Subject
THOUGHTS: Tyutchev in Pale Fire
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Date
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from Alexey Sklyarenko:
Among Russian rhyme-words of Nitsa (Nice) is also ptitsa ("bird"). Here is a poem by Tyutchev, in F. Jude's English translation (see attachment for the original of this and another Tyutchev poem cited below), in which the Nitsa-ptitsa rhyme occurs:
Oh, this south, oh, this Nice!
How their glitter troubles me.
Life's like a bird that's been shot
and wants to rise but cannot.
It wants to spread its wings,
it wants to fly again
but they just hang,
feeble, broken things,
and it grips the ground
and shivers in impotent pain.
Note that bol' ("pain"), of which I spoke in my previous posts, is also mentioned in this poem.
Note that Tyutchev was the first Russian poet who felt, and attempted to express, the otherworldly chaos that surrounds us (a prominent theme in Pale Fire, whatever our interpretations of the novel can be).
Note that Shade's collections of poetry is entitled Hebe's Cup - probably an allusion to the lines from Tyutchev's famous poem "Spring Thunderstorm": "You will say that fickle Hebe, feeding Zeus' eagle, laughing, poured from the heavens onto the earth a goblet seething with thunder" (anon. translation found in the internet; I dared to change one epithet).
Note that Nice is also mentioned (in connection with VN's grandfather who suffered in his last years from a mental illness) in Speak, Memory.
Note that (if only I remember this correctly) Pale Fire the poem was in part written by Nabokov in Nice.
Note that the said poem begins with the image of a slained bird.
Finally, note that another Russian writer, Chekhov, spent several winters in Nice (the fact reflected in VN's ADA). Chekhov's play The Sea Gull (1897) begins with a character (Treplev) shooting dead a sea gull and ends with the same character shooting dead himself. There is in Pale Fire the English tourist in Nice feeding "les pauvres cigales".
Last but not least, Shade's collection of essays is entitled An Untamed Seahorse. I know that "Neptune taming a sea horse" is a bronze art object mentioned in the closing lines of Browning's My Last Duchess. All the same, here is Tyutchev's poem The Sea Horse (1830) in F. Jude's translation:
Ardent horse, sea-horse,
pale-green maned,
gentle, loving-tamed,
raging, wild-playing,
fed by violent storms
in God's open plains!
He taught and trained you
to play, to leap at will.
..........
I love you when you bound
madly, arrogantly strong,
tossing your thick mane,
sweating, foaming,
dashing fast storms against the shore,
gaily neighing, galloping,
drumming cliffs with your hooves,
white-flecked, flying!
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Among Russian rhyme-words of Nitsa (Nice) is also ptitsa ("bird"). Here is a poem by Tyutchev, in F. Jude's English translation (see attachment for the original of this and another Tyutchev poem cited below), in which the Nitsa-ptitsa rhyme occurs:
Oh, this south, oh, this Nice!
How their glitter troubles me.
Life's like a bird that's been shot
and wants to rise but cannot.
It wants to spread its wings,
it wants to fly again
but they just hang,
feeble, broken things,
and it grips the ground
and shivers in impotent pain.
Note that bol' ("pain"), of which I spoke in my previous posts, is also mentioned in this poem.
Note that Tyutchev was the first Russian poet who felt, and attempted to express, the otherworldly chaos that surrounds us (a prominent theme in Pale Fire, whatever our interpretations of the novel can be).
Note that Shade's collections of poetry is entitled Hebe's Cup - probably an allusion to the lines from Tyutchev's famous poem "Spring Thunderstorm": "You will say that fickle Hebe, feeding Zeus' eagle, laughing, poured from the heavens onto the earth a goblet seething with thunder" (anon. translation found in the internet; I dared to change one epithet).
Note that Nice is also mentioned (in connection with VN's grandfather who suffered in his last years from a mental illness) in Speak, Memory.
Note that (if only I remember this correctly) Pale Fire the poem was in part written by Nabokov in Nice.
Note that the said poem begins with the image of a slained bird.
Finally, note that another Russian writer, Chekhov, spent several winters in Nice (the fact reflected in VN's ADA). Chekhov's play The Sea Gull (1897) begins with a character (Treplev) shooting dead a sea gull and ends with the same character shooting dead himself. There is in Pale Fire the English tourist in Nice feeding "les pauvres cigales".
Last but not least, Shade's collection of essays is entitled An Untamed Seahorse. I know that "Neptune taming a sea horse" is a bronze art object mentioned in the closing lines of Browning's My Last Duchess. All the same, here is Tyutchev's poem The Sea Horse (1830) in F. Jude's translation:
Ardent horse, sea-horse,
pale-green maned,
gentle, loving-tamed,
raging, wild-playing,
fed by violent storms
in God's open plains!
He taught and trained you
to play, to leap at will.
..........
I love you when you bound
madly, arrogantly strong,
tossing your thick mane,
sweating, foaming,
dashing fast storms against the shore,
gaily neighing, galloping,
drumming cliffs with your hooves,
white-flecked, flying!
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/