There is certainly an echo of Shakespeare in "Pale Fire".
But we must also remember J.W.v.Goethe ( because of the "Wind/Kind and
vent/enfant that enters the poem through the "Erlkönig" poem).
I
remembered Goethe's words from a small booklet of poems I enjoyed as a
child:
"Gott gibt die Nüsse, aber er knackt sie nicht auf.” ( is there a hint at
what C.Kunin extracted in the Kinbotean "a knackle of
walnuts"?)
A rough translation teaches that "God gives
us nuts but he doesn't open them for us".
( And
yet, as I remembered it, the sentence read not "knackt". In
it God didn't bite open the nuts he gave us: "aber Er beisst sie nicht
auf").
PS:
When I checked any references for a more complete information I found something
interesting using the Google/German,
concerning Walnuts.
These
nuts are called Juglans Regia L. (their botanical name) from a link between
"Jovis glans" and "Jupitereichel" ( a sexual undertone, Yes?).
The Walnut
could have been spread by the Romans, but in Greek they are named
"Karya", the name of a young girl loved by Dyonisus and who
was transformed into a nut-tree. Small images were sculpted from its
bark and named "Kariatids", although in the Accropolis they were sculpted from
the stone.
Jansy
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