Subject
THOUGHTS: VN on the trinity of writers (response to Friedman)
From
Date
Body
Andrea Pitzer responds to Jerry Friedman:
In your response to my post about Pale Fire's poem, you wrote that you "didn't know [Nabokov] restricted the category to a trinity."
I got the idea of a trinity from p.122 of VN: The American Years, where Boyd describes a Wellesley College News article on VN. The piece reported that "Pushkin, Shakespeare, and himself constitute his three favorite writers." Boyd noted on the next page that VN had been more modest in other settings.
As to what I think was your suggestion about the poem itself--that Shade is supposed to be second-to-Frost because VN sensed English verse was one of his lesser gifts--it's an intriguing idea.
I remember he spoke very highly of "The Ballad of Longwood Glen." But other than "Ballad" and the "Pale Fire" poem itself, I don't immediately recall how he characterized his English verse. I'll go back and take a look.
Andrea
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 11:33 AM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
In response to Andrea Pitzer: I know Nabokov strongly
hinted that he considered himself a genius like
Shakespeare, Milton, Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Joyce, in
the 1969 BBC interview, but I didn't know he restricted
the category to a trinity.
On Shade's status as a poet, I wonder if the cause and
effect aren't the reverse of what you suggested--he
thought he was a genius at novels but not at essays
in English verse, /so/ he made Shade a poet second to
Frost.
Jerry Friedman
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/
In your response to my post about Pale Fire's poem, you wrote that you "didn't know [Nabokov] restricted the category to a trinity."
I got the idea of a trinity from p.122 of VN: The American Years, where Boyd describes a Wellesley College News article on VN. The piece reported that "Pushkin, Shakespeare, and himself constitute his three favorite writers." Boyd noted on the next page that VN had been more modest in other settings.
As to what I think was your suggestion about the poem itself--that Shade is supposed to be second-to-Frost because VN sensed English verse was one of his lesser gifts--it's an intriguing idea.
I remember he spoke very highly of "The Ballad of Longwood Glen." But other than "Ballad" and the "Pale Fire" poem itself, I don't immediately recall how he characterized his English verse. I'll go back and take a look.
Andrea
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 11:33 AM, NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@holycross.edu> wrote:
In response to Andrea Pitzer: I know Nabokov strongly
hinted that he considered himself a genius like
Shakespeare, Milton, Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Joyce, in
the 1969 BBC interview, but I didn't know he restricted
the category to a trinity.
On Shade's status as a poet, I wonder if the cause and
effect aren't the reverse of what you suggested--he
thought he was a genius at novels but not at essays
in English verse, /so/ he made Shade a poet second to
Frost.
Jerry Friedman
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/