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Subject: Pale Fire Line 992 Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 03:44:41 -0700 From: Barrie Akin <ba@TAXBAR.COM> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU> CC: Barrie Akin <ba@TAXBAR.COM>
Can anyone shed some light on this line for me? "(Leaning against its lampost like a drunk.)" Apart from the fact that my Penguin Modern Classics edition of PF uses the above spelling - "lampost" - which I take to be a typographical error for "lamppost", the oddity of this line for me is that I can't see the referent for "its". The full stop at the end of the line seems to rule out the dark vanessa of the next line - and anyway it would make no sense in the context if "its" referred to a butterfly in flight. And I can't see anything in the preceeding lines that could be doing the drunken leaning. This has irritated me for a long time - a seemingly superfluous line in the middle of (for me at least) some sublime verse. Can somebody put me out of my misery here - what am I missing?
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