Dear list,
I realized I should have explained my point about flowerets better. I was referring to one of Boyd’s contentions in Nabokov’s Pale Fire:
…of all the flowers and “flowerets” in the English language there are only two that end “-et,” “bluet” and the much more common “violet,”…and clearly in Pale Fire too he [VN] has gone to a great deal of trouble to associate Shade’s “ready to become a floweret…” with the homosexual Kinbote…Are Shade’s lines a sly disclosure that in his preparation for the hereafter, he is ready to become the “pansy” Kinbote…? (121-2)
In coming across the term “floweret” in Ada (quoted in my original post), it occurred to me that the homosexual connotation Boyd finds may be misplaced. Indeed, Websters of 1952 defines “floweret” as “A small flower; a floret.” Leafing back to “floret,” we find: “1. In botany, a little flower; one of the little flowers in a clustered or compact infloresence, as in the Compositae or in the spikelet of grasses. 2. A kind of silk floss or yarn. 3. A fencing foil.”
Anyway, it’s but one of a mass of interesting points in a six year old book, and my quibbling with it is done in the good natured spirit of academic argument. In fact, I find most of Boyd’s book to be spine-tingling, and I bow to the inexhaustible research and inquiry behind it.
Will D.