I'm Elena Danielson, new to the list, and not up to speed. But do let me say that I greatly appreciate the thread about the question of authenticity in general, regardless of the disposition of any specific case. As an archivist concerned with diplomatics, I have long felt that the ambiguity of authenticity was a major theme or subtext of Pale Fire. Probably list members have already noticed that Nabokov worked on both Pale Fire and the controversial Song of Igor's Campaign at the same time that the Russian emigre press in the US was abuzz about the Vles Kniga or Book of Veles, a comically crude, pseudo-medieval forgery that was published in the late 1950s. (BTW Veles appears in line 66 of Igor.) The Book of Veles is still passionately revered by many old emigres. It has recently become an icon of neopagan groups in today's Russia despite the obviously fake language. In contrast, the "Song of Igor" is a great work of art as Nabokov proves in his foreword, notes and commentary, despite the acknowledged whiffs of Ossianism (1960 edition, Foreword, pp.12-13, Commentary p. 88). "Igor" meets most of Anthony Grafton's criteria for the great topos of Western forgery (Grafton, 1990, Forgers and Critics, esp. pp. 9 & 23): there is nothing else like it, the only original is sadly lost, miraculously a copy was preserved, unfortunately all the proof is in a hopelessly obscure language, but trust me it supports a sense of national identity and a suitably noble past. (Shakespeare's noble histories were essential for the emerging sense of English national identity, regardless of authorship, -Aleida Assmann, Cultural Memory, pp. 58-78.).) The polished opening lines of Igor echo the opening stanza of the indisputably authentic ca. 1200 Nibelungenlied, which VN refers to obliquely-- (The Song of Igor as the one masterpiece that "not only lords it over Kievan letters but rivals the greatest European poems of its day" Foreword p. 13.) VN is contemptuous of the crudely nationalistic Soviet veneration of the song, and substitutes an aesthetic veneration. As Edward Keenan details, the erudite Josef Dobrovsky had both the opportunity and the ability to produce a linguistically credible and poetically powerful text, whether he actually wrote it or not. Even John Shade was capable of a masterwork of ambiguous verse, as Brian Boyd and R.S. Gwynn demonstrate.
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