Jansy,
I will hazard a guess that the PF index lists Shade as poet and scholar
and Kinbote as doctor more because that is the correct way to list
those entries than because the author of Pale Fire is hoping thereby to
bolster a relationship between his novel and a novel by Robert Louis
Stevenson. The real mystery the PF index offers is the inclusion of an
obscure soul named Botkin, V., who, unless we readers have missed
something, seems to have played a part in neither John Shade’s poem nor
Dr. Kinbote’s thoroughly comprehensive and reliable commentary. The
line references seem confused, though the final definition of bodkin as
a Danish stiletto is interesting enough. Or has our scholar mistaken a
stiletto for the weapon of choice of exiled noblemen who have been
taunted and tormented until even stillicide itself seems preferable to
endless pursuit by treasonous conspirators.