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Kinbote, Arnold and Glanvill in PF
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I've looked through the list archives and many other critiques of PF but
have not found any remarks on what follows. I'd be happy to know if any
other critics have dealt with this.
In C.1000 Kinbote quotes from Matthew Arnold's poem "The Scholar
Gypsy": "still clutching the inviolable Shade." The significance of this,
beyond the obvious reference to John Shade, is twofold, it seems to me.
The first level of significance has to do with the ways in which certain
elements of the narrative of that poem mirror Kinbote's character and
story. In some ways, Kinbote himself seems to be the "scholar gypsy." He
is, after all, a professor who has traveled far and wide without a home.
But other lines, beyond the title, also point to Kinbote. During, for
instance, a long description of the SG's travels, Arnold writes that the SG
is clothed "In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey." It's true that
Kinbote's hat and cloak were red, but the singling out of these items in
both narratives seems significant, particularly when we read more about the
SG's travels.
In Kinbote's narrative (C.149), he wears the hat and cloak while escaping
over the Bera Range. Along the way, he stops to sleep in a barn. In
Arnold's poem, we have the following passage:
Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge,
Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow,
Thy face tow’rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge?
And thou hast climbed the hill,
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range;
Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,
The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall—
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange.
Like King Charles, the SG crosses a mountain range and sleeps in the
hayloft of a barn.
One other thing: the next stanza ends with the narrator imagining the SG's
grave, which lies "Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade." The yew
tree (L'if) and Yewshade are both mentioned at the beginning of Canto
Three. It is from Yewshade that Shade is able to see, in l.512, the "snowy
form" of a mountain range.
The second level of significance has to do with the source of Arnold's
poem. The first line of the fourth stanza mentions "Glanvil's book," where
the tale of the SG is found. I looked this up and found out that the
original tale is from a book by Joseph Glanvill called _The Vanity of
Dogmatizing_ (1661). In a section on the power of the Imagination, Glanvill
relates the tale of the SG. In Glavill's version, an Oxford lad, for lack
of funds, has to leave Oxford and "cast himself upon the wide world for a
livelyhood." He takes up with a company of gypsies. Some time later, a
couple of his Oxford friends recognize him in a crowd of gypsies. They
take him aside, and he shows them a gypsy trick he has learned. He has them
go into another room and have a conversation. The GS then comes in and
tells them everything they have just said. He then reveals that he not only
knew what they were saying, but he actually dictated TO them, via his
imagination, their conversation. I quote:
"The scholars being amaz'd at so unexpected a discovery, earnestly desir'd
him to unriddle the mystery. In which he gave them satisfaction, by telling
them, that what he did was by the power of Imagination, his Phancy binding
theirs; and that himself had dictated to them the discourse, they held
together, while he was from them: That there were warrentable wayes of
heightening Imagination to that pitch, as to bind anothers."
(snip)
"[A]nd I see not why the phancy of one man may not determine the cogitation
of another rightly qualified, as easily as his bodily motion. This
influence seems to be no more unreasonable, then that of one string of a
Lute upon another; when a stroak on it causeth a proportionable motion in
the sympathizing consort, which is distant from it and not sensibly
touched."
The entire point, then, of the SG story in Glanvill is to show how, through
the power of imagination, one person might be able to puargument that Boyd
makes concerning the effect of Hazel and John Shade's ghosts on Kinbote's
commentary? They bind his thoughts and contribute to his narrative.
I would also note that the path from Kinbote to Arnold to Glanvill seems
very similar to the path Boyd takes from Shade's "Here papa pisses" to
Browning's "Pippa Passes" to Mrs. Sutherland Orr's note about the origins
of the poem (Boyd 87-88). Thus, we have evidence that Nabokov liked this
kind of double allusion.
I'd be happy to hear thoughts on this.
Matthew Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
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have not found any remarks on what follows. I'd be happy to know if any
other critics have dealt with this.
In C.1000 Kinbote quotes from Matthew Arnold's poem "The Scholar
Gypsy": "still clutching the inviolable Shade." The significance of this,
beyond the obvious reference to John Shade, is twofold, it seems to me.
The first level of significance has to do with the ways in which certain
elements of the narrative of that poem mirror Kinbote's character and
story. In some ways, Kinbote himself seems to be the "scholar gypsy." He
is, after all, a professor who has traveled far and wide without a home.
But other lines, beyond the title, also point to Kinbote. During, for
instance, a long description of the SG's travels, Arnold writes that the SG
is clothed "In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey." It's true that
Kinbote's hat and cloak were red, but the singling out of these items in
both narratives seems significant, particularly when we read more about the
SG's travels.
In Kinbote's narrative (C.149), he wears the hat and cloak while escaping
over the Bera Range. Along the way, he stops to sleep in a barn. In
Arnold's poem, we have the following passage:
Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge,
Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow,
Thy face tow’rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge?
And thou hast climbed the hill,
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range;
Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,
The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall—
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange.
Like King Charles, the SG crosses a mountain range and sleeps in the
hayloft of a barn.
One other thing: the next stanza ends with the narrator imagining the SG's
grave, which lies "Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade." The yew
tree (L'if) and Yewshade are both mentioned at the beginning of Canto
Three. It is from Yewshade that Shade is able to see, in l.512, the "snowy
form" of a mountain range.
The second level of significance has to do with the source of Arnold's
poem. The first line of the fourth stanza mentions "Glanvil's book," where
the tale of the SG is found. I looked this up and found out that the
original tale is from a book by Joseph Glanvill called _The Vanity of
Dogmatizing_ (1661). In a section on the power of the Imagination, Glanvill
relates the tale of the SG. In Glavill's version, an Oxford lad, for lack
of funds, has to leave Oxford and "cast himself upon the wide world for a
livelyhood." He takes up with a company of gypsies. Some time later, a
couple of his Oxford friends recognize him in a crowd of gypsies. They
take him aside, and he shows them a gypsy trick he has learned. He has them
go into another room and have a conversation. The GS then comes in and
tells them everything they have just said. He then reveals that he not only
knew what they were saying, but he actually dictated TO them, via his
imagination, their conversation. I quote:
"The scholars being amaz'd at so unexpected a discovery, earnestly desir'd
him to unriddle the mystery. In which he gave them satisfaction, by telling
them, that what he did was by the power of Imagination, his Phancy binding
theirs; and that himself had dictated to them the discourse, they held
together, while he was from them: That there were warrentable wayes of
heightening Imagination to that pitch, as to bind anothers."
(snip)
"[A]nd I see not why the phancy of one man may not determine the cogitation
of another rightly qualified, as easily as his bodily motion. This
influence seems to be no more unreasonable, then that of one string of a
Lute upon another; when a stroak on it causeth a proportionable motion in
the sympathizing consort, which is distant from it and not sensibly
touched."
The entire point, then, of the SG story in Glanvill is to show how, through
the power of imagination, one person might be able to puargument that Boyd
makes concerning the effect of Hazel and John Shade's ghosts on Kinbote's
commentary? They bind his thoughts and contribute to his narrative.
I would also note that the path from Kinbote to Arnold to Glanvill seems
very similar to the path Boyd takes from Shade's "Here papa pisses" to
Browning's "Pippa Passes" to Mrs. Sutherland Orr's note about the origins
of the poem (Boyd 87-88). Thus, we have evidence that Nabokov liked this
kind of double allusion.
I'd be happy to hear thoughts on this.
Matthew Roth
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