Subject
[NABOKOV-L] Swinburne, Dolores (Lolita and Ada),
Libitina (Pale Fire),
Libitina (Pale Fire),
From
Date
Body
There may be many recognizable words in Swinburnes poem Dolores
(addressed to actress ADA) to be found scattered in VNs works. There is
one mention of Libitina in Pale Fire when Gradus moves towards Lavenders
Villa: He crossed it, walked through a wicket and up a curving gravel
path, and found himself in front of Lavenders villa. Its name, Libitina,
was displayed in cursive script above one of the barred north windows, with
its letters made of black wire and the dot over each of the three is
cleverly mimicked by the tarred head of a chalk-coated nail driven into the
white façade. This device, and the north-facing window grates, Gradus had
observed in Swiss villas before, but immunity to classical allusion deprived
him of the pleasure he might have derived from the tribute that Lavenders
macabre joviality had paid the Roman goddess of corpses and tombs. There
are also the cigarettes inKQK named Libidettes
Googling I came to an article (1978) that discusses death/Gradus. One of the
included information is worth retrieving again, Mary McCarthys point
relating Gradus and Pope. There is another item on Horace.
Mary McCarthy points out that gradus is Russian for degree, and thus refers
to a couplet by Pope, "Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be,/Few in
th'extreme, but all in the degree," in a passage of the Essay on
Man (11.221-32) which states one of the major themes of the novel.
..
Horace (I.iii. 17-20), when the rhetorical question is asked, what could
ever frighten the hero who first sailed the seas?
quem mortis timuit gradum
qui siccis oculis monstra natantia,
qui vidit mare turbidum et
infamis scopulos Acroceraunia?
(What step of death did he fear, the man who, dry-eyed,
saw the monsters that swim, the water storm-toned, and
the dreaded Acroceraunian rocks?).
J. B. Leishman translates the first of these lines as "what form of death's
approach did that man fear . . . ?"7 Joseph Clancy translates it, "What
could he fear in death's footstep . . . ?"8 E. C. Wickham interprets gradus
mortis as "the step, the footfall of death," but adds that the Scholiasts
took Horace's rhetorical question as meaning "'what degree of death? i.e.
what death is so terrible that he feared it if he feared not the sea?" Thus
gradus is either footstep or degree, approach of death or kind of death./ It
is characteristic of Nabokov to make sport of a word that is untranslatable
or has been mistranslated; in Pale Fire he also jests with
Libitina/Lubentina, "funereal, concerned with corpses ...
Pale Fire Journal article by Vladimir Nabokov; The Explicator, Vol. 36,
1978 www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=95785070
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
(addressed to actress ADA) to be found scattered in VNs works. There is
one mention of Libitina in Pale Fire when Gradus moves towards Lavenders
Villa: He crossed it, walked through a wicket and up a curving gravel
path, and found himself in front of Lavenders villa. Its name, Libitina,
was displayed in cursive script above one of the barred north windows, with
its letters made of black wire and the dot over each of the three is
cleverly mimicked by the tarred head of a chalk-coated nail driven into the
white façade. This device, and the north-facing window grates, Gradus had
observed in Swiss villas before, but immunity to classical allusion deprived
him of the pleasure he might have derived from the tribute that Lavenders
macabre joviality had paid the Roman goddess of corpses and tombs. There
are also the cigarettes inKQK named Libidettes
Googling I came to an article (1978) that discusses death/Gradus. One of the
included information is worth retrieving again, Mary McCarthys point
relating Gradus and Pope. There is another item on Horace.
Mary McCarthy points out that gradus is Russian for degree, and thus refers
to a couplet by Pope, "Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be,/Few in
th'extreme, but all in the degree," in a passage of the Essay on
Man (11.221-32) which states one of the major themes of the novel.
..
Horace (I.iii. 17-20), when the rhetorical question is asked, what could
ever frighten the hero who first sailed the seas?
quem mortis timuit gradum
qui siccis oculis monstra natantia,
qui vidit mare turbidum et
infamis scopulos Acroceraunia?
(What step of death did he fear, the man who, dry-eyed,
saw the monsters that swim, the water storm-toned, and
the dreaded Acroceraunian rocks?).
J. B. Leishman translates the first of these lines as "what form of death's
approach did that man fear . . . ?"7 Joseph Clancy translates it, "What
could he fear in death's footstep . . . ?"8 E. C. Wickham interprets gradus
mortis as "the step, the footfall of death," but adds that the Scholiasts
took Horace's rhetorical question as meaning "'what degree of death? i.e.
what death is so terrible that he feared it if he feared not the sea?" Thus
gradus is either footstep or degree, approach of death or kind of death./ It
is characteristic of Nabokov to make sport of a word that is untranslatable
or has been mistranslated; in Pale Fire he also jests with
Libitina/Lubentina, "funereal, concerned with corpses ...
Pale Fire Journal article by Vladimir Nabokov; The Explicator, Vol. 36,
1978 www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=95785070
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/