----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 7:47 PM
Subject: Flatman

from Andrew Brown:

He references primarily classics or old, obscure references ... one of which is Thomas Flatman, an English  poet 1637-1688, who wrote a poem called A Thought of Death which you may want to read. The Flatman reference is made by Kinbote speaking with Shade and the guys in the commentary note where one of the guys is trying to pronounce Professor Pnin's name. Make sure to give me credit for what you find there.

Dear Andrew Brown,

Mr Flatman seems to have evaded my library and both the local public and college libraries.  I do know that Professor Boyd has uncovered his panagyrics to Charles II and Professor Meyer has uncovered an interest in death and possibly nates. If you have found something else, I'd very much like to read it.

I don't think T S Eliot, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Swift, Pope, Shelley, Browning or R L Stevenson (I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody) can be classified as old and obscure, but certainly Flatman is both.

If you claim that Natochdag or Natogdag or Netochka is a major character in Pale Fire, please provide some evidence, since he appears to be a minor actor.  Miss Natochdag is a major character in one of Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales (The Deluge at Norderney) and Netochka Nezvanova, also female, is a major character in a minor work by Dostoevsky.

Carolyn Kunin