men… Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.
Haughty, aloof from theatre’s alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm’s echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff’s visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you’re alive; your name, though,
your image, too – deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved Lethe.
It’s true, of course, a usurer had grown
accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work
(that Shakespeare – Will – who played the Ghost in Hamlet,
who lives in pubs, and died before he could
digest in full his portion of a boar’s head)…
The frigate breathed, your country you were leaving,
To Italy you went. A female voice
called singsong through the iron’s pattern
called to her balcony the tall *inglesse*,
grown languid from the lemon-tinted moon
and Verona’s streets. My inclination
is to imagine, possibly, the droll
and kind creator of *Don Quixote
* exchanging with you a few casual words
while waiting for fresh horses – and the evening
was surely blue. The well behind the tavern
contained a pail’s pure tinkling sound… Reply
whom did you love? Reveal yourself – whose memoirs
refer to you in passing? Look what numbers
of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,
what countless names Brantome has for the asking!
Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!
No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
by God from your existence, you recalled
those secret manuscripts, fully aware
that your supremacy would rest unblemished
by public rumor’s unashamed brand,
that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
faceless you’d stay, like immortality
itself – then vanished in the distance, smiling.
Copyright 1979 Vladimir Nabokov Estate
English version copyright 1988 Dmitri Nabokov
On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 10:16 AM, G S Lipon <glipon@innerlea.com> wrote:
> "Zombies", is what I first thought, "they never stay dead."
>
> Nevertheless spent some not-altogether-useless time reading the posts and
> boning up on the improbable controversy.
> I'm afraid my first reading Nabokov's *Shakespeare(1924) *was not very
> deep.
>
> I absolutely hate to chide but I think some chiding is in order.
> One doesn't try to persuade by saying simply "Here! Look at this! See!"
> If one wants to persuade one ought to be willing to explain one's case, to
> argue,
> which Mr. Forte, Howerton, et al, fail to do.
>
> In their rush to find evidence for VN's support for their theories
> they have failed to produce, for their readers,
> and probably in their own minds,
> a comprehensive interpretation of the poem's meaning,
> a mental paraphrase of its basic gist.
>
> That the author was familiar with anti-Stratfordian theories is plainly
> obvious.
> That this, by itself, should be construed as the author's endorsement of
> these theories is plainly wrong.
>
> The poem assumes the reader has some familiarity with these theories
> & simply uses them as a basis for imagining the real author of the Plays
> of Shakespeare
> fleeing England at the time of Will's death.
>
> Following this fanciful depiction, which includes the real author meeting
> up with Cervantes,
> the poem concludes:
>
> Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
> you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!
>
> No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
> by God from your existence, you recalled
> those secret manuscripts, fully aware
> that your supremacy would rest unblemished
> by public rumor's unashamed brand,
> that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
> faceless you'd stay, like immortality
> itself--then vanished in the distance, smiling.
>
>
> Here the poem declares that *Shakespeare will, in fact, never reveal
> himself to us, *
> *and that, for the most part, all we possess of him is really just his
> writings.*
>
> This, of course, negates the imagined escape of the preceding lines,
> which stand as a kind of foil for this pretty definitive declaration.
> It also stands against the whole anti-Stratfordian crusade which, after
> all,
> tries to fit a different face, often with a fuller biography, upon the
> bard.
>
> It is a gross misreading to think that the poem supports anti-Stratfordism.
>
> Chidingly,
> /~gsl.
>
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
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/