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Re: QUERY: Clark Ashton Smith's "Fire of Snow" and PF
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>Don't know if there's any connection to Nabokov's Pale Fire, but I
recently
>came across the poem "Fire of Snow" by Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961).
Dear "metaphorical,"
Not so very long ago, I was intrigued when I found "pale fire" in a poem
by Shelley. Like you, I wondered if VN could have had it in mind. What I
discovered, however, was that "pale fire" is an exceedingly common poetic
figure, especially for those writing in a romantic mode. If you do a
quick Google Books search on that phrase, limiting it to years up to 1950
or so, you'll find over 600 books containing it. Some of them are
redundant, but it is still remarkably ubiquitous. Kudos to Shakespeare, I
guess. In any case, I think there would have to be some pretty remarkable
internal evidence pointing us to another Pale Fire source beyond Timon and
Hamlet.
Best,
Matt Roth
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recently
>came across the poem "Fire of Snow" by Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961).
Dear "metaphorical,"
Not so very long ago, I was intrigued when I found "pale fire" in a poem
by Shelley. Like you, I wondered if VN could have had it in mind. What I
discovered, however, was that "pale fire" is an exceedingly common poetic
figure, especially for those writing in a romantic mode. If you do a
quick Google Books search on that phrase, limiting it to years up to 1950
or so, you'll find over 600 books containing it. Some of them are
redundant, but it is still remarkably ubiquitous. Kudos to Shakespeare, I
guess. In any case, I think there would have to be some pretty remarkable
internal evidence pointing us to another Pale Fire source beyond Timon and
Hamlet.
Best,
Matt Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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