Subject
Shakespeare's Trees & Shakespeare's Birds (and VN, of course)
From
Date
Body
Someone on the list a little while back mentioned that the Phoenix (Date
Palm) which Kinbote describes in C.998 would certainly not have survived
the winters in New Wye. I'm curious whether or not anyone has an
explanation for this problem. Is it just an error on VN's part? If so,
it
seems exceedingly careless.
The notion of bringing all of Shakespeare's trees to America reminds me
of
a much more famous incident (surely VN would have heard of it) involving
Shakespeare's birds. Many of you no doubt already know the story of
Eugene
Schieffelin, a wealthy druggist who emigrated from England to New York
(New
Y?) in the late 1800s. He was involved in an Anglophilic society, one of
whose projects was to bring to America all of the birds mentioned in
Shakespeare's plays. So it was that in March of 1890 Schieffelin
released
50 pairs of the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) in Central Park. A
few
of them, without irony, flew across the street and nested under the
eaves
of the Museum of Natural History. The rest scattered elsewhere, and in
less
than a century, the invaders completely dominated the continent, all but
destroying populations of many native species, like the Red-Headed
Woodpecker. Most of the destruction is related to the fact that
Starlings
are aggressive, lay a lot of eggs, and, most importantly, need a pre-
existing cavity in which to make their nest. In other words, they out-
compete other cavity nesters for the best nesting spots.
To me, Kinbote is something of a Starling. A loud, aggressive immigrant
who
is looking for a suitable place to incubate and hatch his Zembla. Shade
looks, to him, like just the spot.
Matthew Roth
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
Palm) which Kinbote describes in C.998 would certainly not have survived
the winters in New Wye. I'm curious whether or not anyone has an
explanation for this problem. Is it just an error on VN's part? If so,
it
seems exceedingly careless.
The notion of bringing all of Shakespeare's trees to America reminds me
of
a much more famous incident (surely VN would have heard of it) involving
Shakespeare's birds. Many of you no doubt already know the story of
Eugene
Schieffelin, a wealthy druggist who emigrated from England to New York
(New
Y?) in the late 1800s. He was involved in an Anglophilic society, one of
whose projects was to bring to America all of the birds mentioned in
Shakespeare's plays. So it was that in March of 1890 Schieffelin
released
50 pairs of the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) in Central Park. A
few
of them, without irony, flew across the street and nested under the
eaves
of the Museum of Natural History. The rest scattered elsewhere, and in
less
than a century, the invaders completely dominated the continent, all but
destroying populations of many native species, like the Red-Headed
Woodpecker. Most of the destruction is related to the fact that
Starlings
are aggressive, lay a lot of eggs, and, most importantly, need a pre-
existing cavity in which to make their nest. In other words, they out-
compete other cavity nesters for the best nesting spots.
To me, Kinbote is something of a Starling. A loud, aggressive immigrant
who
is looking for a suitable place to incubate and hatch his Zembla. Shade
looks, to him, like just the spot.
Matthew Roth
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