Subject
Foreword Forword
From
Date
Body
Charles Kinbote's "Foreword" received its last touches on the day Kinbote committed suicide ( as stated in SO, in the 1966 interview with A.Apple Jr., Everyman's page 72)
Appel's question ends with: " Is it only a coincidence that Kinbote's "Forword" to Pale Fire is dated "Oct.19," which is the date of Swift's death?"
What are the implications of Appel's choice of this particular spelling: "Forword"? It was inserted inside quotation-marks and later, republished and edited by VN ( who might have maintained a mispelling or kept the allusion intact).
( I remember a similar issue inadvertently arising in Matthew Roth's messages to the list, 2006, which some other participant reiterated later on).
Everyman's Library and LoA editions of "Pale Fire" use the word "Foreword" following "Pale Fire, a poem in four cantos", "Commentary" and "Index" ( listed under "Contents" of Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire").
Everyman's Library edition also offers, beside the "Contents", an "Introduction", "Select Bibliography", "Chronology", A dedication "To Véra", an epigraph ( James Boswell).
A writer may write an "Introduction" or, perhaps, a "Foreword" but, never, a "Preface" to another writer's work, as I used to understand.
Dictionary-help may be misleading.
In a Webster's Portuguese/English/Portuguese dictionary the word "preface" is accompanied by: preamble, prologue, introduction, foreword. In a Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary "preface" it becomes: "the introductory remarks of a speaker or writer".
Fowler's carries two entries: Preface/Foreword and Preface/Prefix. We find that "preface" (by the author) is the traditional word. Modern books may carry a Foreword ( written by an authoratitative or distinguished person), sometimes followed by the author's Preface.
COD also makes the same distinction ( in the entry "Foreword"; under "Preface" this issue is not kept as clear.)
Kinbote is very precise when he emphasises his choice of a "Foreword". It was not his intention to write a "Preface".
What is the meaning of Appel's use of "Forword"?
Jansy
[ Nabokov doesn't contradict him when Appel asks: "The Doppelgänger motif figures prominently throughout your fiction; in Pale Fire one is tempted to call it a Tripling ( at least)..." Nevertheless VN observes that "The Doppelgänger subject is a frightful bore" and, later on, in the same "murky" context, he adds: "Philosophically, I am an indivisible monist"]
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Appel's question ends with: " Is it only a coincidence that Kinbote's "Forword" to Pale Fire is dated "Oct.19," which is the date of Swift's death?"
What are the implications of Appel's choice of this particular spelling: "Forword"? It was inserted inside quotation-marks and later, republished and edited by VN ( who might have maintained a mispelling or kept the allusion intact).
( I remember a similar issue inadvertently arising in Matthew Roth's messages to the list, 2006, which some other participant reiterated later on).
Everyman's Library and LoA editions of "Pale Fire" use the word "Foreword" following "Pale Fire, a poem in four cantos", "Commentary" and "Index" ( listed under "Contents" of Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire").
Everyman's Library edition also offers, beside the "Contents", an "Introduction", "Select Bibliography", "Chronology", A dedication "To Véra", an epigraph ( James Boswell).
A writer may write an "Introduction" or, perhaps, a "Foreword" but, never, a "Preface" to another writer's work, as I used to understand.
Dictionary-help may be misleading.
In a Webster's Portuguese/English/Portuguese dictionary the word "preface" is accompanied by: preamble, prologue, introduction, foreword. In a Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary "preface" it becomes: "the introductory remarks of a speaker or writer".
Fowler's carries two entries: Preface/Foreword and Preface/Prefix. We find that "preface" (by the author) is the traditional word. Modern books may carry a Foreword ( written by an authoratitative or distinguished person), sometimes followed by the author's Preface.
COD also makes the same distinction ( in the entry "Foreword"; under "Preface" this issue is not kept as clear.)
Kinbote is very precise when he emphasises his choice of a "Foreword". It was not his intention to write a "Preface".
What is the meaning of Appel's use of "Forword"?
Jansy
[ Nabokov doesn't contradict him when Appel asks: "The Doppelgänger motif figures prominently throughout your fiction; in Pale Fire one is tempted to call it a Tripling ( at least)..." Nevertheless VN observes that "The Doppelgänger subject is a frightful bore" and, later on, in the same "murky" context, he adds: "Philosophically, I am an indivisible monist"]
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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