RSGwynn [to Jansy’s “You are indicating this new “Pale Fire Solus,” ie  where there’s no Kinbote recreating Shade. Do you consider, then, that this independent production, by Nabokov now, would explicitly shape itself following any contemporary poet, or its conception result from a poetic competition, instead of …what would be the term…traditional poetry?”]  I don't think there's much doubt that VN was intensely competitive, if that's what you mean.  Lowell's Mills is about the only thing in then-comtemporary poetry that's anything like "PF"--long narrative poems in rhymed pentameters.

 

Eric Hyman: May I make the fairly obvious suggestion that Shade is not much based on any single, identifiable poet but is (of course) partly composite, partly fiction.  And that is so I can suggest one possible component of that composite: Robert Browning.  I suggest Browning because his best known poetry is rhymed, enjambed narrative, like Pale Fire…

 

JM: Eric Hymann’s suggestion ( Browning’s rhymed, enjambed narrative, plus the hints about Browning in PF - and which go beyond the little play with “here Papa pisses” - making themselves felt in PF, but, mainly, his conclusion that Shade would not be based on any single identifiable poet) tranquilized me, as RSGwynn’s answer did not when he stressed the influence of Nabokov’s competitiveness over his poetic output and overall project.  After all, imnsho,  behind a heap of masks, I can hear Nabokov’s true emotions and substance being shaped in his verse:  PF is not only a parody or a display of technical skills.