Amateurish ramblings have led me into Medieval Aesthetics, now in a
presentation by Umberto Eco. My attention was held by a reference to
the literary construction of a "triptych" and, following Eco's indications,
I reached two interesting sources, which I thought I can now bring up to
our List's experts, or to those intent on exploring another link
between medieval poetry and "Pale Fire."
We know (from Boyd's VN's RY, for example) that Nabokov studied
French literature during his Cambridge studies and that
he was interested in minstrels songs and tales of courtly
love, in Chrétien de Troyes, in the Arthurian legend and Thomas Malory,
traces of which may be found in RLSK and in Pale Fire. In the
latter there's an incorrect spelling of "triptych" made by John Shade
- and not by Charles Kinbote. In his commentary,
Kinbote purpotedly marks the accents of a poem by Arnor* and dabbles
in rhyme and reason.
I'd initially thought that the mispelling would be an editorial
mishap, even though it has remained unaltered and constant in the three
different editions that I examined today. Now, realizing that there might be a
stylistic issue at stake with the word "triptych"**, I tend to believe that
Nabokov left the mispelt word to Shade as a way to call the reader's attention
to it.
Cf. Charles Kinbote ( line 80- my bedroom) wrote: "He awoke to find her standing with a comb in her hand before his —
or rather, his grandfather’s — cheval glass, a triptych of bottomless
light, a really fantastic mirror, signed with a diamond by its maker, Sudarg of
Bokay. She turned about before it: a secret device of reflection gathered an
infinite number of nudes in its depths, garlands of girls in graceful and
sorrowful groups, diminishing in the limpid distance, or breaking into
individual nymphs, some of whom, she murmured, must resemble her ancestors when
they were young — little peasant garlien combing their hair in shallow water as
far as the eye could reach, and then the wistful mermaid from an old tale, and
then nothing. "
and John Shade, emphasizing poetry, plays in
connection to the spatial arrangement of rooms states,
on lines 379/82, that: "the point is that the
three/Chambers, then bound by you and her and me,/Now form a tryptich or
a three-act play/ In which portrayed events forever stay."
In an article by J.P.Collas discussing the Romantic Hero in
the Twelfth Century, there is a remark about Chrétien de Troyes's
romance, Erec and Enide, and to Chrétien's stylistic creation of "the
semblance of a triptych in two, if not three romances". From the model page
in the internet, here is a short paragraph about it: "...to credit Chrétien
with achieving at least the semblance of a triptych in two, if not three of his
romances, he makes the very observation that must lead to a different approach.
He remarks that at least down to the end of the premier vers, as marked by
Chrétien himself, Erec resembles a lai; the narrative down to that point is
self-contained. It mainly comprises two interlocked adventures, the cahse of the
White Hart and the contest for the Sparrou-hawk. Each of these would have
sufficed for a lai. They could well be combined, and prolonged by the story of
the marriage of the lovers, without changing the genre [...] It should follow
from this observation that Erec becomes a romance But the inference is not
drawn, since it would involve making a distinction of substance between lai and
romanc3e. By common consent the genres differ only in length;they are
related entirely as the short story is related to the novel in modern
literature. Edmond Faral, who was much concerned with the early
developments of romance, saw no difference between the conte courtois and the
roma courtois. The whole supposition was once explicitly formulated by Ernest
Hoepffner, and Professor Frappier has recently assented to its terms..."
The Romantic Hero of the Twelfth Century, p.85 Medieval Miscellany, Eugène
Vinaver Manchester Univerxsity Press, 1965.
books.google.com.br/books?id=OAwNAQAAIAAJ...
Another entry, using google search, led me to "Poetria
nova" (Vinsauf), by focusing on Edmond Faral* after taking a lead from
Umberto Eco's "Arte e Bellezza Nell' Estetica Medievale" (1987, Milano,
translated as "Arte e Beleza na Estética Medieval, 2010 Ed.Record,BR)in a
chapter dedicated to proportion and rethoric. Here it is: "367 pp. The subject
of this book is the Poetria nova of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, a 2000-line poem
written at the beginning of the thirteenth century that teaches Latin verse
composition according to rhetorical principles. It is one of several such works
that were written beginning in the last third of the twelfth century: Matthew of
Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria, Geoffrey’s Documentum de modo et arte
dictandi et versificandi, Gervase of Melkley’s Ars versificaria, John
of Garland’s Parisiana poetria, and Eberhard the German’s
Laborintus. The Poetria nova was far more popular than any of
these other works, surviving in five times the number of manuscripts as any of
the other artes poetriae. These treatises have been well known since the
publication of Edmond Faral’s Les arts poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle
(Paris, 1924) and served collectively as the subject of a chapter in James
J. Murphy’s Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974),
but the sheer popularity of the Poetria nova has proved an impediment to
the production of the monograph called for by its importance."
I hope that this collection of items about medieval
poetry leads me not into sheer redundancies.
I'd love to hear more about this subject and I'll be
thankful for specific bibliography relating Nabokov, minstrels,
medieval poetry...
Thanks. JM
...........................................
* (Fleur:) "Her fragile ankles, he said, which she placed very close
together in her dainty and wavy walk, were the "careful jewels" in Arnor’s poem
about a miragarl ("mirage girl"), for which "a dream king in the sandy wastes of
time would give three hundred camels and three
fountains."
/
/
/ /
On sagaren
werem tremkin tri stana
/
/
/ /
Verbalala wod gev ut tri
phantana
(I have marked the stress accents).
** - From Wikipedia: A triptych ( /ˈtrɪptɪk/ trip-tik; Greek:
τρίπτυχο, from tri- "three" + ptychē "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel
painting) which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are
hinged together and folded. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for
all multi-panel works. The middle panel is typically the largest and it is
flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of
equal-sized panels.While the root of the word is the ancient Greek "triptychos",
the word arose into the medieval period from the name for an Ancient Roman
writing tablet, which had two hinged panels flanking a central one. The form can
also be used for pendant jewelry.
*** - Edmond Faral (1882-1958) was a French medievalist. He became in 1924
Professor of Latin literature at the Collège de France.
He wrote his
dissertation on the jongleurs, and E. R. Curtius states that he was the first to
recognize an influence of the medieval Latin poetics and rhetoric on Old French
poetry[1]. He was appointed to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
in 1936.(wikipedia)