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[Fwd: Re: butterflies & souls]
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EDITOR's NOTE. Mary Bellino, classicist, is Associate Editor of NABOKOV
STUDIES.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: butterflies & souls
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 18:34:35 -0500
From: Mary Bellino <iambe@javanet.com>
Reply-To: iambe@javanet.com
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
References: <3C436F44.7060407@gte.net>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (20 lines) ------------------
>From Mary Bellino (iambe@javanet.com):
Don Johnson writes:
"Yes, there is a lepidopterist journal PSYCHE and VN was well aware of
the analogy. He often used it in his Russian poetry."
I seem to recall the more mature (elderly?) VN saying somewhere that he
wasn't interested in the psyche/soul/butterfly connection, or something
of the sort -- possibly in connection with his unfinished "Buterflies
in Art" project. Does that ring a bell for anyone?
The usage (of psyche to mean butterfly, in Greek) is not attested before
Aristotle (except I believe on vases, where it arguably refers to the
last breath of the departed); Chantraine (Dict Etym Lang Grec) seems to
think it means "precisement un espece nocturne, la phalene" whatever
that might be -- a moth I suppose (though there is a completely
different word that means "moth"). I personally have never been
convinced that "psyche" meant "butterfly" to the average Greek of the
classical period (5th century BCE), though if VN disdained the
connection I'm sure it was for some more relevant reason.
STUDIES.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: butterflies & souls
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 18:34:35 -0500
From: Mary Bellino <iambe@javanet.com>
Reply-To: iambe@javanet.com
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu>
References: <3C436F44.7060407@gte.net>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (20 lines) ------------------
>From Mary Bellino (iambe@javanet.com):
Don Johnson writes:
"Yes, there is a lepidopterist journal PSYCHE and VN was well aware of
the analogy. He often used it in his Russian poetry."
I seem to recall the more mature (elderly?) VN saying somewhere that he
wasn't interested in the psyche/soul/butterfly connection, or something
of the sort -- possibly in connection with his unfinished "Buterflies
in Art" project. Does that ring a bell for anyone?
The usage (of psyche to mean butterfly, in Greek) is not attested before
Aristotle (except I believe on vases, where it arguably refers to the
last breath of the departed); Chantraine (Dict Etym Lang Grec) seems to
think it means "precisement un espece nocturne, la phalene" whatever
that might be -- a moth I suppose (though there is a completely
different word that means "moth"). I personally have never been
convinced that "psyche" meant "butterfly" to the average Greek of the
classical period (5th century BCE), though if VN disdained the
connection I'm sure it was for some more relevant reason.