Subject
JF to JM, DBJ, and CHW on cedars and anagrams
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Jansy: I think you're quite right to mention that Americans
have miscalled some trees "cedars", notably junipers.
Indeed, cedar waxwings are so named because they feed on
juniper berries. Junipers are mentioned a couple of times
in /Pale Fire/, once in connection with waxwings. See Brian
Boyd's book, or--though not a tour de force of scholarship--
my post of April 26, 1998 entitled "Cedars and waxwings in
PALE FIRE (fwd)" (kindly posted here by Earl Sampson).
Taxonomic trivia: I was brought up to believe that the Atlas
Cedar and the Lebanon Cedar were separate species, but as
your quote noted, some authorities consider them conspecific.
To Don Johnson: Sorry for being pedantic.
> -- Chaswe@AOL.COM wrote:
> JF writes:
>
> Nabokov clearly saw nothing wrong with mentioning something of
cardinal
> importance to him in a poem that uses a strained rhyme associated
with
> "comic and curious verse".
To answer Jansy's question, the matter of cardinal importance
I had in mind is Russia and nostalgia ("ex Ponto").
Back to Charles:
> Matthew appears to have accepted, at least in part, my distinction
> between
> poetry and verse, and considers the Index quatrain to be verse, but
> I've failed to persuade Jerry, it seems. No matter.
Okay, I'm happy to leave it there.
> Searching for more on The Dunciad, via Google, I came across this
site:
>
> _http://www.anagrammy.com/literary/rb/poems-rb14.html#top_
> (http://www.anagrammy.com/literary/rb/poems-rb14.html#top)
>
> Besides containing a large slab of The Dunciad, Book 4, which
> demonstrates
> how utterly un-Pope-like are the limping feet of John Shade, and
> compared with
> which PF, the "poem", could hardly be described as inartistic, let
> alone
> merely competent, the site also contains a cornucopia of wordplay of
> such
> staggering, mind-blowing ingenuity as to bankrupt credulity.
>
> Is Richard Brodie a computer?
[snip]
I doubt it, but he uses a free computer program called Anagram
Artist. There's some information about using at the site. I
agree, though--it's amazing. Maybe someone should suggest that
someone try to anagram a long passage of Bloodmark.
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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have miscalled some trees "cedars", notably junipers.
Indeed, cedar waxwings are so named because they feed on
juniper berries. Junipers are mentioned a couple of times
in /Pale Fire/, once in connection with waxwings. See Brian
Boyd's book, or--though not a tour de force of scholarship--
my post of April 26, 1998 entitled "Cedars and waxwings in
PALE FIRE (fwd)" (kindly posted here by Earl Sampson).
Taxonomic trivia: I was brought up to believe that the Atlas
Cedar and the Lebanon Cedar were separate species, but as
your quote noted, some authorities consider them conspecific.
To Don Johnson: Sorry for being pedantic.
> -- Chaswe@AOL.COM wrote:
> JF writes:
>
> Nabokov clearly saw nothing wrong with mentioning something of
cardinal
> importance to him in a poem that uses a strained rhyme associated
with
> "comic and curious verse".
To answer Jansy's question, the matter of cardinal importance
I had in mind is Russia and nostalgia ("ex Ponto").
Back to Charles:
> Matthew appears to have accepted, at least in part, my distinction
> between
> poetry and verse, and considers the Index quatrain to be verse, but
> I've failed to persuade Jerry, it seems. No matter.
Okay, I'm happy to leave it there.
> Searching for more on The Dunciad, via Google, I came across this
site:
>
> _http://www.anagrammy.com/literary/rb/poems-rb14.html#top_
> (http://www.anagrammy.com/literary/rb/poems-rb14.html#top)
>
> Besides containing a large slab of The Dunciad, Book 4, which
> demonstrates
> how utterly un-Pope-like are the limping feet of John Shade, and
> compared with
> which PF, the "poem", could hardly be described as inartistic, let
> alone
> merely competent, the site also contains a cornucopia of wordplay of
> such
> staggering, mind-blowing ingenuity as to bankrupt credulity.
>
> Is Richard Brodie a computer?
[snip]
I doubt it, but he uses a free computer program called Anagram
Artist. There's some information about using at the site. I
agree, though--it's amazing. Maybe someone should suggest that
someone try to anagram a long passage of Bloodmark.
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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