[See EDNote below Sam Schuman's post]
Surely it is more important
to celebrate Nabokov's admiration for the works of Shakespeare, and the
many many ways in which those works are magically transmuted into VN's
novels than to rehash the anti-Stratfordian theories and/or the extent
to which the mature Nabokov subscribed to them...
--
Sam
Dr. Samuel Schuman
828 258-3621
559 Chunns Cove Rd. Asheville, NC 28805
sschuman@ret.unca.edu
[EDNote: I had wanted to comment on this thread, since the topic came
up in my work on the presentation I'll give at the Nabokov Museum in
St. Petersburg today. Interestingly, in his theory of authorship, in
which he argues strongly for the importance of the author's personality
as embodied in the text, Nabokov's friend Iulii Aikhenvald claims that
it makes no difference (to the plays themselves) whether Shakespeare,
Bacon, or Rutland wrote the plays in question. It also seems plausible
that Nabokov's poem was deliberately adopting a temporary
perspective--has a fictitious lyrical I, in other words, or--is one of
Nabokov's "serial selves," rather than a "sincere" or autobiographical
voice. Aikhenvald's comment is in the introduction (written circa
1910) to Silhouettes of Russian Writers. ~SB]