Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005949, Fri, 4 May 2001 10:29:48 -0700

Subject
VN & John Crowe Ransom
Date
Body
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Nabokov's lecture on Bleak house ends with the words:

"A great writer's world is indeed a magic democracy where even some very
minor character, even the most incidental character like the person who
tosses the twopence, has the right to live and breed."

Ransom, in *The New Criticism*, in the essay on I.A.Richards, says:

"'A beautiful poem is a democratic state, so to speak, which realises
the
ends of a state, without sacrificing the personal character of its
citizens.'"

I wonder if Nabokov was quoting Ransom, both are quoting someone else,
or both arrived at the same comparison coincidentally.

Ransom, by the way, is a brilliant literary critic.

Cheers!
yours
Kiran

"It is impossible, by the way, by picking up one of anything to pick one
that is not atypical in some sense."
- R.P. Feynman, The Character of Physical Law

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~kiran

http://www.physics.usyd.edu/hienergy