Dear Matt Roth and other Nabokovian subscribers:
Matt wrote: "Or I might just say, "PF, SB? BS! ;)"
Thanks for your kinds words about my piece. You sum it up perfectly:
"BS" it is! I myself noticed the error--which is in a way an oblique
proof of my thesis--only a day after it was too late to correct it.
I shamefacedly admit that I was conflating Boyd's /Nabokov's Pale
Fire/ with Nabokov's Pale Fire.
I don't think that PF includes an overt reference to Bacon, but of
course Shakespeare + cryptograms combine to suggest another variation
on the theme. I recall that Shade's middle name, Francis, has been
associated with St. Francis Xavier by Carolyn Kunin; the zoological
theme also calls to mind St. Francis of Assisi; and then again perhaps
Sir Francis himself (in a post from last fall Jansy Mello [10/3/07]
mentions his New Atlantis and Kinbote's ignorance of nature).
In my rovings over the latter's epistemological passages I found the
following in The Advancement of Learning:
. . .if any man shall think by view and inquiry into these
sensible and material things to attain that light, whereby he may
reveal
unto himself the nature or will of God, then, indeed, is he spoiled
by vain philosophy; for the contemplation of God’s creatures and
works produceth (having regard to the works and creatures themselves)
knowledge, but having regard to God no perfect knowledge, but wonder,
which is broken knowledge. And, therefore, it was most aptly said
by one of Plato’s school, “That the sense of man carrieth
a resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openeth and revealeth
all the terrestrial globe; but then, again, it obscureth and concealeth
the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense discover natural
things,
but it darkeneth and shutteth up divine.” And hence it is
true that it hath proceeded, that divers great learned men have been
heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the secrets of the
Deity
by this waxen wings of the senses. (Advancement, I.3)
I think there is plenty to wonder about in this excerpt.
Best regards to all,
Stephen Blackwell
[From Jansy's post: "On
second thoughts, the introduction of "atlantis"
in relation to New Wye's (often also, "Arcadia") paradaisal commingling
of birds and plants, from the north and the south, might not be an
indication of a crossing of the Atlantic ( as I surmised at first) but
a reference to a Platonic "Atlantis" and, even
more to the point, to Francis Bacon's
NewAtlantis ( a "scientific utopia") .
Any suggestions? Bibliographic indications?"