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Cagliostro's last trick, Aleppo and the cheville...
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Dear List,
Alexey said that "the jinn was let out of the bottle, it is difficult to coop him up again. I hope Jansy will pardon me for sharing with the List the following anagramatic combination" [ on Cagliostro, Caligula, California, Caligari..."]
Why the tease, Alexey? Nabokov engenders a kind of fascination that often lies beyond his own words! This is why I am thankful to Matt Roth who took the trouble to write: On an unrelated note, many thanks to Jansy for finding all of those fours and forties. I don't know what they mean, but I'm intrigued."
In relation to "Signs and Symbols", A.Stadlen wrote: "I swear that I am not trying to tantalise. Jennifer [ Jenefer] Coates, my new-found neighbour who was the "mystery" speaker ...did make a contribution to a possible answwer to the question of what Nabokov meant by the "inside" story of "Signs and Symbols"... I shall be writing a little about the seminar soon... please do not expect anything remotely like "closure." and I'm glad to learn that the mystery speaker is Jenefer Coates who has already contributed to the VN-List in the past.
Don offered sources into "That in Aleppo once" [http://www.answers.com/topic/that-in-aleppo-once-story-4 ] and Sandy Drescher, who brought together a fascinating element in common bt. VN's story and Shakespeare ( uxoricide and roses) in his own research found at
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/dresch1.htm .
Sandy quoted Nabokov: "I saw a rose in a glass on the table [...] There was no note pinned to the pillow, nothing at all in the room to enlighten me, for of course the rose was merely what French rhymesters call une cheville." - to emphasize VN's reference to "cheville". Drescher started his very interesting article, found in "Zembla" with C.Doyle's: "Holmes, why is the rose une cheville?" / "For the same reason, my dear Watson, that the request is denied!". He then explained that "in French, a "cheville" is any sort of peg or bolt. In the 2nd Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, the peg is that of a stringed instrument, from which the primary, literary meaning derives by metaphor. Robert Louis Stevenson explains and extends the meaning in On Some Technical Elements of Style." before he made Holmes conclude: "It is not the rose that is the cheville, but the entire paragraph."
Umberto Eco [Sulla Letteratura (2002)] connects "cheville" to the sense given to it by VN and RL Stevenson in connection to rethorical resources such as the "zeppa", an element which serves to patch up or artificially hold together a text. For U. Eco the criteria for establishing the "zeppa" ( the Italian word for the "ancilla" or the "cheville" in Latin and in French) varies from time to time: it may be considered negligible in the eyes of certain art-critics but it may become an essential element for others.
The "ancillary turn" implies an imperfection in a written text that arises, for example, when characters are in a dialogue and this forces the writer to explain "he said, he thought, she answered, she sighed" (etc) to fill in directions about their conversation...) And here is one more loose connection: cheville & ancilla, servants & sexuality in art!
For Nabokov not only introduced "the cheville" ( as Drescher analyses in "...that in Aleppo once" in connection betrayal and jealousy), but he considered sexuality as "ancillary" to art ( sex is but a servant, "an ancilla of art" )
......................................................................
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Alexey said that "the jinn was let out of the bottle, it is difficult to coop him up again. I hope Jansy will pardon me for sharing with the List the following anagramatic combination" [ on Cagliostro, Caligula, California, Caligari..."]
Why the tease, Alexey? Nabokov engenders a kind of fascination that often lies beyond his own words! This is why I am thankful to Matt Roth who took the trouble to write: On an unrelated note, many thanks to Jansy for finding all of those fours and forties. I don't know what they mean, but I'm intrigued."
In relation to "Signs and Symbols", A.Stadlen wrote: "I swear that I am not trying to tantalise. Jennifer [ Jenefer] Coates, my new-found neighbour who was the "mystery" speaker ...did make a contribution to a possible answwer to the question of what Nabokov meant by the "inside" story of "Signs and Symbols"... I shall be writing a little about the seminar soon... please do not expect anything remotely like "closure." and I'm glad to learn that the mystery speaker is Jenefer Coates who has already contributed to the VN-List in the past.
Don offered sources into "That in Aleppo once" [http://www.answers.com/topic/that-in-aleppo-once-story-4 ] and Sandy Drescher, who brought together a fascinating element in common bt. VN's story and Shakespeare ( uxoricide and roses) in his own research found at
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/dresch1.htm .
Sandy quoted Nabokov: "I saw a rose in a glass on the table [...] There was no note pinned to the pillow, nothing at all in the room to enlighten me, for of course the rose was merely what French rhymesters call une cheville." - to emphasize VN's reference to "cheville". Drescher started his very interesting article, found in "Zembla" with C.Doyle's: "Holmes, why is the rose une cheville?" / "For the same reason, my dear Watson, that the request is denied!". He then explained that "in French, a "cheville" is any sort of peg or bolt. In the 2nd Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, the peg is that of a stringed instrument, from which the primary, literary meaning derives by metaphor. Robert Louis Stevenson explains and extends the meaning in On Some Technical Elements of Style." before he made Holmes conclude: "It is not the rose that is the cheville, but the entire paragraph."
Umberto Eco [Sulla Letteratura (2002)] connects "cheville" to the sense given to it by VN and RL Stevenson in connection to rethorical resources such as the "zeppa", an element which serves to patch up or artificially hold together a text. For U. Eco the criteria for establishing the "zeppa" ( the Italian word for the "ancilla" or the "cheville" in Latin and in French) varies from time to time: it may be considered negligible in the eyes of certain art-critics but it may become an essential element for others.
The "ancillary turn" implies an imperfection in a written text that arises, for example, when characters are in a dialogue and this forces the writer to explain "he said, he thought, she answered, she sighed" (etc) to fill in directions about their conversation...) And here is one more loose connection: cheville & ancilla, servants & sexuality in art!
For Nabokov not only introduced "the cheville" ( as Drescher analyses in "...that in Aleppo once" in connection betrayal and jealousy), but he considered sexuality as "ancillary" to art ( sex is but a servant, "an ancilla of art" )
......................................................................
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/