In a message dated 09/12/2005 17:12:58 GMT Standard Time, chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu writes:

the final line missing its matching rhyme until we return to the first line.

I am grateful to Brian Boyd for so eloquently and precisely defending Shade's "Pale Fire". But how does he know that "we return to the first line"? Why should we accept Kinbote's assertion? How, even, do we know that there would have been only one more line? The symmetry between parts 1 and 4, and 2 and 3, would be thus preserved, but how do we know Shade wanted to preserve it?

Anthony Stadlen