JM: Bereft of Freudian sense or
not, JA's contribution on "linguistic proxy" comes close to what I think,
as regards VN's prose in general and not only HH's. I was
reminded of N.Tharne's views on Dante and Beatrice "...indeed he may have dreamed the whole poem, Borges
suggests, in order to engineer a re-encounter:..He receives her smile at the end of Paradiso only to
see her turn away from him forever. But Dante has gained the poem... "
* With a malevolent turn this also happens in Ian McEwan's
"Reparation" by Briony in relation to the pair of lovers she'd
forced apart. The writer power over past and future events can be,
fetichistically, extreme.
Stan K-B noted that since Dante and Beatrice were
8 and 9 when they first met "there is no HH/Lo or HH/Annabelle
syndrome." And yet, both HH/Annabel met as children (just like VN's
"first love", Colette , in SM. Poe, as we know, was in his late
twenties when he married his cousin Virginia Clemm, then 13 and
in a different direction, in Lolita, we read:"The only definite sexual events that I can
remember as having occurred before my thirteenth birthday (that is, before I
first saw my little Annabel)" whereas in Poe's Annabel poem
we find: I was a child and she was a
child,/In this kingdom by the sea;/But we loved with a love that was more than
love-I and my Annabel Lee, returning to the theme related to
courtly idealized love like Dante's.)
S K-B also criticized the comparison bt. Nabokov and
those romance autors who pursue inspiration by submitting to
literary constraints, with which I agree! I know that John Shade labored under the strictures of rhyme and
cadence almost successfuly **, but this
exceptional example remains the only clear example I can now bring to
mind.
In old classic movies there were often scenes in which
the hero, in the verge of falling in love, quoted lines by famous poets and his
heart fell head over heels ( a Borgian "wink of the metaphor" ) when the
beloved quoted back without resorting to Google. I always had the impression that to be truly English, or to fall
in love, you needed a quick memory for the "iambic motors" of a
thousand lines by Keats, Marvel, Pope and Shakespeare.
As if, when falling in love, it was Mnemosyne who
strived to find a mirror to kiss herself...(naughty Mnemosyne)
Fortunately these are mere movie ploys,
since I only know very few famous lines to recite. And yet, whenever I
read one or two lines by Shade there is an insistent mumble at the back of my
mind. As if another poet was trying to fall in step or finger the windowpane.
I could never get rid of this troubling rumble.
I Finally managed to spot one of these murmuring
moans in Shakespeare's sonnet XXX.
(I'd been trying to discover it through Eliot's
references *** but it didn't work. It had to do with feet and
jambes)
Shade wrote:(line 865/6) Now I shall spy on
beauty as none has/ Spied
on it yet. Now I shall cry out as";(line 924/5)Now I
shall speak of evil as none has/Spoken before....)"
The crazy not really matching rythm I heard
was: "Then can I grieve at grievances foregone..." [...]
Query: Has anyone experienced
something similar, this hidden noise, adding a familiar but forgotten depth to
Shade's lines? I wonder what poets would make their ghostly appearance that
way in some of the readers.
.........................................
* - Wikipedia extracts: Beatrice Portinari, real name Bice di Folco
Portinari [1] (1266–1290) was a woman from Florence, Italy, who was the
principal inspiration for Dante Alighieri's Vita Nuova. She also appears as his
guide in Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia) in the last book, Paradise, and in
the last four canti of Purgatory. There Beatrice takes over as guide
from the Latin poet Virgil because, as a pagan, Virgil cannot enter
Paradise and because, being the incarnation of beatific love, as her
name implies, it is she who leads into the Beatific vision [...] According to the autobiographic La Vita Nuova, Beatrice and Dante
met only twice during their lives. This statement, however, is highly
questionable[...] Even less credible is the numerology behind these encounters;
marking out Dante's life in periods of nine years. This amount of time falls in
line with Dante's repeated use of the number three or multiples of, derived from
the Holy Trinity[...] It is more likely that [...]Beatrice, like Petrarch's
Laura, seem to blur the line between an actual love interest and a means
employed by the poet in his creations[...].Dante first met Beatrice in Florence, his home city, when
he was nine years old and she was eight, around 1274. He... wrote in La
Vita Nuova: Ecce Deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi ("Behold, a deity
stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me.") he made great efforts to
ensure his thoughts of Beatrice remained private, even writing poetry for
another lady, so as to use her as a "screen for the truth" Dante's courtly love
for Beatrice continued for nine years...In one of Dante's dreams God made
Beatrice eat his flaming heart:"he made her to eat that thing which flamed in
his hand; and she ate as one fearing."[...]The manner in which Dante chose to
express his love for Beatrice often agreed with the Middle Ages concept of
courtly love. Courtly love was a secret, unrequited and highly respectful form
of admiration for another person.[...Dante's idea of] her being a force for
good that he fell in love with, a force which he believed made him a better
person. This is certainly viable, since he does not seem concerned with her
appearance - at least not in his writings.
T.S.Eliot: Four Quartets, East
Cocker:
**[...]A
periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the
intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not
matter.
***- John Shade (line 167/178): "There was a time in my demented youth"..."There was the day when...","there
was the sleepless night
" & line 993:
(Leaning against its lamppost like a
drunk.)
T.S. Eliot: [...]... there is a time for building
And a time
for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened
pane
[...] In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open
field, leaving the deep lane
[...]Where you lean against a bank while a van
passes...
John Shade( line 368): "Mother, what's grimpen" ..(line 499/500)"a blurry shape stepped off the reedy
bank/ Into a crackling, gulping swamp, and
sank.."[...] T.S.Eliot:In the middle, not only in
the middle of the way
but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On
the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters,
fancy lights,
Risking enchantment [...]