Subject
Re: "My husband...has not read much Frost."
From
Date
Body
I wonder if Vera Nabokov's "much Frost" might not be a bit like Jonson's
description of Shakespeare's learning -- "little latin:" that is, a lot
depends upon how one defines "little" or "much..." In the Nabokov
household, I suspect, to read "much" of an author would mean reading most
of that writer.
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Mary H. Efremov <mbutterfly549@aol.com>wrote:
> I would suppose that a widely read man asVN was, was widely read in
> American poetry and that he had read Frost. Disclaimers from Vera via Field
> somehow do not convince me heavily.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: G S Lipon <glipon@INNERLEA.COM>
> To: NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Mon, Oct 8, 2012 11:17 am
> Subject: [NABOKV-L] "My husband...has not read much Frost."
>
> Wondering about the evidence for
> VN's intentions in writing *Pale Fire*, the poem,
> and his own estimate of its worth,
> I remembered some mention of VN's attempt
> to sell the poem to a magazine,
> the New Yorker I think it was that turned him down;
> and so eventually I floundered upon
> Brian Boyd's post to the list from
> december two thousand, five (12/15/05).
>
> Here Boyd is arguing that VN felt pleased with the poem [overall]:
>
> In reply to some questions Andrew Field sent while preparing *Nabokov:
> His Life in Art*, Véra Nabokov answered on 11 December 1965, quoting
> VN directly:
>
> " 'To be quite frank, Shade's poem is a rather good Nabokov poem, and
> the allusion to Frost is incidental and meant only to give local color.' We
> read somewhere in a review that the poem was mediocre, obscure and a parody
> of something or other. Sources: 'A pinch of Pope perhaps, as form goes.'
> My husband admits that apart from the poem about the little horse in the
> wintry woods, he has not read much Frost."
>
> It is the last statement that surprises. *My husband...has not read much
> Frost*.
>
> That VN had not read much Frost strikes me as rather odd.
> Nabokov loved verse, especially Eugene Onegin,
> and wrote verse himself usually in a traditional metric form.
> That Nabokov was a traditionalist and formalist
> vis-a-vis verse should seem self-evident.
> And yet he has hardly read the similarly oriented Frost,
> renowned for his skill in strong forms.
>
> Perhaps, as they say, the operant word here is *much*;
> and open to wide interpretation.
>
> It's possible though that Nabokov who studied at Trinity College,
> Cambridge, 1919?-1923?
> Frost may not have been officially read, even though he was promoted by
> Pound.
>
> A Boy's Will (1913)
> North of Boston (1914)
> Mountain Interval (1916)
> New Hampshire (1923) [Includes: Stopping by Woods...]
>
> Frost's early books met with considerable success, I believe.
> [and allowed him to pursue versification full-time?]
> Frost may not have been the poet of choice for the literati in the early
> sixties
> but his reputation was, in its own populous way, roughly equaled to Eliot.
>
> And VN was obviously familiar with Eliot.
>
> Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
> Poems (1919)
> The Waste Land (1922)
> Ash Wednesday (1930)
> East Coker (1940)
>
>
> So I find *My husband...has not read much Frost *difficult to believe.
>
> Clearly he was discouraging readers
> from unduly identifying Shade with Frost,
> but would he lie about his awareness of Frost to his biographer towards
> that end?
>
> Should the reader just laugh and say,
> "Of course he read Frost..."?
>
> Did VN expect the reader to see an obvious, therefore ironic, lie here?
>
> Kinbote note for line 426 gives:
>
> Frost is the author of one of the greatest short poems in the English
> language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart, about the wintry
> woods, and the dreary dusk, and the little horsebells of gentle
> remonstration in the dull darkening air, and that prodigious and poignant
> end—two closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal and
> physical, and the other metaphysical and universal. I dare not quote from
> memory lest I displace one small precious word.
> *With all his excellent gifts, John Shade could never make his snowflakes
> settle that way.*
>
>
> Is this then not to be read as a tribute to Frost,
> with Shade as a stand-in for VN?
> Would VN place such a tribute in Kinbote's note
> if it wasn't based upon some degree of familiarity with Frost's work.
>
> Curious about anyone else's thoughts or observations.
>
> /~gsl
>
>
>
>
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com/> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
> All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
--
Sam
Dr. Samuel Schuman
828 258-3621
559 Chunns Cove Rd. Asheville, NC 28805
sschuman@ret.unca.edu
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/
description of Shakespeare's learning -- "little latin:" that is, a lot
depends upon how one defines "little" or "much..." In the Nabokov
household, I suspect, to read "much" of an author would mean reading most
of that writer.
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Mary H. Efremov <mbutterfly549@aol.com>wrote:
> I would suppose that a widely read man asVN was, was widely read in
> American poetry and that he had read Frost. Disclaimers from Vera via Field
> somehow do not convince me heavily.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: G S Lipon <glipon@INNERLEA.COM>
> To: NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Mon, Oct 8, 2012 11:17 am
> Subject: [NABOKV-L] "My husband...has not read much Frost."
>
> Wondering about the evidence for
> VN's intentions in writing *Pale Fire*, the poem,
> and his own estimate of its worth,
> I remembered some mention of VN's attempt
> to sell the poem to a magazine,
> the New Yorker I think it was that turned him down;
> and so eventually I floundered upon
> Brian Boyd's post to the list from
> december two thousand, five (12/15/05).
>
> Here Boyd is arguing that VN felt pleased with the poem [overall]:
>
> In reply to some questions Andrew Field sent while preparing *Nabokov:
> His Life in Art*, Véra Nabokov answered on 11 December 1965, quoting
> VN directly:
>
> " 'To be quite frank, Shade's poem is a rather good Nabokov poem, and
> the allusion to Frost is incidental and meant only to give local color.' We
> read somewhere in a review that the poem was mediocre, obscure and a parody
> of something or other. Sources: 'A pinch of Pope perhaps, as form goes.'
> My husband admits that apart from the poem about the little horse in the
> wintry woods, he has not read much Frost."
>
> It is the last statement that surprises. *My husband...has not read much
> Frost*.
>
> That VN had not read much Frost strikes me as rather odd.
> Nabokov loved verse, especially Eugene Onegin,
> and wrote verse himself usually in a traditional metric form.
> That Nabokov was a traditionalist and formalist
> vis-a-vis verse should seem self-evident.
> And yet he has hardly read the similarly oriented Frost,
> renowned for his skill in strong forms.
>
> Perhaps, as they say, the operant word here is *much*;
> and open to wide interpretation.
>
> It's possible though that Nabokov who studied at Trinity College,
> Cambridge, 1919?-1923?
> Frost may not have been officially read, even though he was promoted by
> Pound.
>
> A Boy's Will (1913)
> North of Boston (1914)
> Mountain Interval (1916)
> New Hampshire (1923) [Includes: Stopping by Woods...]
>
> Frost's early books met with considerable success, I believe.
> [and allowed him to pursue versification full-time?]
> Frost may not have been the poet of choice for the literati in the early
> sixties
> but his reputation was, in its own populous way, roughly equaled to Eliot.
>
> And VN was obviously familiar with Eliot.
>
> Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
> Poems (1919)
> The Waste Land (1922)
> Ash Wednesday (1930)
> East Coker (1940)
>
>
> So I find *My husband...has not read much Frost *difficult to believe.
>
> Clearly he was discouraging readers
> from unduly identifying Shade with Frost,
> but would he lie about his awareness of Frost to his biographer towards
> that end?
>
> Should the reader just laugh and say,
> "Of course he read Frost..."?
>
> Did VN expect the reader to see an obvious, therefore ironic, lie here?
>
> Kinbote note for line 426 gives:
>
> Frost is the author of one of the greatest short poems in the English
> language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart, about the wintry
> woods, and the dreary dusk, and the little horsebells of gentle
> remonstration in the dull darkening air, and that prodigious and poignant
> end—two closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal and
> physical, and the other metaphysical and universal. I dare not quote from
> memory lest I displace one small precious word.
> *With all his excellent gifts, John Shade could never make his snowflakes
> settle that way.*
>
>
> Is this then not to be read as a tribute to Frost,
> with Shade as a stand-in for VN?
> Would VN place such a tribute in Kinbote's note
> if it wasn't based upon some degree of familiarity with Frost's work.
>
> Curious about anyone else's thoughts or observations.
>
> /~gsl
>
>
>
>
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com/> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
> All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
--
Sam
Dr. Samuel Schuman
828 258-3621
559 Chunns Cove Rd. Asheville, NC 28805
sschuman@ret.unca.edu
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/