R S Gwynn
commented on "I thought that M. Buttle's rendering about T.S.Eliot,
annotations and the Erlkönig in a parody could serve to emphasize aspects of
T.S.Eliot's work which might have equally inspired VN." and wrote
that "the PF
allusion to Goethe is not the first one. But I'm not sure where I saw it
first--Bend Sinister... I'm pretty sure it appears somewhere before PF....
Eliot, of course, references it in The Waste Land.In PF the reference seems to
relate to Hazel's being spirited away into the "other" land.I also noted the
conversation between Sybil and John Shade concerning the possible spiritual
manifestations from the dead Hazel. This passage seems to connect with the
famous husband-wife dialogue in TheWaste Land. "
JM: In former
N-List postings it is possible to follow the discussion on the PF allusion to
Goethe, where T.S.Eliot's notes are linked not only the Erlkönig
but to Webster's "The White Devil"( items also found in B.Boyd's book on
Pale Fire, The Magic of Artistic Discovery) and placed in relation to the noise
of the wind rapping against a window. In the background there is a
reference to a body that has not been properly buried and, perhaps, a
connection to James Joyce's first chapters in Finnegans Wake, where he mentions
funerals and a fox.
I didn't check these items in the
List, they are just reminders for those who want to pursue this theme
further. The connection bt. the conversation bt. Sybil and John Shade
and the husband-wife dialogue in "The Waste Land" seems to be a very important
new item!
R.S.Gwynn, on
"little scissors, synthesis of sun and star", notes that JS "is standing in front of a
sunlit window as he pares his nails and may be describing the reflection of
sunlight in the chrome/stainless steel of the nail scissors. The
problem is that "sun" and "star" aren't exactly the Nabokovian thesis-antithesis
that leads to synthesis, since the sun is a star, etc....And he doesn't even
mention fingernail "moons."
JM: There are
various N-List postings discussing this matter [including VN's denial of a link
with T.S.Eliot using the word "garrulous" (jaseur) ]. I suppose VN was
familiar with G.M. Hopkins since he mentions him explicitly in
"Lolita" and maintains a similar fondness for "dappled things". There is a poem
by Hopkins that describes nail parings and the moon, but it is difficult to know
if it could have impregnated VN's imagery. It has nothing to do with sun
(or any other star), nor with scissors or nail paring itself. The lines I have
in mind are: " the moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a fingernail held
to the candle, or paring of paradisical fruit" ( different from the "fingernail
moons" R S Gwynn also saw as being absent in Shade's poem.)
In relation to the lines "Old
Pan would call from every painted hill" (326) R S Gwynn sees in them
" a reference to Hazel's (likely)
permanent viriginity (323) and the fact that she will never be summoned to the
procreative rituals of this fertility god...". What struck me here was the word
"painted" and I thought it might suggest the artistic trend when bucolic scenes
with nymphs lulling among flowers, often displayed Pan and satyrs. The
"painted hill" introduces a representational distance bt. the Shade's not so
intensely passionate love life, or Hazel's own ( as RSG justly pointed
out)
R S Gwynn brings
up MR's question about commentary (C.894), what is the
"eerie note that had throbbed by" to which the German visitor replies, "Strange,
strange"? and conjectures that "...Maybe the German has figured out that Shade, in his circumspect
way, is trying to conceal Kinbote's identity? Anyway, he drops the subject
at this point." Here we return to Kinbote's own version about the
Erlkönig in which he takes the "Alder king" as a pederast, not as
a figure related to Death ( as, I think, had been Goethe's original
intention). There are particular associations that more often belong to a
reader's private field of experience and although they are evoked by VN cannot
be correctly referenced. I'm familiar with various German Lieder ( among which
we find Schubert's Erlkönig ) that emphasize this far, far away "eerie
note" related to various seductions ( I was reminded of "Die Lorelei", but
there are various other "notes throbbing by" in my -merely personal -
reminiscings ). Perhaps we could add to R.S.Gwynn"s "Shade is trying to
conceal Kinbote's identity... and homosexuality".