NPPF - Preliminary - Pale Fire

[Jasper Fidget]

_Pale Fire_ was written 1960-1961, published 1962 by Putnam, a second
edition 1966 by Lancer, reprinted 1980 by Perigee.  Nabokov moved to
Switzerland in 1961 (where he lived out the remainder of his life), so this
was his last work created in America.  It was his 14th novel, the 5th in
English (after _The Real Life of Sebastian Knight_ [1941], _Bend Sinister_
[1947], _Lolita_ [1955], and _Pnin_ [1957]).

_Pale Fire_ is an "involuted" (or "self-reflexive") novel -- a novel that
contains the details concerning its own origin or composition.  An
antecedent is Andre Gide's _The Counterfeiters_ (1926) which is a diary kept
by a novelist about a work-in-progress called _The Counterfeiters_ (followed
in the same year by Gide's _Journal of The Counterfeiters_, the journal he'd
kept while writing the novel _The Counterfeiters_).  There's at least one
reference to Gide in _Pale Fire_.  Another example of an involuted novel:
Raymond Queneau's _Les Enfants du Limon_ (1938).  Anyone got more?

_Pale Fire_ is a fictional academic work -- a work of mock scholarship.
Some of Borges' stories come to mind.  There must be others...?

And it is a work that contains another work: this makes one think of
Elizabethan drama, especially _Hamlet_.

An antecedent for the fabula of _Pale Fire_ may be found in Gogol's "Diary
of a Madman" (1834), a narrative by a man who believes he is the King of
Spain and fails to realize that nobody else shares his delusions.  This
opens another interpretive possibility: that Kinbote, like Gogol's
Poprishchin, suffers from schizophrenia:
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7327/1475

Structurally, _Pale Fire_ probably evolved from VN's experience translating
Alexander Pushkin's _Eugene Onegin_ (1823-31), which contains a preface by
Nabokov, the translated poem, a large commentary, and finally an index
(supplied by VN's son Dmitri), all in proportions similar to those found in
_Pale Fire_ (although around four times the size).  

But PF has more than a passing similarity to other long poems, and these
have their own relation to the text:

-=T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets"=- 
http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/

The first five lines of which may seem particularly relevant:

"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable."

Shade even seems to adopt Eliot's style of indentation for certain verses
(someone with better poetry voodoo might explain their purpose, although I
recall being told it has to do with attempting to guide or ease the reader's
eye through transitions).

-=Alexander Pope's "The Dunciad"=-
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1628.html
http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=b6685

A poem in four "books" containing a preface, the poem, a commentary, and
notes, all composed by the author.  Note that John Shade is a Pope scholar
and a specialist in 18th century literature.

-=Lord Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"=-
http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/byron/childe1.html  

Consists of a Preface and four cantos.  From the Preface: "A fictitious
character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece;
which, however, makes no pretension to regularity."

Not that I'm trying to argue any particular point of view here....  Byron
(arguably) also shows up _Pale Fire_.

--There's also Pound's Cantos but I'm not sure VN thought much of Pound
(although he didn't seem to like Eliot all that much either).

--And of course Dante wrote in Cantos: http://www.bartleby.com/20/
Shade has a bust of Dante on his bookshelf.

akaJasperFidget