Dear List,
My search for "Thespionym", such as we find
in "Ada", as "Mascodagama," a
thespionym that alludes to Vasco da Gama ( a Portuguese navigator)
suggests that this word might have been coined by Nabokov. And yet, although
I've read references to a dictionarized "nymphet", "Lolita" ( but not
"iridule" or "racemosa"), there were none in relation to VN's creating
"thespionym".
The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa
invented the literary concept of heteronym.
According to Wikipedia a "heteronym" refers to one or more imaginary
character(s) created by a poet to write in different styles. Heteronyms differ
from nom de plumes (or pseudonyms, from the Greek "False Name") in that the
latter are just false names, while the former are characters having their own
supposed physiques, biographies and writing styles.In Pessoa's case, there are
at least 70 heteronyms (according to the latest count by Pessoa's editor Teresa
Rita Lopes); some of them know each other, and criticise and translate each
other's works. Pessoa's three chief heteronyms are Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis
and Álvaro de Campos; the latter two consider the former their master. There are
also two whom Pessoa called semi-heteronyms, Bernardo Soares and the Baron of
Teive, who are semi-autobiographical characters who write in prose. There is,
lastly, an orthonym, Fernando Pessoa, the namesake of the author, who also
considers Caeiro his master.
Nabokov's choice of "Mascodagama" has a link with
the Portuguese, through both Camoens' epic "The Lusiads" ( it describes the
feats of Vasco da Gama) and with "Vasco da Gama" himself. Could it also
point to Nabokov's familiarity with Fernando Pessoa's use of "heteronyms"?