But Nabokov himself didn't claim it was a great poem -- simply the greatest 'invented' poem. A distinction with a difference, I think, considering how the small number of such works limits the field.
On Nov 6, 2006, at 9:56 PM, NABOKV-L wrote:
It's more of a game to him, a chess problem
to work out. Thus, we are not bound to consider the author's
relationship to his poem as a factor in considering its merits.
We can judge the poem by its purely internal merits.