David Powelstock [to
JM: wouldn't Plato's role towards Socrates, in the "Symposium," be somehow
similar to Boswell/Johnson and Kinbote/Shade?] I would say that Kinbote’s
orbit around Shade better reflects that of Alcibiades around
Socrates.
JM: I planned to indicate the relation bt.
Kinbote's creation of "Pale Fire" and Plato's "Symposium". In the
latter dialogues and scenery are used to present Socrates and his ideas
about love, wisdom and eternity through Plato's rendering.
Otherwise I agree with you that
Kinbote's fascination with old Shade's "hidden treasures" reflects
that of Alcibiades circling the Socratic
"agalma".
I also planned to note that the
various speeches in the Symposium ( Aristophanes, Agathon, Alcibiades,
Diotima,Socrates...) indicate the interconnection between the comic
and tragic dimensions, as we can also discern in "Pale Fire" (this is
one of the aspects taken up by James Twiggs: the satirical element
associated to drama) when we imagine that Shade
sometimes writes like Aristophanes and Agathon addressing
Socrates...
Shade (not Kinbote) wrote about "a hereafter
none can verify" and "future lyres, the talks/ With Socrates and Proust
in cypress walks" and remember that Socrates believed in immortality
and described paradisical infinite talks in cypress walks.
(perhaps Proust would enhance the
former's "abstract themes" by adding individual and
detailed memory of the past to the platonic paradise).
I know very little about Plato, Socrates and
speak no Greek. Perhaps my original suggestion is misplaced and my role, in
this discussion, shall lead
me into Agathon's "nichtigkeit" (nullity) - but I don't
think so : ) , not yet.