Subject:Re: Did Nabokov like Wallace Stevens? (fwd)
From:Donald Barton
Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To:Vladimir Nabokov Forum <[log
in to unmask]>
Date:Mon, 1 Sep 1997 13:48:05
-0700
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From: Galya Diment <[log in to unmask]>
This is a
message which is a month old but now, I think, I can answer the question to some
degree. There is a letter in the VN archive in Berg with precisely the same
question, addressed to Nabokov by Stanley Edgar Hyman in 1969. Vera Nabokov
responded to Hyman three days later saying that VN had no opinion of Stevens
because he knew his work only "faintly." There was something in the brevity of
the note which made me think that VN was not sufficiently impressed with what he
read to desire to get better
acquainted with the poet's other works.
Galya Diment
On Thu, 31 Jul 1997, Donald Barton Johnson
wrote:
EDITOR's NOTE. I recall that a couple of years ago Abdellah Bouazza
called my attention to a remarkable "Nabokovian" passage in Steven's
poetry.
From: Rodney Welch <[log in to unmask]>
What did Nabokov think of
the poet Wallace Stevens? If memory serves, the two received awards from
the Bollinger Foundation the same year, but I've never heard it said what
one thought of the other. My suspicion is that VN would have had no use
for the brilliant but emotionally icy poet, but I have no talent for
guesswork in this area. I still don't see what VN saw in a florid
monstrosity like Edmund White's "Forgetting Elena," which he not only
liked but quite lovingly blurbed.
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 07:51:22 -0400
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <[log
in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Did Nabokov like Wallace Stevens?
(fwd)
From: Matthew Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Interesting
question--I have always wondered if the poet "Audace" mentioned
in Ada is a
combination of "Auden" and "Wallace" (as in Stevens). If it
is, the
reference says a lot about VN's opinion of Stevens...
Subject:Fw:: VN and Wallace Stevens
From:"D. Barton Johnson" <[log in
to unmask]>
Reply-To:Vladimir Nabokov Forum <[log in to
unmask]>
Date:Thu, 2 Jan 2003 08:07:37
-0800
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Johnson, Kurt" <[log in to
unmask]>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <[log in to unmask]>
I would be interested in this as well because I know a number of Nabophiles
who are Stevensophiles as well (including Victoria Alexander). My
long-term interest in Stevens also initiated a 30-year friendship (and now
collaborative effort on some recent things) with Zen scholar/poet Lucien Stryk
(who has written/lectured on Stevens and whose most recent book is "The
Awakened Self: Encounters With Zen"). I'd been out of touch with LS
for a few years until he happened to see "Nabokov's Blues" on the
shelf. So I would not be surprised to hear of other Stevens/Nabokov
mutual "reader/love-affairs"; however, in the work and chit-chat I've done on
Nabokov so far I hadn't run across anything directly about Nabokov and
Stevens. But your suggestion does not surprise me and I'd also be
interested in any connections people may know of.
Kurt
Johnson
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