Subject
Re: WIP: Hodge shall not be shot
From
Date
Body
Mary Ross: The epigram for Pale Fire is a quote from Boswell's Life of
Johnson:
This reminds me of the ludicrous account he have Mr. Langton, of the
despicable state of a young gentleman of good family. Sir, when I heard of
him last, he was running about town shooting cats. And then in a sort of
kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, But
Hodge shant be shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot. James Boswell, The
Life of Samuel Johnson
The meaning of this could be said, Others may, but I shall not be touched
by death.
John Shade iterates this sentiment in his syllogism:
"A syllogism: other men die, but I am not another, therefore Ill not die. "
I noticed this (and wrote of it to the List) long ago. In Exegi monumentum
(1836) Pushkin says that he will not wholly die, that his soul in the sacred
lyre is to survive his dust, etc. and, in the poem's last line, asks the
Muse not contradict a fool. In other words, "Hodge shall not be shot." At
the beginning of Eugene Onegin (One: II: 5) Pushkin addresses his readers
and calls them "friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan." According to Pushkin, he
heard the fairy tale about Ruslan and Lyudmila from a learned cat (that
walks to and fro along a golden chain around the green oak-tree). Pushkin's
kot uchyonyi (learned cat) brings to mind kot or (Zemblan for "what is the
time"). To the question kotoryi chas ("what is the time") mad Batyushkov
replied vechnost' ("eternity"). In his last poem, written on a slate a few
days before his death, Derzhavin says that the river of time sinks into
oblivion nations, kingdoms and kings (Kinbote imagines that he is Charles
the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) and, if there is something
that remains through sounds of lyre and trumpet, it too will disappear into
the maw of eternity (vechnosti zherlom pozhryotsya) and not avoid the common
fate. In Exegi monumentum Pushkin line for line parodies Derzhavins poem
Pamyatnik (The Monument, 1795), an imitation of Horaces Ode 30 (Book
III). But the last line of Pushkins poem (and do not contradict the fool)
slyly implies that only fools believe in their immortality.
Shade's syllogism is borrowed from Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich" (in
Tolstoy's story Ivan Ilyich read it in Kiesewetter's "Logic") In his essay
"On Annenski" Hodasevich (the author of "In Memory of the Tomcat Murr,"
1934) compares Annenski to Tolstoy's hero, quotes this syllogism and
mentions Annenski's penname Nik. T-o ("Mr. Nobody"). In Pushkin's little
tragedy "Mozart and Salieri" (1830) Salieri says that he cut up music like a
corpse and Mozart uses the phrase nikto b (none would). Nikto b is Botkin
(Shade's, Kinbote's and Gradus' "real" name) backwards.
"Epigram" should be "epigraph" (or "motto"). According to VN, in choosing
the master motto (Pétri de vanité...) for EO Pushkin was influenced by
Byron. As pointed out by VN (EO Commentary, vol. II, p. 5), the first two
Cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage have the following motto:
L'univers est une espece de livre, dont on n'a lu que la premiere page quand
on n'a vu que son pays. J'en ai feuillete un assez grand nombre, que j'ai
trouve egalement mauvaises. Get examen ne m'a point ete infructueux. Ja
haissais ma patrie. Toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi
lesquels j'ai vecu, m'ont reconcilie avec elle. Quand je n'aurais tire
d'autre benefice de mes voyages que celui-la, je n'en regretterais ni les
frais ni les fatigues.
Le Cosmopolite
[The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has
seen only one's own country. I have leafed through a great many that I have
found equally bad. This inquiry has not been at all unfruitful. I hated my
country. All the oddities of the different people among whom I have lived
have reconciled me to it. Should I gain no other benefit from my travels
than this, I will have regretted neither the pains nor the fatigues.]
Fougeret de Monbron
In a letter of October 19, 1836, to Chaadaev Pushkin says that he would
never want to change his motherland or have a history other than that of our
ancestors as God gave it to us:
Quoique personnellement attaché de coeur à lempereur, je suis loin
dadmirer tout ce que je vois autour de moi; comme homme de lettre, je suis
aigri; comme homme à préjugés, je suis froissé mais je vous jure sur mon
honneur, que pour rien au monde je naurais voulu changer de patrie, ni
avoir dautre histoire que celle de nos ancêtres, telle que Dieu nous la
donnée.
Kinbote completes his work on Shade's poem and commits suicide on October
19, 1959.
In his letter to Chaadaev Pushkin responds to the publication in "Telescope"
of the first of Chaadaev's "Philosophical Letters." As a result of the
publication Nadezhdin (the editor of "Telescope") was exiled to the far
north and Chaadaev was declared a madman. Botkin went mad and became Shade,
Kinbote and Gradus after the tragic death of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel
Shade of Kinbote's Commentary). There is a hope (nadezhda) that, after
Kinbote's suicide, Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (the Governor of New Russia,
a target of Pushkin's epigrams), will be "full" again.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L
Johnson:
This reminds me of the ludicrous account he have Mr. Langton, of the
despicable state of a young gentleman of good family. Sir, when I heard of
him last, he was running about town shooting cats. And then in a sort of
kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, But
Hodge shant be shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot. James Boswell, The
Life of Samuel Johnson
The meaning of this could be said, Others may, but I shall not be touched
by death.
John Shade iterates this sentiment in his syllogism:
"A syllogism: other men die, but I am not another, therefore Ill not die. "
I noticed this (and wrote of it to the List) long ago. In Exegi monumentum
(1836) Pushkin says that he will not wholly die, that his soul in the sacred
lyre is to survive his dust, etc. and, in the poem's last line, asks the
Muse not contradict a fool. In other words, "Hodge shall not be shot." At
the beginning of Eugene Onegin (One: II: 5) Pushkin addresses his readers
and calls them "friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan." According to Pushkin, he
heard the fairy tale about Ruslan and Lyudmila from a learned cat (that
walks to and fro along a golden chain around the green oak-tree). Pushkin's
kot uchyonyi (learned cat) brings to mind kot or (Zemblan for "what is the
time"). To the question kotoryi chas ("what is the time") mad Batyushkov
replied vechnost' ("eternity"). In his last poem, written on a slate a few
days before his death, Derzhavin says that the river of time sinks into
oblivion nations, kingdoms and kings (Kinbote imagines that he is Charles
the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) and, if there is something
that remains through sounds of lyre and trumpet, it too will disappear into
the maw of eternity (vechnosti zherlom pozhryotsya) and not avoid the common
fate. In Exegi monumentum Pushkin line for line parodies Derzhavins poem
Pamyatnik (The Monument, 1795), an imitation of Horaces Ode 30 (Book
III). But the last line of Pushkins poem (and do not contradict the fool)
slyly implies that only fools believe in their immortality.
Shade's syllogism is borrowed from Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich" (in
Tolstoy's story Ivan Ilyich read it in Kiesewetter's "Logic") In his essay
"On Annenski" Hodasevich (the author of "In Memory of the Tomcat Murr,"
1934) compares Annenski to Tolstoy's hero, quotes this syllogism and
mentions Annenski's penname Nik. T-o ("Mr. Nobody"). In Pushkin's little
tragedy "Mozart and Salieri" (1830) Salieri says that he cut up music like a
corpse and Mozart uses the phrase nikto b (none would). Nikto b is Botkin
(Shade's, Kinbote's and Gradus' "real" name) backwards.
"Epigram" should be "epigraph" (or "motto"). According to VN, in choosing
the master motto (Pétri de vanité...) for EO Pushkin was influenced by
Byron. As pointed out by VN (EO Commentary, vol. II, p. 5), the first two
Cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage have the following motto:
L'univers est une espece de livre, dont on n'a lu que la premiere page quand
on n'a vu que son pays. J'en ai feuillete un assez grand nombre, que j'ai
trouve egalement mauvaises. Get examen ne m'a point ete infructueux. Ja
haissais ma patrie. Toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi
lesquels j'ai vecu, m'ont reconcilie avec elle. Quand je n'aurais tire
d'autre benefice de mes voyages que celui-la, je n'en regretterais ni les
frais ni les fatigues.
Le Cosmopolite
[The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has
seen only one's own country. I have leafed through a great many that I have
found equally bad. This inquiry has not been at all unfruitful. I hated my
country. All the oddities of the different people among whom I have lived
have reconciled me to it. Should I gain no other benefit from my travels
than this, I will have regretted neither the pains nor the fatigues.]
Fougeret de Monbron
In a letter of October 19, 1836, to Chaadaev Pushkin says that he would
never want to change his motherland or have a history other than that of our
ancestors as God gave it to us:
Quoique personnellement attaché de coeur à lempereur, je suis loin
dadmirer tout ce que je vois autour de moi; comme homme de lettre, je suis
aigri; comme homme à préjugés, je suis froissé mais je vous jure sur mon
honneur, que pour rien au monde je naurais voulu changer de patrie, ni
avoir dautre histoire que celle de nos ancêtres, telle que Dieu nous la
donnée.
Kinbote completes his work on Shade's poem and commits suicide on October
19, 1959.
In his letter to Chaadaev Pushkin responds to the publication in "Telescope"
of the first of Chaadaev's "Philosophical Letters." As a result of the
publication Nadezhdin (the editor of "Telescope") was exiled to the far
north and Chaadaev was declared a madman. Botkin went mad and became Shade,
Kinbote and Gradus after the tragic death of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel
Shade of Kinbote's Commentary). There is a hope (nadezhda) that, after
Kinbote's suicide, Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (the Governor of New Russia,
a target of Pushkin's epigrams), will be "full" again.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L