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THOUGHTS: Ada and Arcadia
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Mike M writes:
In 2004 Penny McCarthy published an essay which emphasized the degree to
which Ada genuflected toward Philip Sidney's romance. Entitled 'Nabokov's
Ada and Sidney's Arcadia: The Regeneration of a Phoenix', it went too far
into the realm of speculation, but highlighted along the way a substantial
number of correspondences. Last year I pointed out a few that she missed.
The annotations to Chapter 34 of Part One are now "live", as Jansy notified
us, so now may be a bad time to identify a few additional links to the
Sidney-Pembroke circle that show up in the first paragraph alone. And
Edward de Vere (Percy de Prey, Curdy Buff, etc) of course.
The frolic under the sealyham cedar, which was described a couple of pages
earlier as a "pretty Arcadian combination" of three, alludes to a pair of
poems written by Philip Sidney and published (prudently) 16 years after his
death, "Upon his meeting with his two worthy friends, and fellow-poets, Sir
Edward Dier, and Master Fulke Greville". Their tripartite friendship was
"intimate" (p. 44, "The Friend", by Alan Bray, about historical homosexual
relationships). Their meeting also took place in a "shady wood".
I should point out that Lucette and Blanche are feminized versions of two
"candidates" in the Shakespeare authorship question which so captivated
Nabokov, de Vere and Bacon, both of whom were of questionable sexuality.
Vere was associated with light, specifically candlelight, hence Lucette;
Bacon hailed from St. Albans, albus being white in Latin, hence Blanche.
You can read about the Vere-light link here http://lookingforshakespeare.
blogspot.com/2013/04/veres-enlightenment.html.
The number of words associated with light in this single paragraph is
rather copious: Golden, globes, lamps, glowed, lantern.
Any reference to green[ery] or emerald leads to Vere, who is vert in French.
A cunning Vere allusion by VN is the "kerosene reek", which is an updated
version of the "I hate the nosing of candlesticks" by Vere's enemy, Gabriel
Harvey, which, in the unlikely event you went to the link above, you will
fully understand.
"until the nocturna" -- alludes to the famous first mention of HAMLET (in
1589, by Thomas Nashe) which was a play "read by candlelight". Before it
was understood that "candlelight" meant Vere, the explanation for that
phrase was that is was a critique by Nashe of a mistranslation by Thomas
Kyd, the chosen playwright of the "original" Hamlet in place of Shaxper,
who would have been "too young". The Latin that was an alleged
mistranslation was "ad lumina", which Kyd loosely translated as "by
candlelight", which actually is perfectly reasonable in a poetic context.
Presumably VN knew that "until the nocturna" didn't mean "until the
midnight breeze". This is his way of drawing attention to the silly
rationalization that has held sway for decades. A fuller treatment is here
http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2013/04/hamlets-
and-man-who-mistook-de-vere-for.html .
You won't have missed the triple m-b-l : tumbling, stumbled, humbler. This
is a recurrent effect in Nabokov, and not just because the sound appealed
to him. There was a contemporary prose version of Shake-speare's 'Hamlet'
where the prince was called Hamblet, the m-b-l resulting from what David
Bevington has called a "pronunciation tic". If you see m-b-l in Nabokov,
keep your eyes open for a Shakespeare connection. VN wasn't the first to
adopt this, Shak's contemporary Ben Jonson for example used "amble" when he
wanted to attend to Hamlet; there are other examples that I can't think of
just now.
"Tumbling the foliage": having sex in the shrubbery. In Thomas Nashe's
"Summer's Last Will and Testament", the character of spring, Ver in Latin,
so named in the masque whereas the three remaining seasons were given
English names, is reprimanded, "Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy,
Think'st I will be derided thus of thee ?", and a bit later, for "giving
wenches green gowns", a phrase which meant in those days having sex in the
shrubbery. That was Vere, tumbling the foliage, as Hamblet.
Sidney connections: 'Sore' is the river on which Leicester stands, and
Sidney's maternal uncle was the Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's longtime
favorite. He's a "ribald nightwatchman". Leicester did have a reputation as
a philanderer. However, Sore also seems to be the "securely bribed old
glowworm" (Macbeth: "There 's not a one of them but in his house I keep a
servant fee'd.") Anything "worm" usually refers to Vere, ver in French
being worm. It appears that VN was switching attributes here or doubling
up. Vere was of French origin, ancestors from western Normandy, so
Burgundian will do.
"Propitious night ... impatient lovers": Romeo & Juliet.
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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/
In 2004 Penny McCarthy published an essay which emphasized the degree to
which Ada genuflected toward Philip Sidney's romance. Entitled 'Nabokov's
Ada and Sidney's Arcadia: The Regeneration of a Phoenix', it went too far
into the realm of speculation, but highlighted along the way a substantial
number of correspondences. Last year I pointed out a few that she missed.
The annotations to Chapter 34 of Part One are now "live", as Jansy notified
us, so now may be a bad time to identify a few additional links to the
Sidney-Pembroke circle that show up in the first paragraph alone. And
Edward de Vere (Percy de Prey, Curdy Buff, etc) of course.
The frolic under the sealyham cedar, which was described a couple of pages
earlier as a "pretty Arcadian combination" of three, alludes to a pair of
poems written by Philip Sidney and published (prudently) 16 years after his
death, "Upon his meeting with his two worthy friends, and fellow-poets, Sir
Edward Dier, and Master Fulke Greville". Their tripartite friendship was
"intimate" (p. 44, "The Friend", by Alan Bray, about historical homosexual
relationships). Their meeting also took place in a "shady wood".
I should point out that Lucette and Blanche are feminized versions of two
"candidates" in the Shakespeare authorship question which so captivated
Nabokov, de Vere and Bacon, both of whom were of questionable sexuality.
Vere was associated with light, specifically candlelight, hence Lucette;
Bacon hailed from St. Albans, albus being white in Latin, hence Blanche.
You can read about the Vere-light link here http://lookingforshakespeare.
blogspot.com/2013/04/veres-enlightenment.html.
The number of words associated with light in this single paragraph is
rather copious: Golden, globes, lamps, glowed, lantern.
Any reference to green[ery] or emerald leads to Vere, who is vert in French.
A cunning Vere allusion by VN is the "kerosene reek", which is an updated
version of the "I hate the nosing of candlesticks" by Vere's enemy, Gabriel
Harvey, which, in the unlikely event you went to the link above, you will
fully understand.
"until the nocturna" -- alludes to the famous first mention of HAMLET (in
1589, by Thomas Nashe) which was a play "read by candlelight". Before it
was understood that "candlelight" meant Vere, the explanation for that
phrase was that is was a critique by Nashe of a mistranslation by Thomas
Kyd, the chosen playwright of the "original" Hamlet in place of Shaxper,
who would have been "too young". The Latin that was an alleged
mistranslation was "ad lumina", which Kyd loosely translated as "by
candlelight", which actually is perfectly reasonable in a poetic context.
Presumably VN knew that "until the nocturna" didn't mean "until the
midnight breeze". This is his way of drawing attention to the silly
rationalization that has held sway for decades. A fuller treatment is here
http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2013/04/hamlets-
and-man-who-mistook-de-vere-for.html .
You won't have missed the triple m-b-l : tumbling, stumbled, humbler. This
is a recurrent effect in Nabokov, and not just because the sound appealed
to him. There was a contemporary prose version of Shake-speare's 'Hamlet'
where the prince was called Hamblet, the m-b-l resulting from what David
Bevington has called a "pronunciation tic". If you see m-b-l in Nabokov,
keep your eyes open for a Shakespeare connection. VN wasn't the first to
adopt this, Shak's contemporary Ben Jonson for example used "amble" when he
wanted to attend to Hamlet; there are other examples that I can't think of
just now.
"Tumbling the foliage": having sex in the shrubbery. In Thomas Nashe's
"Summer's Last Will and Testament", the character of spring, Ver in Latin,
so named in the masque whereas the three remaining seasons were given
English names, is reprimanded, "Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy,
Think'st I will be derided thus of thee ?", and a bit later, for "giving
wenches green gowns", a phrase which meant in those days having sex in the
shrubbery. That was Vere, tumbling the foliage, as Hamblet.
Sidney connections: 'Sore' is the river on which Leicester stands, and
Sidney's maternal uncle was the Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's longtime
favorite. He's a "ribald nightwatchman". Leicester did have a reputation as
a philanderer. However, Sore also seems to be the "securely bribed old
glowworm" (Macbeth: "There 's not a one of them but in his house I keep a
servant fee'd.") Anything "worm" usually refers to Vere, ver in French
being worm. It appears that VN was switching attributes here or doubling
up. Vere was of French origin, ancestors from western Normandy, so
Burgundian will do.
"Propitious night ... impatient lovers": Romeo & Juliet.
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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/