GSL: "Sorry, I don't see any omniscience.The italics in general seem to be used simply as a way of setting of a block of text from the surrounding text without any pattern that I can discern, except, I'll grant you, throughout the TV sequence where it does seem pretty clear to serve to indicate that the text is a projection of Shade's imagination ...(and) just to blur the line between reality and imagination."

Simon Rowbery: "I think italics are something to be wary of when regarding omniscience within the poem, especially since Kinbote reveals in the note to line 403, 'I have italicized the Hazel theme'. It is Kinbote himself indicating his presence in editing the poem, rather than Shade acknowledging an external all-knowing source...Finally, as the italics show, Kinbote is not afraid to modify the poem. Therefore, why did he not append his line 1000 onto the poem's end?"

JM: Indeed, I forgot about Kinbote's revelation ("...italicized the Hazel theme"). Simon R observes that CK wasn't afraid to modify the poem, although he refrains from adding its 'missing' line.

We'll never know how far Kinbote's editing has interfered with the original notecards (he might even be lying about his 'italicizing'), nor if Canto IV was originally intended to be read in its two split-up moods (Shade's sequence of cards could have been displaced. So, inspite of having lost their reason, they still retained their rhyme and rythm). Rowbery's hypothesis, related to CK's wish to show his presence in the editing, doesn't suggest the intention to blur the line between reality and imagination (as Gary advanced), but it adds a suspension, or an eery intransitiveness, to the isolated items.

PS: Stan, you complained about VN's use of "omoplates". What do your anglophonic hearing make out of "to concave", "coccyx" and, sure, the "scapulae," in the sentence that conjures the italicized "ensellure"? (Cf."...whenever she concaved her back while moving her prominent scapulae to and fro and tilting her head ...— Van, who had drawn up to her seat as close as he dared, could see down her sleek ensellure as far as her coccyx.")

On Oct 23, 2010, at 3:43 PM, Jansy wrote:

Dear List,

While I was trying to locate PF's verses "man's life as commentary," I realized that, once in a while, the poem admits an "omniscient narrator" perspective, or an external intrusion.
Kinbote acknowledges his "hearsay" evidence (when he relies on Jane Dean's notes, for example). In Shade's poem they are marked by "italics." (when he can know what Hazel said to the busdriver, or how the watchman came from his shack to rescue her, side by side with what describes dialogues heard on the TV or read the inscription on a bark).

I don't know if there are other instances, similar to these.  Nor if the use of "italics" is indicative of various other types of warning signals. Any ideas?

1.    Life is a message scribbled in the dark.

2. He took one look at her, / And shot a death ray at well-meaning Jane.

3. "Sure you don’t mind?/ I’ll catch the Exton plane, because you know / If I don’t come by midnight with the dough —"

4. More headlights in the fog. There was no sense/ In window-rubbing: only some white fence / And the reflector poles passed by unmasked.


5. "I think," she said,/ "I’ll get off here." "It’s only Lochanhead." / "Yes, that’s okay." Gripping the stang, she peered/ 460   At ghostly trees. Bus stopped. Bus disappeared.

6. Out of his lakeside shack/ A watchman, Father Time, all gray and bent, / Emerged with his uneasy dog and went / Along the reedy bank. He came too late.

7. Man’s life as commentary to abstruse / Unfinished poem

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