In various messages, jansy@AETERN.US writes:

In my opinion "allusions" do not determine the structure of a plot nor do
they become an integral part of the novel in which they occur. It is my
impression that our artist's choice of tropes ( and pastiche, allegory,
allusion, indication, reference...) in the process of building his novel
are, as concepts, often mentioned here in a rather hazy manner. It is as if
they had become divided and as interchangeable as what happens with all
those personalities that apparently branch out from the same physical body.

Very, very true. Shade and Kinbote are branches sprouting from VN. My feeling is that he had a sneaking sympathy for mad King Charles, and that he found the Shades of this world, and the even tenor of life at New Wye, just a little irksome. But he needed the job. Maybe I'm projecting my own feelings/experiences on this screen.

One life,—a little gleam of time between two Eternities. (Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.)

Merely the Anglo-Saxon sparrow, between the two dark ends of the mead-hall, re-phrased. Plagiarism.

Charles wrote: My unironic belief is that there is much more than a hint of Wordsworth in Shade's poem.

"There was a time when meadow, grove and hill" comes from Intimations of Immortality (which, imho, is a great poem.).

This should of course be "meadow, grove and stream" not "hill". Intimations of Immortality could perhaps be described as the Leitmotiv of Pale Fire, chapter, book and verse.

Walter wrote:

This is obviously poetry:

Hope is the thing with feathers

that flutters round the soul...

No.

He thought he saw an albatross

That fluttered round the lamp

No.

Worms play pinochle in your snout

The worms do creep in, they do creep out. But in England they play ping-pong (cf Kinbote) on your snout. Pinochle is not played in England. In my experience. Just a footnote.

Brevity is the soul of wit. Nevertheless Oscar Williams' jeu d'esprit might be clarified by inserting an extra stanza between I. and II. As follows:

Thy eye I eyed

[Thanks Will --- sonnet 104. Incidentally, does the idea that "Will" was an Eizabethan euphemism for penis, as asserted by someone a few postings ago, have any solid foundation? I haven't checked Partridge, but it sheds new light on Schopenhauer.]

Friday worse, and Saturday dead.

Plagiarism. And, anyway, Solomon Grundy died on Sunday.

This is getting out of hand. Frost's brief spot, though excessively elliptical, worries the thing out instructively. Imho.

Charles