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Re: THOUGHTS: ADA, Van, and the "cory door"
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Mike Marcus: Alfred Appel Jr, in his May 4 1969 review of Ada in the NYTimes, wrote [snip] The reviewer may have been more perspicacious than perhaps he knew, since there are a number of indications that when writing about Ardis, VN indeed had in mind the location where Sir Philip Sidney's own 'Arcadia' was written in the late 1570's and revised shortly thereafter -- Wilton House. This was the home of Sidney's sister, Lady Mary Sidney Pembroke. The Latin word Ardis means arrowhead, and the arrowhead -- in heraldic terms the "pheon azure", or azure broad arrow -- is the outstanding feature of the Sidney coat of arms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sydney.svg. The very name Ardis seems not unrelated -- [Arc]Ardis / Arcadia. There is what appears to be a rather obscure phrase in Ada that confirms this identification with Wilton House. On p.376 of the first edition, ... we read that Van "(Yells down the 'cory door', as they called the long second-floor passage at Ardis)". [snip] the name of the Greek tutor was William Cory.[...]It may be worth pointing out that rumors of incest between Philip Sidney and his sister Mary circulated in the 17th century.
Jansy Mello: The "cory-door" link seems to be promising. What a wonderful description of the ardis/arrowhead as a heraldic "pheon azure" It seems to clarify a lot of items related to Van's emphasis on "azure".
I always thought it strange that Van regularly refers to his mother's accent when pronouncing certain words (such as "Ada") and her use of peculiar expressions (the noise of ascending stairs, for example). This is why, until now, the "cory-door" seemed to be just an innoffensive wordplay, like the others - I'm not as sure of this now!
It would be amazing if the link to Sir Philip Sidney could be established through "Ardis/Arcadia" (there are other links that point to Sidney, different from the one you mention)
There is another wordplay in ADA, now with "cora" - whose sound relates to cory-door, namely "Cora Day" (a murderous soprano, linked to "English blank-verse plays in Telluride) but the complexity of the association still elludes me ( A murdering lady, Marat, French Revolution, Opera, Plays, Telluride...) Van also jokes about Cordula and Ada (he refers to them interchangeably as "Corada..." and "Adula", probably suggesting a lesbian affair bt the two girls)
A long shot: the connection from Cora Day (French Revolution) to Corada, carries us to WWII because of the relation between Cordula and Marlene Dietrich. What kind of connection and its meaning remains a mystery to me...
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Jansy Mello: The "cory-door" link seems to be promising. What a wonderful description of the ardis/arrowhead as a heraldic "pheon azure" It seems to clarify a lot of items related to Van's emphasis on "azure".
I always thought it strange that Van regularly refers to his mother's accent when pronouncing certain words (such as "Ada") and her use of peculiar expressions (the noise of ascending stairs, for example). This is why, until now, the "cory-door" seemed to be just an innoffensive wordplay, like the others - I'm not as sure of this now!
It would be amazing if the link to Sir Philip Sidney could be established through "Ardis/Arcadia" (there are other links that point to Sidney, different from the one you mention)
There is another wordplay in ADA, now with "cora" - whose sound relates to cory-door, namely "Cora Day" (a murderous soprano, linked to "English blank-verse plays in Telluride) but the complexity of the association still elludes me ( A murdering lady, Marat, French Revolution, Opera, Plays, Telluride...) Van also jokes about Cordula and Ada (he refers to them interchangeably as "Corada..." and "Adula", probably suggesting a lesbian affair bt the two girls)
A long shot: the connection from Cora Day (French Revolution) to Corada, carries us to WWII because of the relation between Cordula and Marlene Dietrich. What kind of connection and its meaning remains a mystery to me...
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/