-------- Original Message --------
Dr Schuman -
I endorse your enthusiasm for the way Shakespeare is integrated into
VN's work; can you suggest any books that deal with this subject?
Although Brian (I don't know who Brian is, except that he's a convinced
Oxfordian) made his views patently clear, he wasn't exactly "rehashing"
the anti-Stratfordian theories, since his point was that the case
against the man from Stratford is being dismantled over time, and
recommended a recent book about Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of
Italian locations. Personally I'm uninterested in the anti-Stratfordian
arguments, since you can't prove a negative and the so-called "lost
years" are almost infinitely elastic. I agree with you that "it is more
important to celebrate Nabokov's admiration for the works of
Shakespeare" than to worry at his opinions. But these two pursuits are
not mutually exclusive, and interest in the former need not preclude
interest in the latter.
Dr Blackwell-
The argument that "we have the plays -- who cares who wrote then?" is a
hoary one. Does anyone honestly believe that if a major contribution to
world civilization were demonstrated to have been created by X instead
of the consensus view that attributed it to Y, it would generate
nothing more than a collective yawn? I have seen a similar argument as
it relates to the sonnets; who cares who the "fair youth" is?
Presumably, then, if it could be shown that the sonnets were addressed
to Shakespeare's pet dog, it would be of no significance in our
appreciation of them.
You wrote that it "seems plausible" that VN created a "fictitious
lyrical I" in his early poem "Shakespeare". Actually it seems grossly
implausible to me, but I'm not in academia. Out here in the real world,
we call that "wishful thinking" or "clutching at straws". Of course if
you could demonstrate that elsewhere VN created a "fictitious lyrical
I" to undermine the anti-Stratfordian case, that would be different.
And indeed explain why he should have been toying with this particular
idea at all.
My own view is that he had no patience for Bill Billionaire, the guy
with two left hands (the man from Stratford), Francis Bacon or Vere of
Oxford (Baron of Shalksbore). And I think that frustrated him no end.
Of course the Earl of Rutland developed a certain following in Russia
for a time, following the work of Alvor, Bleibtreu (1907) and then
Celestin Demblon (1912, 1914). In 1940 a Russian expatriate in the USA,
Prof. Pierre Porohovshikov published "Shakespeare Unmasked", promoting
Rutland, and this was followed in 1997 by Ilya Gililov's book, which
showed up in English in the USA in 2003 as "The Shakespeare Game". Why
Russians took a fancy to Rutland is a mystery; perhaps the fact that
Demblon's books were both written in French contributed.
---------------------------
[See EDNote below Sam Schuman's post]
Subject: Nabokov and Shakespeare
From: Samuel Schuman <sschuman@ret.unca.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2012 19:34:55 -0400
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Surely it is more important to celebrate Nabokov's admiration for the
works of Shakespeare, and the many many ways in which those works are
magically transmuted into VN's novels than to rehash the
anti-Stratfordian theories and/or the extent to which the mature
Nabokov subscribed to them...
--
Sam
Dr. Samuel Schuman
828 258-3621
559 Chunns Cove Rd. Asheville, NC 28805
sschuman@ret.unca.edu
[EDNote: I had wanted to comment on this thread, since the topic came
up in my work on the presentation I'll give at the Nabokov Museum in
St. Petersburg today. Interestingly, in his theory of authorship, in
which he argues strongly for the importance of the author's personality
as embodied in the text, Nabokov's friend Iulii Aikhenvald claims that
it makes no difference (to the plays themselves) whether Shakespeare,
Bacon, or Rutland wrote the plays in question. It also seems plausible
that Nabokov's poem was deliberately adopting a temporary
perspective--has a fictitious lyrical I, in other words, or--is one of
Nabokov's "serial selves," rather than a "sincere" or autobiographical
voice. Aikhenvald's comment is in the introduction (written circa 1910)
to Silhouettes of Russian Writers. ~SB]
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