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Iris,Hazel, Emperors and butterflies: Brian Boyd
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Food for thought:
"...her name at the beginning of the note hints at the solution to the scene's insistent implicit riddle [ ] "Hazel" is rare as a color word in being so preponderantly applied to a single object, the human eye [ ], or, to be more anatomically precise, the colored part of the eye, the iris. And iris is also the species name of the butterfly popularly called the Purple Emperor, whose upper fore-and-hind-wings are richly covered in a highly conspicuous purple, as Charles II now finds himself a conspicuously red king. Hazel, in her role as butterfly, as Red Admirable...seems to stand behind the Iris who offers Kinbote his escape as red king or Purple Emperor."
Nabokov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery. Brian Boyd,p.160
(two notes, copying only n.18 from Ch.10: "In a note in his Eugene Onegin commentary, Nabokov comments on the different senses of 'purple' in different European languages: the English violet versus the crimsonish red the word evokes in French and Russian (Eugene Onegin 2:250-21)."
Jansy Mello: So, Hazel and Iris are related by butterflies in PF (the Purple Emperor and the Red Admirable).Kinbote's wanderings are not suggestive of any entomological migratory patterns, as I mistakenly surmised would have been the case of Pedro (Ada) and an Emperor butterfly ( the Morpho menelaus tenuilimbata or the Agathina Emperor Doxocopa agathina). They are closer to the mythological "Psyché-Soul"...
Is it right to consider the Purple Emperor's underside, or the female Purple Emperor's color as being "hazel brown", like VN's eyes according to one of his passport informations? A butterfly's iridescent wing scales may vary in color, like the iris of the eye and flowering irises but, except for the Vanessa atalanta, there are no reds in sight - and we know that the red or the orange bend are crucial in "Pale Fire." (cf. the tie Gradus wears on the day he confronts Kinbote and Shade crossing the street together...)*
btw: purple is also associated to royalty and to the Roman Church; the color of the robe that Jesus might have worn is sometimes described as purple, sometimes as scarlet. There's been a lot of discussion about Homer's "purple" sea, as found in our VN-L archives and referred articles.
................................................................................................................................................
* - "The male butterfly is one of the most beautiful of all of the butterflies found in the British Isles. From certain angles it appears to have black wings intersected with white bands. However, when the wings are at a certain angle to the sun, the most beautiful purple sheen is displayed, a result of light being refracted from the structures of the wing scales. The female, on the other hand, is a deep brown and does not possess the purple sheen found in the male." http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?vernacular_name=Purple%20Emperor]
wikipedia: "Iris is a genus of 260-300 species of flowering plants with showy flowers. It takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow, referring to the wide variety of flower colors found among the many species..."
(images of English flower and Apatura iris butterflies come from various sources, not only wikipedia)
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"...her name at the beginning of the note hints at the solution to the scene's insistent implicit riddle [ ] "Hazel" is rare as a color word in being so preponderantly applied to a single object, the human eye [ ], or, to be more anatomically precise, the colored part of the eye, the iris. And iris is also the species name of the butterfly popularly called the Purple Emperor, whose upper fore-and-hind-wings are richly covered in a highly conspicuous purple, as Charles II now finds himself a conspicuously red king. Hazel, in her role as butterfly, as Red Admirable...seems to stand behind the Iris who offers Kinbote his escape as red king or Purple Emperor."
Nabokov's "Pale Fire": The Magic of Artistic Discovery. Brian Boyd,p.160
(two notes, copying only n.18 from Ch.10: "In a note in his Eugene Onegin commentary, Nabokov comments on the different senses of 'purple' in different European languages: the English violet versus the crimsonish red the word evokes in French and Russian (Eugene Onegin 2:250-21)."
Jansy Mello: So, Hazel and Iris are related by butterflies in PF (the Purple Emperor and the Red Admirable).Kinbote's wanderings are not suggestive of any entomological migratory patterns, as I mistakenly surmised would have been the case of Pedro (Ada) and an Emperor butterfly ( the Morpho menelaus tenuilimbata or the Agathina Emperor Doxocopa agathina). They are closer to the mythological "Psyché-Soul"...
Is it right to consider the Purple Emperor's underside, or the female Purple Emperor's color as being "hazel brown", like VN's eyes according to one of his passport informations? A butterfly's iridescent wing scales may vary in color, like the iris of the eye and flowering irises but, except for the Vanessa atalanta, there are no reds in sight - and we know that the red or the orange bend are crucial in "Pale Fire." (cf. the tie Gradus wears on the day he confronts Kinbote and Shade crossing the street together...)*
btw: purple is also associated to royalty and to the Roman Church; the color of the robe that Jesus might have worn is sometimes described as purple, sometimes as scarlet. There's been a lot of discussion about Homer's "purple" sea, as found in our VN-L archives and referred articles.
................................................................................................................................................
* - "The male butterfly is one of the most beautiful of all of the butterflies found in the British Isles. From certain angles it appears to have black wings intersected with white bands. However, when the wings are at a certain angle to the sun, the most beautiful purple sheen is displayed, a result of light being refracted from the structures of the wing scales. The female, on the other hand, is a deep brown and does not possess the purple sheen found in the male." http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?vernacular_name=Purple%20Emperor]
wikipedia: "Iris is a genus of 260-300 species of flowering plants with showy flowers. It takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow, referring to the wide variety of flower colors found among the many species..."
(images of English flower and Apatura iris butterflies come from various sources, not only wikipedia)
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/
