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Re: CHW to Jerry
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In a message dated 21/10/2006 17:17:49 GMT Standard Time,
NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
Okay, you and Charles Wallace Emerson have convinced me that that
one's okay. There are still all the other inventions that we've
discussed.
Dear Jerry,
Thanks for that concession. I have often been reminded in this discussion of
the words of Frost:
"Scholars get their knowledge with conscientious thoroughness along
projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of
books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like
burrs where they walk in the fields." Robert Frost, source unknown.
Although Pale Fire, the poem, is hardly poetry, at least not as I know it
(although Sam Johnson might make a case for it), VN writes his prose as a poet
would. Thus Pale Fire, the book, is a poem, in which nothing is stuck to
deliberately. But bits stick to the author, like burrs. Progressing along
sholarly lines of logic is therefore doomed, I fear.
Incidentally, your real name wouldn't be Emerald, would it?
All the best,
CHW
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NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
Okay, you and Charles Wallace Emerson have convinced me that that
one's okay. There are still all the other inventions that we've
discussed.
Dear Jerry,
Thanks for that concession. I have often been reminded in this discussion of
the words of Frost:
"Scholars get their knowledge with conscientious thoroughness along
projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of
books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like
burrs where they walk in the fields." Robert Frost, source unknown.
Although Pale Fire, the poem, is hardly poetry, at least not as I know it
(although Sam Johnson might make a case for it), VN writes his prose as a poet
would. Thus Pale Fire, the book, is a poem, in which nothing is stuck to
deliberately. But bits stick to the author, like burrs. Progressing along
sholarly lines of logic is therefore doomed, I fear.
Incidentally, your real name wouldn't be Emerald, would it?
All the best,
CHW
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