What puzzles me about the denigrators of the quality of "Pale Fire" is that the examples they cite of the poem's supposed clunkers do not seem clunky to me. "'False azure' indeed." Indeed what?

Brian Boyd

Here's a suggestion: Azure means blue. Only secondarily does it connote sky. A thing is either blue, or it isn't. It can't be "falsely" blue. Shade's English is not as precise as VN's, and a poet should not allow himself to be so sloppy --- unless it's with deliberate aesthetic intent.

 

As to why what doesn't sound clunky to some sounds so to others  --- verb sap.

 

Fair criticism is not denigration.

 

 

Charles