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Re: Nabokov and Pope: Mea Culpa (fwd)
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From: Kiran Krishna <kiran@Physics.usyd.edu.au>
Forgive my omissions. I did look for the mentions of Pope in Boyd's
book, but I forgot to check The American Years.
I note that, he has noted the Dunciad as an example, though he
doesn't actually quote from the poem. In The American Years, in discussing
the Eugene Onegin translation, he also says(page 354):
"Perhaps we would have to turn to an earlier century, to the Age of
Criticism, to Nabokov's detested eighteenth century, to find similar
examples of major authors at work on other major authors: Dryden
translating Virgil, Pope translating Homer, Johnson editing Shakespeare.
But the translations are utterly incomparable. Dryden and Pope did not so
much translate Virgil and Homer as rewrite them, as the Roman poet and the
Greek might have written had they been English gentlemen, devotees of
decorum, of powder and polish and rhyme."
But, he never makes the connection between that and Conmal's translation
of Shakespeare.(There probably is none.)
On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Galya Diment wrote:
> *** Boyd does mention both _Dunciad_ and the index in the _Pale Fire_
> chapter of _American Years_: "As a Pope scholar, Shade has before him the
> example of Pope's _Dunciad_, a poem also in four books and in heroic
> couplets, with eccentric annotations by an invented critic and a comic
> index: a parody of egotistic scholarship" (p. 443). References to Pope,
> albeit not to _Dunciad_, are also quite frequent in Boyd's _Nabokov's
> Pale Fire_, and there was a recent article by Lisa Zunshine on PF and _The
> Rape of the Lock_. GD***
>
> From: Kiran Krishna <kiran@Physics.usyd.edu.au>
>
> Mary, you are welcome.
>
> The Dunciad actually got published as a poem with notes and mock
> indices to each canto(The notes are still published in the John Butt
> edition, and most others. The Index, for some reason, is only published in
> the full collection, as far as I know), which is why I am amazed it
> doesn't rate a mention in Boyd's book.
>
> Of particular interest to me would be the translations, of which I
> know almost nothing. I would expect an allusion there. Has anyone done a
> study of the allusions to Pope? I would have thought there would have been
> plenty of those around the place.
>
> On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Galya Diment wrote:
>
> > From: mary krimmel <mkrimmel@sciti.com>
> >
> >
> > Thanks, Kiran!
> >
> > I never knew Pope beyond Essay on Man, but it's always been clear (hasn't
> > it?) that John Shade knew him well.
> >
> > You and Pope even give us a pale sun here. Your excerpt from The Dunciad
> > doesn't seem far-fetched to me. It's likely of special interest to the
> > Shade-wrote-the-notes and Kinbote-wrote-the-poem arguments. I don't know
> > these, was aghast at hearing about them, now intend to at least look at Boyd.
> >
>
> Cheers!
> yours
> Kiran
>
> "He saw the light....And then turned it off."
> -Peter Fletcher on A Person
>
> "Things are only obvious to people who already know."
> -Jonathan Dixon
>
> http://members.tripod.co.uk/Kiran_K
>
Cheers!
yours
Kiran
"He saw the light....And then turned it off."
-Peter Fletcher on A Person
"Things are only obvious to people who already know."
-Jonathan Dixon
http://members.tripod.co.uk/Kiran_K
Forgive my omissions. I did look for the mentions of Pope in Boyd's
book, but I forgot to check The American Years.
I note that, he has noted the Dunciad as an example, though he
doesn't actually quote from the poem. In The American Years, in discussing
the Eugene Onegin translation, he also says(page 354):
"Perhaps we would have to turn to an earlier century, to the Age of
Criticism, to Nabokov's detested eighteenth century, to find similar
examples of major authors at work on other major authors: Dryden
translating Virgil, Pope translating Homer, Johnson editing Shakespeare.
But the translations are utterly incomparable. Dryden and Pope did not so
much translate Virgil and Homer as rewrite them, as the Roman poet and the
Greek might have written had they been English gentlemen, devotees of
decorum, of powder and polish and rhyme."
But, he never makes the connection between that and Conmal's translation
of Shakespeare.(There probably is none.)
On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Galya Diment wrote:
> *** Boyd does mention both _Dunciad_ and the index in the _Pale Fire_
> chapter of _American Years_: "As a Pope scholar, Shade has before him the
> example of Pope's _Dunciad_, a poem also in four books and in heroic
> couplets, with eccentric annotations by an invented critic and a comic
> index: a parody of egotistic scholarship" (p. 443). References to Pope,
> albeit not to _Dunciad_, are also quite frequent in Boyd's _Nabokov's
> Pale Fire_, and there was a recent article by Lisa Zunshine on PF and _The
> Rape of the Lock_. GD***
>
> From: Kiran Krishna <kiran@Physics.usyd.edu.au>
>
> Mary, you are welcome.
>
> The Dunciad actually got published as a poem with notes and mock
> indices to each canto(The notes are still published in the John Butt
> edition, and most others. The Index, for some reason, is only published in
> the full collection, as far as I know), which is why I am amazed it
> doesn't rate a mention in Boyd's book.
>
> Of particular interest to me would be the translations, of which I
> know almost nothing. I would expect an allusion there. Has anyone done a
> study of the allusions to Pope? I would have thought there would have been
> plenty of those around the place.
>
> On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Galya Diment wrote:
>
> > From: mary krimmel <mkrimmel@sciti.com>
> >
> >
> > Thanks, Kiran!
> >
> > I never knew Pope beyond Essay on Man, but it's always been clear (hasn't
> > it?) that John Shade knew him well.
> >
> > You and Pope even give us a pale sun here. Your excerpt from The Dunciad
> > doesn't seem far-fetched to me. It's likely of special interest to the
> > Shade-wrote-the-notes and Kinbote-wrote-the-poem arguments. I don't know
> > these, was aghast at hearing about them, now intend to at least look at Boyd.
> >
>
> Cheers!
> yours
> Kiran
>
> "He saw the light....And then turned it off."
> -Peter Fletcher on A Person
>
> "Things are only obvious to people who already know."
> -Jonathan Dixon
>
> http://members.tripod.co.uk/Kiran_K
>
Cheers!
yours
Kiran
"He saw the light....And then turned it off."
-Peter Fletcher on A Person
"Things are only obvious to people who already know."
-Jonathan Dixon
http://members.tripod.co.uk/Kiran_K