Matt Roth:Phanes,
insomuch as he is winged, may himself resemble a butterfly--thus the conjecture
regarding the genus name. I wonder, however, how Kinbote, who knew very little
about butterflies, would have known this altogether obsolete entomological
variation on Vanessa. Doesn't this require a deeper knowledge than we're used to
seeing in Kinbote?
JM: I posted a first
answer from a different address (no internet at home) on the item on
"phaneros" and "evanescence" (a flare, a sudden transient manifestation),
also related to "dark and light" (the phases of the moon).
I hope it is accepted by SB, for I got no copy
of it.
A good point on Kinbote's lack of extensive
knowledge about butterflies, but wouldn't he have been familiar with the
ancients ( Plutarch?), or Rilke and Mallarmé?
I found various bibliographical references
to Orpheus and Pythagoras but, of course, the idea of "counterpoint" and a
"rhyming universe" as expressive of Pythagorean theories about "the music of the
spheres" are Shade's, not Kinbote's.
In "Bend Sinister" there is a sentence about
Pythagoras, but I got no access to books and archies now. It nmight clarify
Nabokov's interest and view about him.
There is a poem by Rilke in which Orpheus
returns to Hades to bring back Eurydice she is apathetic and forgetful,
truly marked by the world of shades she inhabits. She doesn't even plead
with him to look at her, but he looks back because he feels uncertain that
she is coming: this description is totally unlike a Nabokovian view of the
shadow-world...
Anyway, here are some items offered by
google:
-
Erika
M. Nelson - 2005 - Literary
Criticism - This point is the focus of Rilke's early "
Orpheus. Eurydike. Hermes."
The point the poet's gaze seeks is the center, vortex, and void, which
Mallarme ...books.google.com.br/books?isbn=3039102877...
-
David Clark
Cabeen, Richard
A. Brooks, David Clark Cabeen - 1951 - Literary
CriticismAlso treats the distinction between speech and writing,
and M.'s attempt to abolish genre. Strauss, Walter A.
Mallarme:
Orpheus and
...books.google.com.br/books?isbn=0815625669...
-
-
de A Rosenblithe -
1996 -
Citado
por 2 -
Artigos
relacionados15 Jan 2010
... MALLARMÉ IN RILKE'S SONETTE AN
ORPHEUS. 1 45. In addition
to using expressions that could apply to either physical or
...www.jstor.org/stable/40247051