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Re: Fw: [NABOKV-L] [Fwd: Re:PF and Parody--response to JF]
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I see some consensus emerging! Perhaps the phrase juste is ³uneasy
consensus?² I accept BB¹s (et al¹s) evidence that some perfectly normal folk
have been genuinely moved to tears or near-tears by Hazel¹s death as related
by Shade in PF-the-poem. We all know that no real lives were lost (and no
real ice broken!) in the making of the Cantos (to paraphrase those movie
caveats), yet the unexplainable fact is that we respond to tragic fiction
via our imaginations and emotions, rather than formally analyzing the
prosody or questioning the poet¹s intentions. Kindertotenlieder are ancient
refrains: every parent¹s worst fear to outlive their children.
My opinions on VN/Shade-as-poet have been somewhat swanged (Carrollian blend
of sway/change) during the recent exchanges. Most significant was Dmitri¹s
[first-name terms granted, pace the TOoL preface?] positive assertion, from
the master¹s voice, no less, that his father intended us to treat Shade as
serious a poet as VN-the-poet. That still leaves many teasing questions for
debate, but I can no longer assume that any lines I consider sub-pa [sic]
can be excused (aliter, praised!) as deliberate irony/parody.
Previously argued: how great a poet was VN? Most polls put VN in the ³top
ten novelists² (make that top-five in my list), but has VN ever been placed
in a poet¹s top-N list, for any value of N? Or among top-lepidopterists,
top-chess-problemists, top-crossword-setters, top-philosophers,
top-physicists, top-mathematicians? Of course, if you add ³novelist² to the
above categories, the fields shrink at once. VN might well be Number One
novelist-lepidopterist, Number One novelist-chess-problemist and so on.
But as novelist-poet? That¹s a tougher call.
Rating and ranking artists continues to be annoyingly presumptuous, yet
undeniably, irresistible fun. I was amused to learn that Pepys found Romeo &
Juliet the very worst play he had ever encountered, but changed his mind
later. That was when he encountered Midsummer Night¹s Lost! We naturally ask
if Pepys was ³qualified² to pass such daft assessments, but we assume
(wrongly as it happens) that Shakespeare was always undisputed
top-of-the-charts beyond rational dispute. Not widely known (outside this
list!) is that Pope¹s 1725 edition of Shakespeare¹s plays demoted 1,560 of
the Bard¹s lines as ³excessively bad.² He changed ³take arms against a SEA
of trouble² to ³a SIEGE of troubles² to fix an obviously mixed-up metaphor!
(Johnson was also bothered, and suggested ³an ASSAIL of troubles.²). Hobbes
and Dryden, via the Royal Society, led a fierce campaign against the ³very
style and expression of Shakespeare,² witness this manifesto from the
Society 1667:
We glory in the plain Style, not in all these seeming Mysteries, upon which
writers look so big ... this vicious abundance of phrase, this trick of
Metaphors, which makes so great a noise in the World. We would have Reason
set out in plain undeceiving expressions.
One might wildly surmise some future Pope seeking revenge on Shade/VN by
³correcting² the excessively-bad bits of the PF-cantos?
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Member AMS, MAA, AAAS
On 26/01/2010 10:57, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> PS [to The ellaboration about the artist...developped by ... in which the
> confusion of intoxication is rendered by words ...And double tapers on the
> table dance...] I must have been carried away by verbal vapours while
> spelling.
> Sorry (although "repeteating"in another posting was almost amusing).
>
> J.Twiggs:"A passage that you and I seem to agree is less than first rate is
> the one that Gary Lipon quoted a few days ago and that Jansy mentions this
> morning as smacking of Rupert Brooke....to me the passage is good and bad in
> about the same way a Norman Rockwell painting is both good and bad...it would
> be right at home on a Hallmark card. It all but oozes sincerity, doesn't it?"
> ..." the novel is much more radical (more Nabokovian, you might say) than it
> would be if Shade were the rock that many readers take him to be..."
>
> JM: I wasn't judging the qualities of the lines but, at that moment, the spark
> of sincerity in that most provincial of poets. However, Shade is neither rock
> nor rockwell ( btw: how did VN's comparison bt. Dali and Rockwell go?)
> I think it was Jerry Friedman who questioned "oozy footstep" as a cruel
> assessment of Robert Frost by Shade/VN. I wonder if it was intentional (the
> ooze was needed to build up towards Hazel's swamp, as an image of dark greasy
> snow...)
>
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consensus?² I accept BB¹s (et al¹s) evidence that some perfectly normal folk
have been genuinely moved to tears or near-tears by Hazel¹s death as related
by Shade in PF-the-poem. We all know that no real lives were lost (and no
real ice broken!) in the making of the Cantos (to paraphrase those movie
caveats), yet the unexplainable fact is that we respond to tragic fiction
via our imaginations and emotions, rather than formally analyzing the
prosody or questioning the poet¹s intentions. Kindertotenlieder are ancient
refrains: every parent¹s worst fear to outlive their children.
My opinions on VN/Shade-as-poet have been somewhat swanged (Carrollian blend
of sway/change) during the recent exchanges. Most significant was Dmitri¹s
[first-name terms granted, pace the TOoL preface?] positive assertion, from
the master¹s voice, no less, that his father intended us to treat Shade as
serious a poet as VN-the-poet. That still leaves many teasing questions for
debate, but I can no longer assume that any lines I consider sub-pa [sic]
can be excused (aliter, praised!) as deliberate irony/parody.
Previously argued: how great a poet was VN? Most polls put VN in the ³top
ten novelists² (make that top-five in my list), but has VN ever been placed
in a poet¹s top-N list, for any value of N? Or among top-lepidopterists,
top-chess-problemists, top-crossword-setters, top-philosophers,
top-physicists, top-mathematicians? Of course, if you add ³novelist² to the
above categories, the fields shrink at once. VN might well be Number One
novelist-lepidopterist, Number One novelist-chess-problemist and so on.
But as novelist-poet? That¹s a tougher call.
Rating and ranking artists continues to be annoyingly presumptuous, yet
undeniably, irresistible fun. I was amused to learn that Pepys found Romeo &
Juliet the very worst play he had ever encountered, but changed his mind
later. That was when he encountered Midsummer Night¹s Lost! We naturally ask
if Pepys was ³qualified² to pass such daft assessments, but we assume
(wrongly as it happens) that Shakespeare was always undisputed
top-of-the-charts beyond rational dispute. Not widely known (outside this
list!) is that Pope¹s 1725 edition of Shakespeare¹s plays demoted 1,560 of
the Bard¹s lines as ³excessively bad.² He changed ³take arms against a SEA
of trouble² to ³a SIEGE of troubles² to fix an obviously mixed-up metaphor!
(Johnson was also bothered, and suggested ³an ASSAIL of troubles.²). Hobbes
and Dryden, via the Royal Society, led a fierce campaign against the ³very
style and expression of Shakespeare,² witness this manifesto from the
Society 1667:
We glory in the plain Style, not in all these seeming Mysteries, upon which
writers look so big ... this vicious abundance of phrase, this trick of
Metaphors, which makes so great a noise in the World. We would have Reason
set out in plain undeceiving expressions.
One might wildly surmise some future Pope seeking revenge on Shade/VN by
³correcting² the excessively-bad bits of the PF-cantos?
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Member AMS, MAA, AAAS
On 26/01/2010 10:57, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> PS [to The ellaboration about the artist...developped by ... in which the
> confusion of intoxication is rendered by words ...And double tapers on the
> table dance...] I must have been carried away by verbal vapours while
> spelling.
> Sorry (although "repeteating"in another posting was almost amusing).
>
> J.Twiggs:"A passage that you and I seem to agree is less than first rate is
> the one that Gary Lipon quoted a few days ago and that Jansy mentions this
> morning as smacking of Rupert Brooke....to me the passage is good and bad in
> about the same way a Norman Rockwell painting is both good and bad...it would
> be right at home on a Hallmark card. It all but oozes sincerity, doesn't it?"
> ..." the novel is much more radical (more Nabokovian, you might say) than it
> would be if Shade were the rock that many readers take him to be..."
>
> JM: I wasn't judging the qualities of the lines but, at that moment, the spark
> of sincerity in that most provincial of poets. However, Shade is neither rock
> nor rockwell ( btw: how did VN's comparison bt. Dali and Rockwell go?)
> I think it was Jerry Friedman who questioned "oozy footstep" as a cruel
> assessment of Robert Frost by Shade/VN. I wonder if it was intentional (the
> ooze was needed to build up towards Hazel's swamp, as an image of dark greasy
> snow...)
>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/