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Re: Fwd: Nabokov & a color question
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One had better google VN's writings first:
VN himself on page 113-14 of THE SONG OF IGOR'S CAMPAIGN (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1961), note to line 397 "sinee vino", blue wine:
"One recalls that the Greeks saw the dark-blue sea as wine-colored (for the
interpretation of which there is no need to drag in a reflected sunset as
some color-blind Homerians do). A very dark red wine does have a purple-blue
depth of tone like the southern seas -especially in warm patches near the
coast."
"...and the wine-dark washes of warmth in the chill blue-green of the
sea..." Ulthima Thule (A RUSSIAN BEAUTY & OTHER STORIES, p. 153, 1st
edition)
A. Bouazza.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Nabokov & a color question
> Dear Mary,
>
> I don´t know why we started the discussion about "purpureum" in a posting
> about "Ada" but when I selected that sentence about how school-boys could
> translate "purpureum", I forgot to add that it came from a site about a
> blind Scot poet, born in 1721: Thomas Blacklock. I would not have
returned
> to the list if I had not also remembered that in "Ada" Nabokov wrote about
a
> blind patient who suffered from "chromesthesia".
> I thought it would be fair to to add a longer paragraph to the sentence
that
> I had already sent, although it still doesn´t help us with the issue about
> how we came to discuss purple seas, nor does it seem to have any special
> connection with "Ada".
>
> "Mr Blacklock may attribute paleness to grief, brightness to the eyes,
> cheerfulness to green, and a glow to gems and roses, without any
determinate
> ideas; as boys at school, when, in their distress for a word to lengthen
out
> a verse, they find purpureus olor, or purpureum mare, may afterwards use
the
> epithet purpureus with propriety, though they know not what it means, and
> have never seen either a swan or the sea, or heard that the swan is of a
> light, and the sea of a dark colour. But he supposes, too, that Mr
Blacklock
> may have been able to distinguish colours by his touch, and to have made a
> new vocabulary to himself, by substituting tangible for visible
differences,
> and giving them the same names; so that green, with him, may seem
something
> pleasing or soft to the touch, and red, something displeasing or rough"
> ( Dr. Samuel Johnson took a special interest in this poet and the
complete
> text was found at "Significant Scots/ Thomas Blacklock" )
>
> ADA:
> "Old Paar of Chose had written him that the 'Clinic' would like him to
study
> a singular case of chromesthesia, but that given certain aspects of the
case
> (such as a faint possibility of trickery) Van should come and decide for
> himself (...) One Spencer Muldoon, born eyeless, aged forty, single,
> friendless, and the third blind character in this chronicle, had been
known
> to hallucinate during fits of violent paranoia, calling out the names of
> such shapes and substances as he had learned to identify by touch, or
> thought he recognized through the awfulness of stories about them (falling
> trees, extinct saurians) (...) until one evening, when a research student
> (R.S. - he wished to remain that way), who intended to trace certain
graphs
> having to do with the metabasis of another patient, happened to leave
within
> Muldoon's reach one of those elongated boxes of new, unsharpened,
> colored-chalk pencils whose mere evocation (Dixon Pink Anadel!) make one's
> memory speak in the language of rainbows, the tints of their painted and
> polished woods being graded spectrally in their neat tin container. Poor
> Muldoon's childhood could not come to him with anything like such iridian
> recall, but when his groping fingers opened the box and palpated the
> pencils, a certain expression of sensual relish appeared on his
> parchment-pale face. Upon observing that the blind man's eyebrows went up
> slightly at red, higher at orange, still higher at the shrill scream of
> yellow and then stepped down through the rest of the prismatic spectrum,
> R.S. casually told him that the woods were dyed differently - 'red,'
> 'orange,' 'yellow,' et cetera, and quite as casually Muldoon rejoined that
> they also felt different one from another.
> In the course of several tests conducted by R.S. and his colleagues,
Muldoon
> explained that by stroking the pencils in turn he perceived a gamut of
> 'stingles,' special sensations somehow allied to the tingling aftereffects
> of one's skin contact with stinging nettles (he had been raised in the
> country somewhere between Ormagh and Armagh, and had often tumbled, in his
> adventurous boyhood, the poor thick-booted soul, into ditches and even
> ravines), and spoke eerily of the 'strong' green stingle of a piece of
> blotting paper or the wet weak pink tingle of nurse Langford's perspiring
> nose, these colors being checked by himself against those applied by the
> researchers to the initial pencils. In result of the tests, one was forced
> to assume that the man's fingertips could convey to his brain 'a tactile
> transcription of the prismatic specter' as Paar put it in his detailed
> report to Van (...) He had dinner with old Paar in his rooms at Chose and
> told him he would like to have the poor fellow transferred to
Kingston(...)
> The poor fellow died that night in his sleep, leaving the entire incident
> suspended in midair within a nimbus of bright irrelevancy.
> ------------------------------------
> EDNOTE. "Old Paar" was a real person of whom there is a famous portrait.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 10:29 PM
> Subject: Fwd: Nabokov & a color question
>
>
> > Please forgive this question re Homer. Where else should I have asked?
> >
> > Jansy wrote: ". . . The homeric "purpureum" might not necessarily refer
to
> > a "wine-red sea" but to the absence of a word for blue. . ."
> >
> > Was there no word for blue when Homer wrote? I have heard that blue is
the
> > last color to be named in every language, but have heard no definite
> reason
> > why this is so. What about Athena's glaucous eyes, which Andrew Lang
> > translated as gray eyes and which somebody interpreted, in a program
about
> > Ulysses, as eyes of the most brilliant blue that television could
produce?
> > Was the sea wine-red because there was no word for blue? (I've not seen
> the
> > Mediterranean, but I've seen red wine and it's hard to imagine any sea
> that
> > color or any shade of "wine-dark". Maybe unfermented juice of purple or
> > black grapes? Or maybe on rare occasions, as during an unusual sunset?
Or
> > maybe I don't party often enough.)
> >
> > Mary Krimmel
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
> >
> >
> >
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
VN himself on page 113-14 of THE SONG OF IGOR'S CAMPAIGN (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1961), note to line 397 "sinee vino", blue wine:
"One recalls that the Greeks saw the dark-blue sea as wine-colored (for the
interpretation of which there is no need to drag in a reflected sunset as
some color-blind Homerians do). A very dark red wine does have a purple-blue
depth of tone like the southern seas -especially in warm patches near the
coast."
"...and the wine-dark washes of warmth in the chill blue-green of the
sea..." Ulthima Thule (A RUSSIAN BEAUTY & OTHER STORIES, p. 153, 1st
edition)
A. Bouazza.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Nabokov & a color question
> Dear Mary,
>
> I don´t know why we started the discussion about "purpureum" in a posting
> about "Ada" but when I selected that sentence about how school-boys could
> translate "purpureum", I forgot to add that it came from a site about a
> blind Scot poet, born in 1721: Thomas Blacklock. I would not have
returned
> to the list if I had not also remembered that in "Ada" Nabokov wrote about
a
> blind patient who suffered from "chromesthesia".
> I thought it would be fair to to add a longer paragraph to the sentence
that
> I had already sent, although it still doesn´t help us with the issue about
> how we came to discuss purple seas, nor does it seem to have any special
> connection with "Ada".
>
> "Mr Blacklock may attribute paleness to grief, brightness to the eyes,
> cheerfulness to green, and a glow to gems and roses, without any
determinate
> ideas; as boys at school, when, in their distress for a word to lengthen
out
> a verse, they find purpureus olor, or purpureum mare, may afterwards use
the
> epithet purpureus with propriety, though they know not what it means, and
> have never seen either a swan or the sea, or heard that the swan is of a
> light, and the sea of a dark colour. But he supposes, too, that Mr
Blacklock
> may have been able to distinguish colours by his touch, and to have made a
> new vocabulary to himself, by substituting tangible for visible
differences,
> and giving them the same names; so that green, with him, may seem
something
> pleasing or soft to the touch, and red, something displeasing or rough"
> ( Dr. Samuel Johnson took a special interest in this poet and the
complete
> text was found at "Significant Scots/ Thomas Blacklock" )
>
> ADA:
> "Old Paar of Chose had written him that the 'Clinic' would like him to
study
> a singular case of chromesthesia, but that given certain aspects of the
case
> (such as a faint possibility of trickery) Van should come and decide for
> himself (...) One Spencer Muldoon, born eyeless, aged forty, single,
> friendless, and the third blind character in this chronicle, had been
known
> to hallucinate during fits of violent paranoia, calling out the names of
> such shapes and substances as he had learned to identify by touch, or
> thought he recognized through the awfulness of stories about them (falling
> trees, extinct saurians) (...) until one evening, when a research student
> (R.S. - he wished to remain that way), who intended to trace certain
graphs
> having to do with the metabasis of another patient, happened to leave
within
> Muldoon's reach one of those elongated boxes of new, unsharpened,
> colored-chalk pencils whose mere evocation (Dixon Pink Anadel!) make one's
> memory speak in the language of rainbows, the tints of their painted and
> polished woods being graded spectrally in their neat tin container. Poor
> Muldoon's childhood could not come to him with anything like such iridian
> recall, but when his groping fingers opened the box and palpated the
> pencils, a certain expression of sensual relish appeared on his
> parchment-pale face. Upon observing that the blind man's eyebrows went up
> slightly at red, higher at orange, still higher at the shrill scream of
> yellow and then stepped down through the rest of the prismatic spectrum,
> R.S. casually told him that the woods were dyed differently - 'red,'
> 'orange,' 'yellow,' et cetera, and quite as casually Muldoon rejoined that
> they also felt different one from another.
> In the course of several tests conducted by R.S. and his colleagues,
Muldoon
> explained that by stroking the pencils in turn he perceived a gamut of
> 'stingles,' special sensations somehow allied to the tingling aftereffects
> of one's skin contact with stinging nettles (he had been raised in the
> country somewhere between Ormagh and Armagh, and had often tumbled, in his
> adventurous boyhood, the poor thick-booted soul, into ditches and even
> ravines), and spoke eerily of the 'strong' green stingle of a piece of
> blotting paper or the wet weak pink tingle of nurse Langford's perspiring
> nose, these colors being checked by himself against those applied by the
> researchers to the initial pencils. In result of the tests, one was forced
> to assume that the man's fingertips could convey to his brain 'a tactile
> transcription of the prismatic specter' as Paar put it in his detailed
> report to Van (...) He had dinner with old Paar in his rooms at Chose and
> told him he would like to have the poor fellow transferred to
Kingston(...)
> The poor fellow died that night in his sleep, leaving the entire incident
> suspended in midair within a nimbus of bright irrelevancy.
> ------------------------------------
> EDNOTE. "Old Paar" was a real person of whom there is a famous portrait.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 10:29 PM
> Subject: Fwd: Nabokov & a color question
>
>
> > Please forgive this question re Homer. Where else should I have asked?
> >
> > Jansy wrote: ". . . The homeric "purpureum" might not necessarily refer
to
> > a "wine-red sea" but to the absence of a word for blue. . ."
> >
> > Was there no word for blue when Homer wrote? I have heard that blue is
the
> > last color to be named in every language, but have heard no definite
> reason
> > why this is so. What about Athena's glaucous eyes, which Andrew Lang
> > translated as gray eyes and which somebody interpreted, in a program
about
> > Ulysses, as eyes of the most brilliant blue that television could
produce?
> > Was the sea wine-red because there was no word for blue? (I've not seen
> the
> > Mediterranean, but I've seen red wine and it's hard to imagine any sea
> that
> > color or any shade of "wine-dark". Maybe unfermented juice of purple or
> > black grapes? Or maybe on rare occasions, as during an unusual sunset?
Or
> > maybe I don't party often enough.)
> >
> > Mary Krimmel
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
> >
> >
> >
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----