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RES: [NABOKV-L] Main characters in PF (M. Couturier)
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C.Kunin: But the only error I can see in calling the three main characters
S, K and G is that, if as Matt says it is the poem and not the novel that is
being indexed, the three main characters should by J, S and H (the Shades).
hmm - J,K; G,H; and S.
Jansy Mello: For me, in the long run of arguments, it became quite obvious
that its not the poem thats being indexed, but the commentary ( which is
the work, lovingly presented by a writer, C.K).[ ] C.Kinbotes
emblematic signature using a chess horse (the Knight that cannot use the K
for his algebraic notation because the K serves the King) confirms this
secondary role in a royal court. This implies in that he is twice an
usurper: of a Kings place (theres something in this line in Solus Rex
discussing the rightful heirs of a dying king) and of Shades poem.
M. Couturier: My feeling about who are the main characters in "Pale Fire"
hasn't changed in close to forty years, in fact since the first article,
written in English, that I published on Nabokov: I consider the author as a
key character. It is even more the case, I think, than in "LATH". "Pale
Fire" has greatly helped me articulate my theory of "the figure of the
author" (see "La Figure de l'auteur", Paris, Seuil, 1995)
Jansy Mello: I had been puzzled by the notation for the Knight as N and,
while investigating about it, I discovered there are games called fairy
chess where N represents a fairy nightrider.
I made a mistake in a former posting by associating this nightrider to the
Erlkönig proper, since in the lines, recited by C.Kinbote over and over
again during his flight and later reproduced in a commentary, it is a father
carrying a sick child the figure that rides in the night and wind. This
mistake, however, doesnt annul the connection between C.K, the nightrider
and Goethes verses.
Maurice Couturiers vision places the author, N, as a key character in the
novel: an interesting hypothesis to add to this mysterious imaginary figure
related to the King, to the Knight and to Fairy Chess.
When I googled after Vladimir Nabokov Fairy Chess I came to a very
interesting article relating the tactics of fairy chess problems to Pale
Fire. Ill only bring up an excerpt and a link to the 1996 paper: CHESS AS
TEXT: NABOKOV'S PALE FIRE by Berndt-Peter Lange*
Biographically, the composition of chess problems, more than tournament
play, was one of Nabokov's serious extra-literary occupations, to be
rivalled only by the study of butterflies. In his fictionalized
autobiography Speak, Memory, the author put the art of chess problem
composition on a level with his own poetry, and he deliberately placed the
two arts side by side int one book (in Poems and Problems).
[ ] Life is here seen in terms of a game of chess between unknown players
indulging in another one of its special forms, fairy chess, whose rules
allow imaginary pieces to make irregular moves:
... but there they were, aloof and mute,
Playing a game of worlds, promoting pawns
To ivory unicorns and ebon fauns;
Kindling a long life here, extinguishing
A short one there; killing a Balkan king;
[ ] Making ornaments
Of accidents and possibilities. (II. 818-829)
Along the same lines, Shade the poet eventually arrives at a view of the
intelligibility of life's "correlated patterns" through art - like his
poetry - "in terms of combinational delight" (971). As has been shown, the
combination in his own narrative concerns the conversion (as in pawn
promotion of chess) of the public event into private life - however futile
this might turn out to be. Like all of Nabokov's stories, Shade's is a
self-reflexive, skeptical one:
How ludicrous these efforts to translate
Into one's private tongue a public fate!
Instead of poetry divinely terse,
Disjointed notes, Insomnia's mean verse! (11. 231-234)
[ ] ..
* -SBORNfK PRACf FILOZOFICKE FAKULTY BRNENSKE UNIVERZITY
STUDIA MINORA FACULTATIS PHILOSOPHICAE UNIVERSITATIS BRUNENSIS
S 2, 1996 BRNO STUDIES IN ENGLISH 22
http://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/104294/1_BrnoStud
iesEnglish_22-1996-1_13.pdf
---
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S, K and G is that, if as Matt says it is the poem and not the novel that is
being indexed, the three main characters should by J, S and H (the Shades).
hmm - J,K; G,H; and S.
Jansy Mello: For me, in the long run of arguments, it became quite obvious
that its not the poem thats being indexed, but the commentary ( which is
the work, lovingly presented by a writer, C.K).[ ] C.Kinbotes
emblematic signature using a chess horse (the Knight that cannot use the K
for his algebraic notation because the K serves the King) confirms this
secondary role in a royal court. This implies in that he is twice an
usurper: of a Kings place (theres something in this line in Solus Rex
discussing the rightful heirs of a dying king) and of Shades poem.
M. Couturier: My feeling about who are the main characters in "Pale Fire"
hasn't changed in close to forty years, in fact since the first article,
written in English, that I published on Nabokov: I consider the author as a
key character. It is even more the case, I think, than in "LATH". "Pale
Fire" has greatly helped me articulate my theory of "the figure of the
author" (see "La Figure de l'auteur", Paris, Seuil, 1995)
Jansy Mello: I had been puzzled by the notation for the Knight as N and,
while investigating about it, I discovered there are games called fairy
chess where N represents a fairy nightrider.
I made a mistake in a former posting by associating this nightrider to the
Erlkönig proper, since in the lines, recited by C.Kinbote over and over
again during his flight and later reproduced in a commentary, it is a father
carrying a sick child the figure that rides in the night and wind. This
mistake, however, doesnt annul the connection between C.K, the nightrider
and Goethes verses.
Maurice Couturiers vision places the author, N, as a key character in the
novel: an interesting hypothesis to add to this mysterious imaginary figure
related to the King, to the Knight and to Fairy Chess.
When I googled after Vladimir Nabokov Fairy Chess I came to a very
interesting article relating the tactics of fairy chess problems to Pale
Fire. Ill only bring up an excerpt and a link to the 1996 paper: CHESS AS
TEXT: NABOKOV'S PALE FIRE by Berndt-Peter Lange*
Biographically, the composition of chess problems, more than tournament
play, was one of Nabokov's serious extra-literary occupations, to be
rivalled only by the study of butterflies. In his fictionalized
autobiography Speak, Memory, the author put the art of chess problem
composition on a level with his own poetry, and he deliberately placed the
two arts side by side int one book (in Poems and Problems).
[ ] Life is here seen in terms of a game of chess between unknown players
indulging in another one of its special forms, fairy chess, whose rules
allow imaginary pieces to make irregular moves:
... but there they were, aloof and mute,
Playing a game of worlds, promoting pawns
To ivory unicorns and ebon fauns;
Kindling a long life here, extinguishing
A short one there; killing a Balkan king;
[ ] Making ornaments
Of accidents and possibilities. (II. 818-829)
Along the same lines, Shade the poet eventually arrives at a view of the
intelligibility of life's "correlated patterns" through art - like his
poetry - "in terms of combinational delight" (971). As has been shown, the
combination in his own narrative concerns the conversion (as in pawn
promotion of chess) of the public event into private life - however futile
this might turn out to be. Like all of Nabokov's stories, Shade's is a
self-reflexive, skeptical one:
How ludicrous these efforts to translate
Into one's private tongue a public fate!
Instead of poetry divinely terse,
Disjointed notes, Insomnia's mean verse! (11. 231-234)
[ ] ..
* -SBORNfK PRACf FILOZOFICKE FAKULTY BRNENSKE UNIVERZITY
STUDIA MINORA FACULTATIS PHILOSOPHICAE UNIVERSITATIS BRUNENSIS
S 2, 1996 BRNO STUDIES IN ENGLISH 22
http://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/104294/1_BrnoStud
iesEnglish_22-1996-1_13.pdf
---
Este email está limpo de vírus e malwares porque a proteção do avast! Antivírus está ativa.
http://www.avast.com
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/