NPPF: Notes C.1-4 - C.42

[jbor]

>> C.1-4
>> pg 73
>> "a bird knocking itself out": Kinbote assumes the bird has not died,
>> although this is not stated explicitly in the poem.

on 23/8/03 11:22 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:

> And it's important to know this if we hadn't gathered it already. The
> bird's survival can be seen (perhaps only retrospectively) as a bit of
> foreshadowing. 
> 
> (or perhaps the bird really is dead :-))

I think "slain" is pretty conclusive, as far as Shade's poem goes. Kinbote's
very first entry indicates to the reader just how prone to "irresponsible
embellishment" he is, and how badly he misinterprets the text. There's no
mention in the poem of Shade picking up the bird, for example, and Kinbote
misreads lines 3-4 as though they imply that the actual bird "Lived on, flew
on" when in fact it's purely a metaphysical conceit, a flight of Shade's
self-characterising fancy.

best