On contrafactum and "self-parody", here is
the quote I was looking for, from Strong Opinion, Vintage, page 95 ( interview
with Herbert Gold, Sept.,1966):
Question: "Clarence Brown of Princeton has pointed out striking
similarities in your work. He refers to you as "extremely repetitious" and that
in wildly different ways you are in essence saying the same thing ....Are
you consciously aware...that you strive for a conscious unity to your shelf of
books? "
VN's answer: "I do not think I have seen Clarence Brown's essay, but he may have
something there. Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many
others, past and present. Artistic originality has only its own
self to
copy."
............................................
In the interim, I became suspicious that Ada's Mlle Ida
Montparnasse doesn't primarily indicate Greek myths or the Parnassian poets,
ellaborate metaphors through history alone. There are "ida" and "montparnasse"
butterfly designations galore in SO. Our diamantine governess must
represent a particular crossing, hybridization, marvel
or monstrosity, which I leave to the entomologically inclined to point
out.. Pale Fire's "Luna Moth" makes its appearance in a critical review of
Audubon's Butterflies, Moths and Other Studies and the "lepidoptera they
(Audubon's sketches) burlesque." (SO,Vintage, p.329) The
papers on lepidoptera were included to the collection of interviews because
Nabokov took into account their "sufficient literary interest." (SO,314) to
harmonize with the "ridge" where art and science
meet.