Koen [to Don] "Michael Maar in
his recent study "Speak Nabokov" suggests the name being connected to the
christian saint associated to gays. Nabokovs brother and uncle were gay
and he himsels seems to have been very troubled with that (exactly as his father
who had written an article in favor of de-penalizing homosexuality in Russia).
Nabokov would have tried to imagine how Sergey, his brother, would have lived
his brothers attitude towards him... I'm always a little bit troubled though
with VN so insisting on keeping the life of the author out of literary
analysises."
JM: Wiki informs that it "is plausible
that the earliest gay icon was Saint Sebastian....the look on his face of
rapturous pain have intrigued artists both gay and straight for centuries, and
began the first explicitly gay cult in the 19th century.Due to Saint Sebastian's
status as gay icon, Tennessee Williams chose to use that name for the martyred
character Sebastian in his play, Suddenly, Last Summer. The name was also used
by Oscar Wilde—as Sebastian Melmoth—when in exile after his release from prison.
Wilde—Irish author, humorist and "dandy"—was about as "out of the closet" as was
possible for the late 1800s, and is himself considered to be a gay
icon." St. Sebastian is the patron saint of Rio and the city
was named "Cidade de São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro," in the sixteenth
century, as an homage to King Sebastian, of Portugal
From the reference to Wilde's and Tennessee
Williams' "Sebastian," Maar's arguments could be valuable indicators in
relation to Nabokov's choice of Sebastian to name his character. And yet,
Nabokov was interested in legends about kings whose bodies were never
recovered and who were expected to return from the dead to reign again in
great glory. The Portuguese kind, Sebastian, fits into this pattern.* Remnants of his cult (Sebastianism) persist in Portugal and even in
Brazil. His fame was not unknown to English playwrights, such as John Dryden (
in Sebastian Knight's bookcase there were books related to the Arthurian
legends, but no Dryden). His brother spends the night grieving at the bedside of
another moribund, mistaking him for his brother. V. never really
discovers a coherent story about his brother's (heterosexual) loves and
"real" life. Maar wrote "Speak, Nabokov" (a clever
title). Will he also write "The Real Life of V. Nabokov"?
Dryden's work is available on line:"DON SEBASTIAN. A TRAGEDY. Nee tarda senectus
Debilital vires animi, muiatque vigorem. Viro. [Don Sebastian. A Tragedy. Acted
at the Theatre Royal. Written by Mr. Dryden. Printed for Jo. Hindmarsh, at
the Golden Ball, in Cornhill, Mdcxc.—En.J
The following tragedy
is founded upon the adventures supposed to have befallen Sebastian, King of
Portugal, after the fatal battle of Alcazar. The reader may be briefly reminded
of the memorable expedition of that gallant monarch to Africa, to signalise,
against the Moors, his chivalry as a warrior, and his faith as a Christian. The
ostensible pretext of invasion was the cause of Muly Mahomet, son of Abdalla,
Emperor of Morocco; upon whose death, his brother, Muly Moluch, had seized the
crown, and driven his nephew into exile. The armies joined battle near Alcazar.
The Portuguese, far inferior in number to the Moors, displayed the most
desperate valour, and had nearly won the day, when Muly Moluch, who, though
almost dying, was present on the field in a litter, fired with shame and
indignation, threw himself on horseback, rallied his troops, renewed the combat,
and, being carried back to his litter, immediately expired, with his finger
placed on his lips, to impress on the chiefs, who surrounded him, the necessity
of concealing his death. The Moors, rallied by their sovereign's dying exertion,
surrounded, and totally routed, the army of Sebastian. Mahomet, the competitor
for the throne of Morocco, was drowned in passing a river in his flight, and
Sebastian, as his body was never found, probably perished in the same manner.
But where the region of historical certainty ends, that of romantic tradition
commences..."www.flipkart.com/book/...john-dryden-v.../0217286976
- Índia
....................................................................................................................................................
*
Despite the passage of many years, the conviction that Sebastian was still alive
grew into a kind of messianic cult that persisted into the early 20th
Century...Its devotees believed that the rei encuberto, or ‘hidden king’, was
either absent on a pilgrimage, or, like King Arthur in Avalon, was waiting on
some enchanted island until the hour of his second advent. So confident were
people that he would return, sales of horses and other items were sometimes
made, payable upon the second coming of King Sebastian. It was this fact that
induced Jean-Andoche Junot (October 23, 1771 - July 29, 1813), a French general
under Napoleon Bonaparte, when asked what he would be able to do with the
Portuguese, to answer: “What can I do with a people who were still waiting for
the coming of the Messiah and King Sebastian?” ...In Brazil, Sebastianism
accompanied the belief that Portugal’s colony would become the chief nation of
earth. Sir Richard Burton (1821 - 1890), the British explorer, translator, and
Orientalist, stated that he had met with Sebastianists in remote parts of Brazil
(Burton, R, Camoens, vol. i.p. 363, London, 1881...The Don Sebastian legend has a touch of the myth motif
of the Sleeping King, or King in the Mountain, which finds echoes in King
Frederick Barbarossa, Rip Van Winkle and also the Christian myth of the Seven
Sleepers... www.wilsonsalmanac.com/sebastianism.html
-