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Annotations to ADA: 1.28 (part three)
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Murat . . . a French general's bastard, shot by Cora Day in his swimming pool: General Joachim Murat (1767-1815) was a brilliant French cavalry leader, whom Napoleon rewarded by making him the husband of his youngest sister, Caroline, in 1800, and King of Naples in 1808. He was court-martialed and shot in 1815 for aiding Napoleon after his return to France from Elba.
A minor point, but perhaps worth noting: according to Magda Neyman, the author of Armyane ("The Armenians", 1899), Joachim Murat was an Armenian from Nagornyi Karabakh, Ovakim Muradyan, who emigrated to France at a young age.
Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793), fiery and uncompromising radical journalist and politician in the years following the French Revolution, was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday (1768-1793). After three tries, she was admitted into his home, where he was taking his bath. "When she named persons connected with the dissidence in Normandy, he noted them and assured her they would be guillotined in a few days. She then drew a knife from under her dress and stabbed him through the heart" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed.). Corday was herself guillotined for killing Marat. The murder is the subject of a famous 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).
The murder is also the subject of the famous "Ode a Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday" (1793) by Andre Chenier (1762-94), a French poet who was one of the last persons to be executed by Robespierre. Chenier's last words were: "pourtant j'avais quelque chose la!" "На месте казни он ударил себя в голову и сказал: pourtant j'avais quelque chose la"* (see Pushkin's note 7 to his elegy Andrey Shenye, 1825).
VN mentions Chenier (and Pushkin's "mediocre verses") in his 1956 Russian poem:
Как над стихами силы средней
эпиграф из Шенье,
как луч последний, как последний
зефир... comme un dernier
rayon, так над простором голым
моих нелучших лет
каким-то райским ореолом
горит нерусский свет!
Note that J.-L. David is a "namesake" of the Biblical King David whom I mentioned earlier in connection to Ada's Baron Klim Avidov. And I have yet to read Dickens' David Copperfield.
What a soprano Cora had been!
Cf. "a stretch of chaotic country between Ardez and Somethingsoprano" (Part Four). Cora = caro. Cora's surname reminds one of "Faragod" (1.3), the Antiterran god (Lat., dei) of electricity (Darkbloom). Faragod + Cora Day = Faraday + dog + caro
thunderous German musical dramas with giants and magicians and a defecating white horse: Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)...
Siegfried, the dwarf Mime, the sword Notung are all mentioned by Blok in the Prologue to Retribution (1910-21). Like Ada, Retribution is a Family Chronicle, and the hero's father is known as Demon. See my "Ada as a Triple Dream".
Freia, the Goddess of Youth and Beauty
The epithet of Freia, Vanadis, neatly combines Van with both Ada and Ardis. Van + Ardis = Vanadis + r
defecating white horse
Cf. "a ballet company whose services Scotty had engaged, bringing the Russians all the way in two sleeping cars from Belokonsk" (1.2). Belokonsk comes from belyi kon', "white horse", and hints at Canadian Whitehorse (see Darkbloom's "Notes").
Andrey Andreevich: Van's Russian tutor, surnamed Aksakov
A namesake of Andrey Andreevich Vinelander, Ada's future husband, who physically resembles Alexey Kosygin but is a namesake of A. A. Gromyko, another Soviet politician of the post-Stalin era. One also remembers Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, the hero of Pasternak's novel, and his wife Tonya Gromeko.
Do Aksakov's name and patronymic have anything to do with Andrey Chenier or Andrey Bolkonski, a character in Tolstoy's War and Peace, I wonder?
I don't know why in my previous post I called Dick C. "Lord C[hose]" (instead of correct "Lord C[heshir]").
*at the spot of his execution he hit himself at his head and said: "yet, I did have something here".
Alexey Sklyarenko
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A minor point, but perhaps worth noting: according to Magda Neyman, the author of Armyane ("The Armenians", 1899), Joachim Murat was an Armenian from Nagornyi Karabakh, Ovakim Muradyan, who emigrated to France at a young age.
Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793), fiery and uncompromising radical journalist and politician in the years following the French Revolution, was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday (1768-1793). After three tries, she was admitted into his home, where he was taking his bath. "When she named persons connected with the dissidence in Normandy, he noted them and assured her they would be guillotined in a few days. She then drew a knife from under her dress and stabbed him through the heart" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed.). Corday was herself guillotined for killing Marat. The murder is the subject of a famous 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).
The murder is also the subject of the famous "Ode a Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday" (1793) by Andre Chenier (1762-94), a French poet who was one of the last persons to be executed by Robespierre. Chenier's last words were: "pourtant j'avais quelque chose la!" "На месте казни он ударил себя в голову и сказал: pourtant j'avais quelque chose la"* (see Pushkin's note 7 to his elegy Andrey Shenye, 1825).
VN mentions Chenier (and Pushkin's "mediocre verses") in his 1956 Russian poem:
Как над стихами силы средней
эпиграф из Шенье,
как луч последний, как последний
зефир... comme un dernier
rayon, так над простором голым
моих нелучших лет
каким-то райским ореолом
горит нерусский свет!
Note that J.-L. David is a "namesake" of the Biblical King David whom I mentioned earlier in connection to Ada's Baron Klim Avidov. And I have yet to read Dickens' David Copperfield.
What a soprano Cora had been!
Cf. "a stretch of chaotic country between Ardez and Somethingsoprano" (Part Four). Cora = caro. Cora's surname reminds one of "Faragod" (1.3), the Antiterran god (Lat., dei) of electricity (Darkbloom). Faragod + Cora Day = Faraday + dog + caro
thunderous German musical dramas with giants and magicians and a defecating white horse: Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)...
Siegfried, the dwarf Mime, the sword Notung are all mentioned by Blok in the Prologue to Retribution (1910-21). Like Ada, Retribution is a Family Chronicle, and the hero's father is known as Demon. See my "Ada as a Triple Dream".
Freia, the Goddess of Youth and Beauty
The epithet of Freia, Vanadis, neatly combines Van with both Ada and Ardis. Van + Ardis = Vanadis + r
defecating white horse
Cf. "a ballet company whose services Scotty had engaged, bringing the Russians all the way in two sleeping cars from Belokonsk" (1.2). Belokonsk comes from belyi kon', "white horse", and hints at Canadian Whitehorse (see Darkbloom's "Notes").
Andrey Andreevich: Van's Russian tutor, surnamed Aksakov
A namesake of Andrey Andreevich Vinelander, Ada's future husband, who physically resembles Alexey Kosygin but is a namesake of A. A. Gromyko, another Soviet politician of the post-Stalin era. One also remembers Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, the hero of Pasternak's novel, and his wife Tonya Gromeko.
Do Aksakov's name and patronymic have anything to do with Andrey Chenier or Andrey Bolkonski, a character in Tolstoy's War and Peace, I wonder?
I don't know why in my previous post I called Dick C. "Lord C[hose]" (instead of correct "Lord C[heshir]").
*at the spot of his execution he hit himself at his head and said: "yet, I did have something here".
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/