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THOUGHTS: Poor old man Swift
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Just a trifle I ran across while reading about the last days of Swift in Craik's "The Life of Jonathan Swift" (1894):
"Looking at himself in the glass, he was said to have exclaimed in pity, 'Poor old man!'."
I wonder if this provides the origin of Shade's variant line, "Poor old man Swift, poor --, poor Baudelaire." In which case, was John Shade also looking in the glass when he wrote that line?
On another topic, I found the idea Lish editing VN very amusing, though I agree with Jim Twiggs that Lish's Carver is almost always preferable to Carver's Carver.
Matt
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"Looking at himself in the glass, he was said to have exclaimed in pity, 'Poor old man!'."
I wonder if this provides the origin of Shade's variant line, "Poor old man Swift, poor --, poor Baudelaire." In which case, was John Shade also looking in the glass when he wrote that line?
On another topic, I found the idea Lish editing VN very amusing, though I agree with Jim Twiggs that Lish's Carver is almost always preferable to Carver's Carver.
Matt
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/