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Re: Nabokov and the late Princess Margaret BOYD's ANSWER
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EDITOR's NOTE. ALthough my original off-hand inquiry about VN's relationship
with Princess Margaret was intended for amateur Nabokovians, a "ringer" seems to
have slipped in. Questions of ethics aside, BB does give the best answer, so I
have send him the $1000 prize and the "diamond tiara" that he refers to below.
Mail service to New Zembla is, however, notoriously unreliable.
-----------------------------------------
"Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" wrote:
>
> The identification of the poem's Peter and Princess with Peter Townsend and
> Princess Margaret was made by VN in a note to Bobbie Ann Mason that she
> reproduces on p. 185 of her NABOKOV'S GARDEN. I add to the information in my
> NABOKOV'S ADA, and purchasers of the second edition could have earned the
> $1000 prize and diamond tiara for first correct answer (which Don cannot
> forgive himself for forgetting to mention) simply by consulting the Index
> (s.v. "Margaret, Princess") of the second edition.
>
> I should add that the poem doesn't reek of Robert Browning to me, although
> "Robert Brown" obviously does. Nabokov cues Browning in another way
> (145.33-34: " 'Let her try the one about finding a feather and seeing
> Peacock plain,' said Ada drily-'it's a bit harder'": Browning's
> "Memorabilia," an apt poem to pick for a memory test), but "Poet Laureate
> Robert Brown" also evokes not Browning (who was never poet laureate), but
> Robert Bridges (who was poet laureate from 1913 to 1930, inluding therefore
> the whole time Nabokov was at Cambridge and was reading English verse
> intensely), although the style evokes, if anything, Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
> who WAS poet laureate 1850-1892, hence, if he exists in Antiterra, at the
> time (1884) Lucette is made to learn the poem, although not at the time
> (1844) Van says it was composed by "Poet Laureate Robert Brown."
>
> Robert Brown's name, however, like John Ray Jr.'s, is partly natural
> mimicry. As Liana Ashenden pointed out in her MA thesis on ADA (2000),
> Robert Brown was the name of the foremost botanist of his time (1773-1850).
> He is also invoked in naming Chateaubriand's mosquito, ADA 106.14
> ("Professor Brown"), and his special place in ADA perhaps derives from the
> fact that he was a great orchidologist who named, for instance, the orchid
> genus VANDA.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 2/19/2002 7:22 AM
> Subject: Nabokov and the late Princess Margaret
>
> EDITOR's NOTE. My question re the above brought only few replies. One
> from Russia by Alexey Sklyarenko, a translator of ADA, another from
> Alexander Justice, and a third that I have mislaid. Thanks to all.
>
> The answer is at the end of section I, chapter 23 of ADA. Van and Ada
> are trying to get rid of pesky eight-year-old Lucette so they continue
> their ebats. They offer her a prize book if she can memorize a poem in a
> set time. The poem is:
>
> "Here said the guide, was the field,
> There, he said was the wood.
> This is where Peter kneeled,
> That's where the Princess stood.
>
> No, the visitor said,
> You are the ghost, old guide.
> Oats and oaks may be dead,
> But SHE is by my side."
>
> The poem is in a small brown anthology owned by Van. He tells Lucette
> that the poem she is to learn is "...a tiny one ...composed in tears
> forty years ago by the poet Laureate Robert Brown, the old gentleman
> whom my father once pointed out to me up in the air on a cliff under a
> cypress, loooking down on the foaming turquoise surf near Nice, an
> unforgettable sight for all concerned. It is called 'Peter and
> Margaret'."
> It, of course, reeks of Robert Browning.
>
> Either VN or Brian Boyd (I forget) identified the poem as referring to
> the parting of Princess Margaret and RAF officer Peter Townsend in 1953.
>
> What can subscribers of NABOKV-L add to the story?
with Princess Margaret was intended for amateur Nabokovians, a "ringer" seems to
have slipped in. Questions of ethics aside, BB does give the best answer, so I
have send him the $1000 prize and the "diamond tiara" that he refers to below.
Mail service to New Zembla is, however, notoriously unreliable.
-----------------------------------------
"Brian Boyd (FOA ENG)" wrote:
>
> The identification of the poem's Peter and Princess with Peter Townsend and
> Princess Margaret was made by VN in a note to Bobbie Ann Mason that she
> reproduces on p. 185 of her NABOKOV'S GARDEN. I add to the information in my
> NABOKOV'S ADA, and purchasers of the second edition could have earned the
> $1000 prize and diamond tiara for first correct answer (which Don cannot
> forgive himself for forgetting to mention) simply by consulting the Index
> (s.v. "Margaret, Princess") of the second edition.
>
> I should add that the poem doesn't reek of Robert Browning to me, although
> "Robert Brown" obviously does. Nabokov cues Browning in another way
> (145.33-34: " 'Let her try the one about finding a feather and seeing
> Peacock plain,' said Ada drily-'it's a bit harder'": Browning's
> "Memorabilia," an apt poem to pick for a memory test), but "Poet Laureate
> Robert Brown" also evokes not Browning (who was never poet laureate), but
> Robert Bridges (who was poet laureate from 1913 to 1930, inluding therefore
> the whole time Nabokov was at Cambridge and was reading English verse
> intensely), although the style evokes, if anything, Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
> who WAS poet laureate 1850-1892, hence, if he exists in Antiterra, at the
> time (1884) Lucette is made to learn the poem, although not at the time
> (1844) Van says it was composed by "Poet Laureate Robert Brown."
>
> Robert Brown's name, however, like John Ray Jr.'s, is partly natural
> mimicry. As Liana Ashenden pointed out in her MA thesis on ADA (2000),
> Robert Brown was the name of the foremost botanist of his time (1773-1850).
> He is also invoked in naming Chateaubriand's mosquito, ADA 106.14
> ("Professor Brown"), and his special place in ADA perhaps derives from the
> fact that he was a great orchidologist who named, for instance, the orchid
> genus VANDA.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 2/19/2002 7:22 AM
> Subject: Nabokov and the late Princess Margaret
>
> EDITOR's NOTE. My question re the above brought only few replies. One
> from Russia by Alexey Sklyarenko, a translator of ADA, another from
> Alexander Justice, and a third that I have mislaid. Thanks to all.
>
> The answer is at the end of section I, chapter 23 of ADA. Van and Ada
> are trying to get rid of pesky eight-year-old Lucette so they continue
> their ebats. They offer her a prize book if she can memorize a poem in a
> set time. The poem is:
>
> "Here said the guide, was the field,
> There, he said was the wood.
> This is where Peter kneeled,
> That's where the Princess stood.
>
> No, the visitor said,
> You are the ghost, old guide.
> Oats and oaks may be dead,
> But SHE is by my side."
>
> The poem is in a small brown anthology owned by Van. He tells Lucette
> that the poem she is to learn is "...a tiny one ...composed in tears
> forty years ago by the poet Laureate Robert Brown, the old gentleman
> whom my father once pointed out to me up in the air on a cliff under a
> cypress, loooking down on the foaming turquoise surf near Nice, an
> unforgettable sight for all concerned. It is called 'Peter and
> Margaret'."
> It, of course, reeks of Robert Browning.
>
> Either VN or Brian Boyd (I forget) identified the poem as referring to
> the parting of Princess Margaret and RAF officer Peter Townsend in 1953.
>
> What can subscribers of NABOKV-L add to the story?