Subject
CORRECTION: PF: crystal to crystal
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Date
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[Jansy Mello has revised her last post. -- SES]
"Pale Fire", the poem, has been described as:
(a) something "pale and diaphanous", "a transparent thingum" - ie: a
feeble light, irrespective of its causation;
(b) in need of a "moondrop" title;
(c) comparable to the satellite whose light reflects or robs the fire
of a sun -ie: it is undecided if it reflects CK's story, Shakespeare or
Frost;
(d) describing a "crystal land," related to Zembla, perhaps like
"crystal to crystal";
(e) a poem whose structure bears a crystal symmetry and "predictable
growth".
CK's images are curiously mingled when he returns to the
(Shakespearean) sun-moon orbs of heat and light:
(a) Zembla and CK like the sun, Shade like the moon:
1. He suggests that PF sheds a waning moon's diaphanous light, seeing
himself as the steady sun:
"Although I realize only too clearly, alas, that the result, in its
pale and diaphanous final phase, cannot be regarded as a direct echo of
my narrative..."
2. CK's Zemblan story not only glows like the sun, but it warms Shade
into a boiling bubbling point:
"one can hardly doubt that the sunset glow of the story acted as a
catalytic agent upon the very process of the sustained creative
effervescence;"
3. CK's effect on Shade engenders a resemblance in color and hue, ie:
it must be closer to ice-crystals/moonlight than to sun/moon:
"asymptomatic family resemblance in the coloration of both poem and
story."
(b) CK is like the moon,he borrows an opalescent light from Shade's
sun:
"in many cases have caught myself borrowing a kind of opalescent light
from my poet’s fiery orb"
When CK quotes Shade's exclamation, after a snowflake settled upon his
wrist-watch ( "Crystal to crystal.", cf. Foreword), he notes that in
this case the "mechanism of the associations is easy to make out (glass
leading to crystal and crystal to ice)"
He mentions both Frost and Thomas Hardy when he observes that the word
"stillicide" suggests "a succession of drops falling from the eaves,
eavesdrop, cavesdrop. ...The bright frost has eternalized the bright
eavesdrop."
It is worth remembering that the word "crystal" is derived from the
ancient Greek word krustallos, cold drop / frozen drop - applicable both
to the mineral, itself, and to the process that shapes the snow flakes.
Frost and crystals come up again, in his comment to line 426: "his line
displays one of those combinations of pun and metaphor at which our poet
excels. In the temperature charts of poetry high is low, and low high,
so that the degree at which perfect crystallization occurs is above that
of tepid facility. This is what our modest poet says, in effect,
respecting the atmosphere of his own fame [...] With all his excellent
gifts, John Shade could never make his snowflakes settle that way."
Here CK is returning to the theme of Shade's purported "crystal on
crystal," when he mentions Frost's "prodigious and poignant end — two
closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal and
physical, and the other metaphysical and universal." *
When he emphasizes that he prefers to avoid a direct quote, because he
might "displace one small precious word." and now he is either being
ironical ( since the two lines are identical), or he is then referring
to J.L.Borges' story of Pierre Ménard (in "Ficciones"),** who wrote an
exact copy of Don Quixote, entrusting the reader to distinguish, like
Kinbote, "the personal and physical" from the "metaphysical and
universal."
........................................................................................
* Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by R.Frost
"But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
** Extracted from Wiki:
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is written in the form of a
review or literary critical piece about (the non-existent) Pierre
Menard, a 20th century French writer. It begins with a brief
introduction and a listing of all of Menard's work. Borges's "review"
describes Menard's efforts to go beyond a mere "translation" of Don
Quixote by immersing himself so thoroughly in the work as to be able to
actually "re-create" it, line for line, in the original 17th century
Spanish. Thus, Pierre Menard is often used to raise questions and
discussion about the nature of accurate translation.
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is indeed literary criticism but
through the medium of fantasy, irony, and humor. His narrator/reviewer
considers Menard's fragmentary Quixote (which is line-for-line identical
to the original) to be much richer in allusion than Cervantes's
"original" work because Menard's must be considered in light of world
events since 1602. Cervantes, the reviewer claims, "indulges in a rather
coarse opposition between tales of knighthood and the meager, provincial
reality of his country". While Menard writes of the distant past ("the
land of Carmen during the century of Lepanto and Lope”), in Cervantes
“there are neither bands of Gypsies, conquistadors... nor autos de
fe". In this, Borges anticipates the post-modern theory that gives
centrality to reader response [...] As so often in his writings, the
story abounds in clever references and subtle jokes. His
narrator/reviewer is an arch-Catholic who remarks of the readers of a
rival journal that they are "few and Calvinist, if not Masonic and
circumcised". According to Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Alastair Reid,
Menard is in part "a caricature of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry …
or Miguel de Unamuno and Enrique Larreta".
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"Pale Fire", the poem, has been described as:
(a) something "pale and diaphanous", "a transparent thingum" - ie: a
feeble light, irrespective of its causation;
(b) in need of a "moondrop" title;
(c) comparable to the satellite whose light reflects or robs the fire
of a sun -ie: it is undecided if it reflects CK's story, Shakespeare or
Frost;
(d) describing a "crystal land," related to Zembla, perhaps like
"crystal to crystal";
(e) a poem whose structure bears a crystal symmetry and "predictable
growth".
CK's images are curiously mingled when he returns to the
(Shakespearean) sun-moon orbs of heat and light:
(a) Zembla and CK like the sun, Shade like the moon:
1. He suggests that PF sheds a waning moon's diaphanous light, seeing
himself as the steady sun:
"Although I realize only too clearly, alas, that the result, in its
pale and diaphanous final phase, cannot be regarded as a direct echo of
my narrative..."
2. CK's Zemblan story not only glows like the sun, but it warms Shade
into a boiling bubbling point:
"one can hardly doubt that the sunset glow of the story acted as a
catalytic agent upon the very process of the sustained creative
effervescence;"
3. CK's effect on Shade engenders a resemblance in color and hue, ie:
it must be closer to ice-crystals/moonlight than to sun/moon:
"asymptomatic family resemblance in the coloration of both poem and
story."
(b) CK is like the moon,he borrows an opalescent light from Shade's
sun:
"in many cases have caught myself borrowing a kind of opalescent light
from my poet’s fiery orb"
When CK quotes Shade's exclamation, after a snowflake settled upon his
wrist-watch ( "Crystal to crystal.", cf. Foreword), he notes that in
this case the "mechanism of the associations is easy to make out (glass
leading to crystal and crystal to ice)"
He mentions both Frost and Thomas Hardy when he observes that the word
"stillicide" suggests "a succession of drops falling from the eaves,
eavesdrop, cavesdrop. ...The bright frost has eternalized the bright
eavesdrop."
It is worth remembering that the word "crystal" is derived from the
ancient Greek word krustallos, cold drop / frozen drop - applicable both
to the mineral, itself, and to the process that shapes the snow flakes.
Frost and crystals come up again, in his comment to line 426: "his line
displays one of those combinations of pun and metaphor at which our poet
excels. In the temperature charts of poetry high is low, and low high,
so that the degree at which perfect crystallization occurs is above that
of tepid facility. This is what our modest poet says, in effect,
respecting the atmosphere of his own fame [...] With all his excellent
gifts, John Shade could never make his snowflakes settle that way."
Here CK is returning to the theme of Shade's purported "crystal on
crystal," when he mentions Frost's "prodigious and poignant end — two
closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal and
physical, and the other metaphysical and universal." *
When he emphasizes that he prefers to avoid a direct quote, because he
might "displace one small precious word." and now he is either being
ironical ( since the two lines are identical), or he is then referring
to J.L.Borges' story of Pierre Ménard (in "Ficciones"),** who wrote an
exact copy of Don Quixote, entrusting the reader to distinguish, like
Kinbote, "the personal and physical" from the "metaphysical and
universal."
........................................................................................
* Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by R.Frost
"But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
** Extracted from Wiki:
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is written in the form of a
review or literary critical piece about (the non-existent) Pierre
Menard, a 20th century French writer. It begins with a brief
introduction and a listing of all of Menard's work. Borges's "review"
describes Menard's efforts to go beyond a mere "translation" of Don
Quixote by immersing himself so thoroughly in the work as to be able to
actually "re-create" it, line for line, in the original 17th century
Spanish. Thus, Pierre Menard is often used to raise questions and
discussion about the nature of accurate translation.
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is indeed literary criticism but
through the medium of fantasy, irony, and humor. His narrator/reviewer
considers Menard's fragmentary Quixote (which is line-for-line identical
to the original) to be much richer in allusion than Cervantes's
"original" work because Menard's must be considered in light of world
events since 1602. Cervantes, the reviewer claims, "indulges in a rather
coarse opposition between tales of knighthood and the meager, provincial
reality of his country". While Menard writes of the distant past ("the
land of Carmen during the century of Lepanto and Lope”), in Cervantes
“there are neither bands of Gypsies, conquistadors... nor autos de
fe". In this, Borges anticipates the post-modern theory that gives
centrality to reader response [...] As so often in his writings, the
story abounds in clever references and subtle jokes. His
narrator/reviewer is an arch-Catholic who remarks of the readers of a
rival journal that they are "few and Calvinist, if not Masonic and
circumcised". According to Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Alastair Reid,
Menard is in part "a caricature of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry …
or Miguel de Unamuno and Enrique Larreta".
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/