Jancy,

 

>If there is a chronological discrepancy when we compare poem and commentary, one that turns John Shade into a prophet, why not entertain doubts about the commentator? 

 

Because these doubts are ours, they are based on our generic suppositions (as ‘a prophet’ Shade is practically always right, as ‘lunatic’ Kinbote is usually wrong) – not on specific facts (read, sentences) of fictional world of PF.

 

>If I am guilty of "integrational politics" it will be by having approached Kinbote's Gradus (the "transcendental tramp") to Kinbote's "Red Admiral", to his own "Clockwork gardener" and to "Doom".

 

I share in your belief that Gradus is important if not critical to fuller and better reading of PF. Here I include two quotes from your informative message.

 

(b) Kinbote writes about Gradus in his comments to lines 17 and 29:

 "We shall accompany Gradus in constant thought...following the road of its rythm..swinging down to the foot of the page as from branch to branch, hiding beneath two words...marching nearer in iambic motion...boarding a new train of thought...while Shade blots out a word..."

 

Cf. too Gradus (lines 131-132) : "The force propelling him is the magic action of Shade's poem itself,...powerful iambic motor...the inexorable advance of fate..."

 

Gradus is an interesting character. Kinbote invents him to connect Shade’s art (the poem) with Zembla fantasy. He had to as Shade did no cooperate, so to speak, with Zembla - in his poem. There is a hint at the very end of Commentary that Kinbote is apprehensive of approaching crash of his imagined world when “somebody” (meaning a different one), “more competent” (won’t miss the King this time) Gradus will ring at his (Botkin’s) door.

 

>Gradus and his red striped brown tie represents the opposite, i.e, Death itself, "doom", like the Red Admiral's wings with  "1881" also represented "doom".

 

The very moment we try to utilize illuminative nature of art (we do it always, aren’t we?), Gradus is born. If we are honest with ourselves we realize the futility of such utilization and at that moment “more competent Gradus” knocks the door, bringing ‘the doom’. [Speaking of reversal (cure) of split personality disorder, I admit that Botkin-Kinbote became united with Gradus at the moment he pulls the trigger on himself at novel’s fictional end.]

 

What I like the most is that ‘degree’ (=gradus, ru.) of bi-directional continuum between the art and ‘real’ world. That is what makes Pale Fire gravitational force that it is, pulling in our individual conceptions for what they are worth, in as much as we try (futilely or not so) to pull PF towards us. As Kinbote quoting St. Augustine (here I go againJ) - my favorite sentence from The Gift:

 

“Sunlight is good in the degree that it heightens the value of shade.”

 

In Gradus.

 

- George