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Re: Vanessa, an Orphic Divinity, correction.
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Sergey Karapukhin: I've been rereading Pale Fire and got interested in Kinbote's note on "My dark Vanessa" (270), where he says: "It is so like the heart of a scholar in search of a fond name to pile a butterfly genus upon an Orphic divinity on top of the inevitable allusion to Vanhomrigh, Esther!" I found Matt Roth's valuable 2010 posting in the NABOKV-L archives where he had identified the divinity as Phanes ("the luminous, enlightening, appearing one"), one of the important Orphic divinities, son of Aether. Matt also wrote in that posting: "Some scientists doubt that this was the origin of the genus name, but VN must have seen the connection somewhere and noted it[ ] Even though Phanes was the name used by "simpler mortals" for Eros (in the Orphic Argonautica, 15-16), in other Orphic fragments Phanes is an epithet for Dionysus; or is identified with Metis ("counsel, wisdom") and Eros; or is one with the great all-seeing Zeus; or, as an independent deity, is a "repetition of the character Time" with some new features (androgynous, world-illuminating, first-born).[ ] In the note, if I understand it correctly, Kinbote doesn't know (as VN surely did) that the name of the genus must come from either a poem by Swift (Vanessa Fabricius [1807]) or an Orphic divinity (Phanessa Sodoffsky [1837]): he lumps all his references together." ..
Jansy Mello: There's a medical term for hair and nails: "phaneros" [I quote one sentence where it is mentioned online: "The skin, mucous membranes, annexes (sebaceous and sudoriparous glands) and the phaneros (hair and nails) are tissues with rapid cellular proliferation..." ], related to the Greek word for "manifest, shining"* (as in "diaphanous" perhaps? It's certainly present in "epiphany").** and, although this particular use of "phanes - phaneros" is unrelated to things Nabokovian or Vanessa butterflies, I chose to bring it up because the List has just been discussing John Shade's nail-parings, musings about fingers and "scarf-skin" (all these "phaneroi"...), closing with an image of which he was particularly fond ( "making mouths" while snipping off things, or wringing hair), as in PF's verses: "And I make mouths as I snip off the thin/ Strips of what Aunt Maud used to call "scarf-skin." (also present in "ADA': "Girl stepping into a pool under the little cascade to wash her tresses, and accompanying the immemorial gesture of wringing them out by making wringing-out mouths - immemorial too." )
I conjectured if Nabokov (and Hazel, and Marat ...), who suffered from psoriasis, might have heard this word in connection to skin, hair and nail troubles. I only found a link in French: "Dans sa forme commune (la plus fréquente), le diagnostic de psoriasis ne pose généralement pas de problème au dermatologue, il est basé sur le seul examen de la peau et des phanères: >>> http://www.abimelec.com/psoriasis.html "
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* ??????? (phaneros)
biblesuite.com/greek/5318.htm?
phaneros: visible, manifest
Original Word: ???????, ?, ??
Part of Speech: Adjective
Transliteration: phaneros
Phonetic Spelling: (fan-er-os')
Short Definition: apparent, clear, visible, manifest, clearly
Definition: apparent, clear, visible, manifest; adv: clearly.
** French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan made reference to a transient and momentous "in-a-flash" experience, related to "castration," and to "phallophanies" that might interest some who would enjoy an alternative reading of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" [Cf. Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet (part of Seminar VI) : Sessions of Wednesday 15th April 1959 (The object Ophelia), Wednesday 22nd April 1959 (Desire & Mourning), Wednesday 29th April 1959 (Phallophany) : Jacques Lacan Published: Yale French Studies, No. 55/56, Literature and Psychoanalysis. The Question of Reading: Otherwise. (1977), pp. 11-52 ]
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Jansy Mello: There's a medical term for hair and nails: "phaneros" [I quote one sentence where it is mentioned online: "The skin, mucous membranes, annexes (sebaceous and sudoriparous glands) and the phaneros (hair and nails) are tissues with rapid cellular proliferation..." ], related to the Greek word for "manifest, shining"* (as in "diaphanous" perhaps? It's certainly present in "epiphany").** and, although this particular use of "phanes - phaneros" is unrelated to things Nabokovian or Vanessa butterflies, I chose to bring it up because the List has just been discussing John Shade's nail-parings, musings about fingers and "scarf-skin" (all these "phaneroi"...), closing with an image of which he was particularly fond ( "making mouths" while snipping off things, or wringing hair), as in PF's verses: "And I make mouths as I snip off the thin/ Strips of what Aunt Maud used to call "scarf-skin." (also present in "ADA': "Girl stepping into a pool under the little cascade to wash her tresses, and accompanying the immemorial gesture of wringing them out by making wringing-out mouths - immemorial too." )
I conjectured if Nabokov (and Hazel, and Marat ...), who suffered from psoriasis, might have heard this word in connection to skin, hair and nail troubles. I only found a link in French: "Dans sa forme commune (la plus fréquente), le diagnostic de psoriasis ne pose généralement pas de problème au dermatologue, il est basé sur le seul examen de la peau et des phanères: >>> http://www.abimelec.com/psoriasis.html "
.................................................
* ??????? (phaneros)
biblesuite.com/greek/5318.htm?
phaneros: visible, manifest
Original Word: ???????, ?, ??
Part of Speech: Adjective
Transliteration: phaneros
Phonetic Spelling: (fan-er-os')
Short Definition: apparent, clear, visible, manifest, clearly
Definition: apparent, clear, visible, manifest; adv: clearly.
** French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan made reference to a transient and momentous "in-a-flash" experience, related to "castration," and to "phallophanies" that might interest some who would enjoy an alternative reading of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" [Cf. Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet (part of Seminar VI) : Sessions of Wednesday 15th April 1959 (The object Ophelia), Wednesday 22nd April 1959 (Desire & Mourning), Wednesday 29th April 1959 (Phallophany) : Jacques Lacan Published: Yale French Studies, No. 55/56, Literature and Psychoanalysis. The Question of Reading: Otherwise. (1977), pp. 11-52 ]
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/