[NPPF] Canto Three: The English stuff.. hueshade

[cfalbert]

Don't give up, Pard......you were on  the right track..


"in the context, however, Pope's Zembla is an image not of distance but of
relativity - and relativity precisely where it might seem to have little
place, in matters of compass points and of vice. We cannot agree on the
location of 'th'Extreme of Vice' Pope suggests, any more than we can finally
settle where North is:

"Ask where's the North? At York, 'tis on the Tweed;
In Scotland, at the Orcades, and there,
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where:
No creature owns it in the first degree,
But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he."

The brilliant, multiplying jokes take the breath away; even Nabokov looks a
very modest magician alongside this performance. "It" is both vice and the
north, "owns" is both possession and confession; "degree" is latitude in
every sense and also grade, stage, grammatical term, social condition, and
what the dictionary calls a "step in direct geneological descent"; "farther
gone" makes sure that both geography and morality are still in play. This is
part of what Pope means when he speaks of his concision, says he can express
his 'principles, maxims or precepts...more shortly' in verse than in prose."

The Magicians Doubts - Michael Wood, pg 187

love,
cfa
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "s~Z" <keithsz at concentric.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 1:41 PM
Subject: Re: [NPPF] Canto Three: The English stuff.. hueshade


> >>>how we determine what definition or definitions (puns, anagrams, etc.)
> he has in mind when  he uses a particular word (i.e., Shadow) is not as
> easy as looking up successive definitions in a dictionary.<<<
>
> Damn. Just when I thought I'd found a short-cut.