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Glori / Nabokoviana / Torquated beauty
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Jerry Friedman brought exciting tidbits about "Ada's Ardour" and special
poetic qualms.
I hesitated if I should write my commentary on pheasants here, with his note
or following Victor Fet's information.
I hope I made the right decision.
Don posted a note on "Torquated beauty" and brought to my attention
"Jerusalem Delivered", a tragedy written by Torquato Tasso, who went insane.
I doubted that I could find a link bt Tasso's historical fantasy and "Pale
Fire" when I remembered Goethe, who was so struck by Tasso that he wrote a
play named "Torquato Tasso", where he describes the suffering and
hesistations of "laureate poets": if it is best to rest the quill after
success or risk to continue writing less illumined poems ( could this apply
to VN writing "Pale Fire" after Lolita's success?).
And yet, Goethe's drama provides a very tedious reading. But in its First
Act, scene one, we find two Leonore princesses holding an anadem made of
laurel leaves. They are planning to crown the busts of two poets ( at left
and right sides of the stage): Vergil's and Ariosto's.
There is a bust in "Pale Fire" : it lies in Shade's study and it is of
Dante...
I would avoid going even deeper in the practice of "stretching things a
bit" - by linking a chance "torquated" with a16th Century poet - were it
not for another very small detail. I had always wondered why Kinbote
described Shade, while burning his rejected cards, practicing a "backyard
Auto-de-Fé" .
Torquato Tasso himself had suffered so intensely under the demands of his
muse and sensed in it a "demonic possession" that he thought he'd bargained
his soul with the devil. His certainty grew so strong that he turned himself
in to the Inquisitor Ferrara ( in June 1577). Despite Ferrara's absolution
Torquato's soul was not in peace...
Jansy
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poetic qualms.
I hesitated if I should write my commentary on pheasants here, with his note
or following Victor Fet's information.
I hope I made the right decision.
Don posted a note on "Torquated beauty" and brought to my attention
"Jerusalem Delivered", a tragedy written by Torquato Tasso, who went insane.
I doubted that I could find a link bt Tasso's historical fantasy and "Pale
Fire" when I remembered Goethe, who was so struck by Tasso that he wrote a
play named "Torquato Tasso", where he describes the suffering and
hesistations of "laureate poets": if it is best to rest the quill after
success or risk to continue writing less illumined poems ( could this apply
to VN writing "Pale Fire" after Lolita's success?).
And yet, Goethe's drama provides a very tedious reading. But in its First
Act, scene one, we find two Leonore princesses holding an anadem made of
laurel leaves. They are planning to crown the busts of two poets ( at left
and right sides of the stage): Vergil's and Ariosto's.
There is a bust in "Pale Fire" : it lies in Shade's study and it is of
Dante...
I would avoid going even deeper in the practice of "stretching things a
bit" - by linking a chance "torquated" with a16th Century poet - were it
not for another very small detail. I had always wondered why Kinbote
described Shade, while burning his rejected cards, practicing a "backyard
Auto-de-Fé" .
Torquato Tasso himself had suffered so intensely under the demands of his
muse and sensed in it a "demonic possession" that he thought he'd bargained
his soul with the devil. His certainty grew so strong that he turned himself
in to the Inquisitor Ferrara ( in June 1577). Despite Ferrara's absolution
Torquato's soul was not in peace...
Jansy
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