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Mike M writes, concerning Humbert: I pointed out last year that in
Pale Fire, Shalksbore Baron Harfar, known as Curdy Buff is
a lampoon on Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, supposed by some
to be Shakespeare. Since Percy de Prey is also "coeur de boeuf",
by parity of reasoning I assumed that he too was derived, to put
it too strongly, from that same Vere. He is also present in the
notorious Chapter 7 of Bend Sinister, which I mentioned some time
later. Not having read
Lolita I can't say whether or not he is there in some
incarnation(s), though I would not bet against it. Vere is, in the
minds of those engaged with the issue of the authorship of
Shakespeare (and I count Nabokov amongst that tally) strongly
associated with Hamlet. I'm sure it must have been pointed out
that the name HUMBERT could be a conflation of Hamlet and Humber.
The latter is a character in 'Locrine', a play written in the
early 1590s with a rather murky history of authorship and
attribution. It was first published in 1595 as by "W.S.", although
nobody believes that it was by Shakespeare, and no plausible
alternative WS has come to light (unless you believe that Shaxper
from Stratford was a plagiaristic dramatist who would be guilty of
a feeble gallimaufry such as Locrine). In the play Humber is king
of the Scythians, engaged in warfare against the Trojans under
king Albanact, who commits suicide when seemingly defeated; his
ghost demands revenge (hence the connection to Hamlet). He did
away with himself prematurely because ultimately the Trojans were
victorious, Humber lives in exile and squalor, and Albanact's
ghost is elated when Humber too kills himself. So much for that.
When I saw the name Elphinstone I assumed that it was wordplay on
Elsinore; I googled them together, and the first result was a 19th
century cyclopedia where they showed up as adjacent entries. Maybe
VN had that book. That Nabokov locates Elphinstone in the Rocky
Mountains isn't inconsistent with Hamlet I, iv, when Hamlet is
beckoned high on Elsinore castle by the ghost:
"What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea..."
[rocky mountain?]
Authorship, especially authorship of Shakespeare, haunted Nabokov.
I would be very surprised if the idea of contested authorship
weren't present in Lolita, probably veiled somehow, and
definitely if the Hamlet/Humbert/ghost/revenge association is
genuine. In
Ada, Percy (coeur de boeuf) and Van are rivals, and
Nabokov draws attention to Percy's "everlasting stream". This,
superficially, is meant to be seen as a stream of urine, but is
intended by Nabokov to allude to the "ever-living poet" of the
dedication to "Shake-speares Sonnets"; the "stream" is the 16th
century equivalent of our 'streaming video'; back then it was
streaming audio, i.e. drama.