Anthony
Stadlen: T. S. Eliot is, surely, curiously inaccurate in translating
"semblable" as "double"... the context of the first appearance of "love your
neighbour" (Leviticus 19.18) also links "neighbour" with "brother" (in the
wider sense) just as Baudelaire does...The twofold structure of the Hebrew verse
means that "neighbour" and "brother" here are interchangeable. In Jewish
translations and discussions in English of the Holiness Code, i.e. Leviticus 19,
the word "fellow" is often used interchangeably with "neighbour". "My fellow, my
brother" -- isn't that what Baudelaire means?
JM: I tried to explore this
item by googling it in English and French. The word "semblable"
appears in Shakespeare (Hamlet, act V, scene 2, lines 115-120) with a
particular employ of turning the "semblables" into "mirrors" ( ie: perfect
doubles like it occurs with delusional Hermann, in "Despair", with
its clear distortion of the meaning of "fellow man")*.
...but in the verity of extolment,
I take him to be a soul
of great article, and his infusion of such dearth
and rareness
as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is
his
mirror, and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing
more.
Knowing that Nabokov was familiar with
both Baudelaire and T.S.Eliot, and has inserted references to them in
his works, such as"Pale Fire", I very much doubt it that Eliot's
translation, when he turned "semblable" into "double", would
have escaped Nabokov's keen translator's eye.
I think it's fitting to inquire, at this
point, if Nabokov hasn't expressed, even if only indirectly,
his criticism of Eliot's distortion or used it parodically by
returning to one of his favourite themes: the delusional doubles. In
"Pale Fire" this might be another enticement to transform Shade into
Kinbote's "loved neighbor," usede to indicate a non-mirrorlike
"double." If this proves to make sense, we find that Nabokov is exploring
the same theme ("the other", "the brother", "the spit-image", "the
split-image", "my neighbour", "my double") by presenting the different
consequences of each interpretation in his novels.**
...................................................................................................................
*- The wiktionnaire (French), considers "voisin"
and "semblable" as options for (English) "neighbour"
** - Vladimir Nabokov's brother, Sergei, has
been once described as somehow looking like his twin (must check
this in S,M), although almost everywhere else Sergei disappears or is
presented as someone whose life and inclinations are totally disparate from his
own.