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THOUGHTS: Housman in PF
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While on vacation in New Hampshire, I happened to find, in a used book
store, a first edition of Housman's The Name and Nature of Poetry. As others
before me have noted, this book provides the source of Kinbote's paraphrase
in his note to line 920: "Housman . . . says somewhere (in a foreword?)
exactly the opposite: The bristling of thrilled little hairs obstructed his
barbering." When Kinbote guesses that the Housman passage is from a
foreword, he is of course wrong, since the passage in question occurs
towards the end of the lecture. But perhaps he is not so wrong as we
thought. The edition I found still retains its original dust jacket (unlike
the library copies I have seen) and it happens that the very passage
paraphrased by Kinbote is quoted on the inside front flap of the jacket. Not
exactly a foreword, but this may be what Kinbote/Nabokov had in mind, I
think.
Matt Roth
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store, a first edition of Housman's The Name and Nature of Poetry. As others
before me have noted, this book provides the source of Kinbote's paraphrase
in his note to line 920: "Housman . . . says somewhere (in a foreword?)
exactly the opposite: The bristling of thrilled little hairs obstructed his
barbering." When Kinbote guesses that the Housman passage is from a
foreword, he is of course wrong, since the passage in question occurs
towards the end of the lecture. But perhaps he is not so wrong as we
thought. The edition I found still retains its original dust jacket (unlike
the library copies I have seen) and it happens that the very passage
paraphrased by Kinbote is quoted on the inside front flap of the jacket. Not
exactly a foreword, but this may be what Kinbote/Nabokov had in mind, I
think.
Matt Roth
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/