In a message dated 07/05/2010 23:55:00 GMT Daylight Time, Rsgwynn1@CS.COM
writes:
As I've said before, the
omission of the last line by Shade (and the "last" line is probably the first)
is part of the poem's clearly symmetrical structure. Leaving off this
line this would make line 500 the central line of 999 (only in a poem with an
odd number of lines can there be a central line). This line the marks
Hazel's death, and Hazel's death is clearly the "center" of the poem.
This is a non-sequitur. It answers the questions "Why would there have
been a line 1000?" and "Why would line 1000 have been the last line?" It
does not answer my question: << Why, why, why "presumably a repetition of
the first line at the end"? >>
The poem appears symmetrical in certain respects. This no more proves line
1000 = line 1 than that line 999 = line 2. And the poem is not
obviously circular or cyclical like Finnegans Wake.
As I said: << We have only Kinbote's word for it. Why should we
accept it? He doesn't even claim Shade told him there would be such a
repetition. As I pointed out last time round, the poem would read very oddly if
it did in fact end with the first line. Was my instigation of the Great
Competition on NABOKV-L to compose a last (not equal to first) line all in vain?
>>
Perhaps the line would have been a despairing glance into the
Abyss:
"So will the Competition be in vain?"
Or, as our revered editor SES more sublimely put it, subtly inverting past
and future in a clear allusion to Eliot's meditation on time in Burnt
Norton:
<< Was vying for a last line all in vain? >>
Anthony Stadlen
Anthony
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