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Re: TT persona : Hugh Person's name (fwd)
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:15 PM -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re: TT persona : Hugh Person's name
Dear Mary Bellino,
your contributions are always interesting,amazing and thorough. When you
wrote about Romans and "prosopon" ( and masks with eyes, ops... I was
reminded of a movie by Jean Cocteau, some sort of revisitation-testamentary
"Orpheus", where the masks were simply incredibly lovely painted sort of
Etruscan eyes on people's faces!) I was reminded of a figure of speech in
Portuguese called " prosopopeia".
I googled it and I found:- PROSOPOPEIA = (personificar = personificação).
When one atributes life, action or gives voice to inanimate, absent or dead
people. Personification (= anthropomorfism) of animals and objects.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: TT persona : Hugh Person's name
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Date: Sunday, July 25, 2004 3:59 PM -0400
> From: Mary Bellino <iambe@rcn.com>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Subject: Re: TT persona
> ------------------
>
> I haven't been following the TT discussion, but Jansy's
> mention of Etruscans caught my eye, and I have something to add about the
> name of TT's protagonist.
>
> First, though -- on the etymology of the noun "persona" and whether it
> is related to the Latin verb personare: the "o" is long in the noun and
> short in the verb, so that is a weak argument against it. Persona has
> long been thought to derive from the Etruscan word for mask, "phersu"
> (which would make it one of the very few English words with an Etruscan
> root). Now, what the Romans needed was a word to translate the Greek
> prosopon, the mask worn by tragic actors. Prosopon literally means
> "face," but the root is "ops," eye, and the Romans no doubt knew that,
> so it is questionable whether they would choose a word that means "sound
> through" to translate it. Thus the Etruscan "phersu" is actually the
> more logical candidate; note that in ancient Greek, at least, "ph" was
> not pronounced like "f" but more like "p" with a little extra breath.
> The per + sonare derivation is however attested by Aulus Gellius, a
> 2nd-century miscellanist, though that is by no means conclusive. For one
> thing, he calls it "witty," suggesting that it was not the traditional
> etymology.
>
> All of that is neither here nor there -- the important thing is what
> freight Nabokov thought the word carried. And here I would point out a
> passage in Lolita, where HH is ringing the doorbell of Lolita's Coalmont
> home. "I pressed the bell button, it vibrated through my whole system.
> _Personne. Je resonne. Repersonne_. From what depths this re-nonsense?"
> (269 of AnnLo). Appel translates it as "Nobody. I re-rang the bell.
> Re-nobody" -- and the word "re-nobody" occurs again when HH knocks at
> Pavor manor. But in the context of the doorbell vibrating through HH's
> system, I do think Nabokov is playing with the Latin elements of
> personne/person in two ways: per can mean "through" and it can also mean
> "thoroughly -- resoundingly, as it were -- so it works as a sort of
> macaronic pun, and it shows, I think, that Nabokov had the idea of per +
> sonare as part of his mental file card on "person." And then too of
> course there is the French personne, which can mean either any person or
> no person--or, as my dictionary puts it, "anyone, anybody (with vaguely
> implied negation)." Sure sounds like Hugh to me.
>
> Mary
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L
>
>
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Date: Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:15 PM -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re: TT persona : Hugh Person's name
Dear Mary Bellino,
your contributions are always interesting,amazing and thorough. When you
wrote about Romans and "prosopon" ( and masks with eyes, ops... I was
reminded of a movie by Jean Cocteau, some sort of revisitation-testamentary
"Orpheus", where the masks were simply incredibly lovely painted sort of
Etruscan eyes on people's faces!) I was reminded of a figure of speech in
Portuguese called " prosopopeia".
I googled it and I found:- PROSOPOPEIA = (personificar = personificação).
When one atributes life, action or gives voice to inanimate, absent or dead
people. Personification (= anthropomorfism) of animals and objects.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: TT persona : Hugh Person's name
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Date: Sunday, July 25, 2004 3:59 PM -0400
> From: Mary Bellino <iambe@rcn.com>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Subject: Re: TT persona
> ------------------
>
> I haven't been following the TT discussion, but Jansy's
> mention of Etruscans caught my eye, and I have something to add about the
> name of TT's protagonist.
>
> First, though -- on the etymology of the noun "persona" and whether it
> is related to the Latin verb personare: the "o" is long in the noun and
> short in the verb, so that is a weak argument against it. Persona has
> long been thought to derive from the Etruscan word for mask, "phersu"
> (which would make it one of the very few English words with an Etruscan
> root). Now, what the Romans needed was a word to translate the Greek
> prosopon, the mask worn by tragic actors. Prosopon literally means
> "face," but the root is "ops," eye, and the Romans no doubt knew that,
> so it is questionable whether they would choose a word that means "sound
> through" to translate it. Thus the Etruscan "phersu" is actually the
> more logical candidate; note that in ancient Greek, at least, "ph" was
> not pronounced like "f" but more like "p" with a little extra breath.
> The per + sonare derivation is however attested by Aulus Gellius, a
> 2nd-century miscellanist, though that is by no means conclusive. For one
> thing, he calls it "witty," suggesting that it was not the traditional
> etymology.
>
> All of that is neither here nor there -- the important thing is what
> freight Nabokov thought the word carried. And here I would point out a
> passage in Lolita, where HH is ringing the doorbell of Lolita's Coalmont
> home. "I pressed the bell button, it vibrated through my whole system.
> _Personne. Je resonne. Repersonne_. From what depths this re-nonsense?"
> (269 of AnnLo). Appel translates it as "Nobody. I re-rang the bell.
> Re-nobody" -- and the word "re-nobody" occurs again when HH knocks at
> Pavor manor. But in the context of the doorbell vibrating through HH's
> system, I do think Nabokov is playing with the Latin elements of
> personne/person in two ways: per can mean "through" and it can also mean
> "thoroughly -- resoundingly, as it were -- so it works as a sort of
> macaronic pun, and it shows, I think, that Nabokov had the idea of per +
> sonare as part of his mental file card on "person." And then too of
> course there is the French personne, which can mean either any person or
> no person--or, as my dictionary puts it, "anyone, anybody (with vaguely
> implied negation)." Sure sounds like Hugh to me.
>
> Mary
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L
>
>
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L