Self-quote:
But does
“blue” have any existence apart from its perception by humans? Can it in
fact really be a substantive? Perhaps a philosopher on the list knows the
answer.
My thanks to SKB for
his observations following this question.
Mary Bellino’s posts from 2005 were of the greatest interest, and I look
forward to reading J.L.Benson, and Pastoureau (at Mary Krimmel’s
suggestion).
However I was thinking
more along the lines of whether there might be some philosophical distinction
between the independent existence of “blue” and the Juniper tree in the quad,
when there’s no-one around to see it. There seems to me a difference between the
human perception of colours and the perception of concrete objects. If you
believe in God, like Knox, presumably not, since both would continue to be
observed indiscriminately. By extension, that could mean that Zembla also has
reality, since it is so vividly perceived by Kinbote, and therefore also by God.
Most fiction is, and most people in fiction are, I suppose, much more real than
the nameless multitudes who have led “real” lives. Invited by, say, Hendrik van
Loon, to dinner with either Shade or Kinbote, I would definitely select Kinbote,
anticipating an exceedingly entertaining evening. Marooned on Juan Fernández for
a few years, Shade, though boring and dull (imho), would have to be preferred as
a Friday.
The discussion of the
differences between blue and azure, though partly (only partly) my fault, is
reaching absurd heights. However, George’s thoughtful and rational remarks seek
sensible answers. He wrote:
1)
There is a tension in “azure” part of the quoted rhyme; we are forced to speed
up at it to fit in the rhyme, - kind of smashing really fast and hard into
something. I believe that even cliché words loose their life support when such
tension is achieved.
The
thought that “azure” in this context suggests “smash” is appealing. The waxwing
is crushed against the glass. Beyond that I don’t sense much tension in the
word. The “ash” sound seems soft to me. Although I don’t think I really
pronounce “azure” as “ashure”.
2)
Does branding certain word cliché prohibits their use regardless of context,
semantic and other spices? I think not. This cliché may be a
trap.
Fully
agree that so-called clichés may be perfectly appropriate, depending on context.
All words can, in a sense, be thought of as clichés, which I suppose is why
writers are so often tempted to invent new ones. Jerry’s remark about
“azure”: it's part of
self-consciously elevated, exotic, pre-20th-century poetic diction. Far from
being one of Madox Ford's "fresh, usual words", it smells musty to me. This may
be what Charles meant by "poetastic", seems to me exactly
to the point. Frost’s early “zephyr” struck me as being of the same ilk, and I
felt that he deliberately avoided this sort of poetic diction in his later
poems.
3)
Could lack of “azure” in RF’s poetry be just a sign of personal preference? Or
that he did not have a way to generate the above tension?
Yes,
I think it is a matter of Frost’s personal search for the ideal in poetry. On
the other hand I think he was very capable of generating intense emotional
tension.
4)
Should we place so such value in numeric order in OED and to the fact that it
does not list azure as noun denoting sky as other dictionaries do? Poetry is
arguably a thing of perfect rhyme but it is not a thing of perfect
order.
I
was certainly surprised to find the OED listing “lapis lazuli” as the first
meaning of “azure”. Jerry Katsell’s
discovery in Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language of the
1950s: “of or like the color of a
clear sky; sky blue—n. 1. sky blue or any similar blue color; 2. [Poet.] the blue sky” certainly supports the concept, in
5)
Shade is the poet but VN is the writer of the novel containing the poem. Isn’t
that sufficient ground to place more weight on use of “azure” in the
4th meaning? If we use Shade’s poem to criticize VN as a poet let’s
give credit to Russian poetic heritage to which VN
alludes.
All
I’ve really been interested in, following Brian Boyd’s heated attack on James
Marcus, is to ruminate on why Marcus first remarked that the “diction of Pale Fire
dips into poetic flabbiness with the very second line ("false azure" indeed)”,
and to speculate on what could have been in his mind when singling out that
phrase. The reaction to what I’d thought was an inoffensively sober
interpretation of Marcus’s flippancy has escalated alarmingly.
The entire discussion
of Pale Fire the novel still seems to me to hinge on the reader’s judgement of
the aesthetic quality of Shade’s verse composition, and I’ll have yet another attempt at
illustrating what I believe to be the difference between verse and
poetry.
Before me are two
books. One is titled “Collected Verse
of Rudyard Kipling”; the other is titled
“The Collected Poems of Robert Frost”. It is quite inconceivable to me,
where I’m coming from, that any tolerably educated publisher would ever
contemplate switching these titles to read “Collected Verse of Robert Frost” and
“The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling”.
Although I make due allowance for other’s doubts, I will continue to
trust myself --- on the whole.
Charles