NPPF Preliminary: The Epigraph
s~Z
keithsz at concentric.net
Sat Jul 12 19:27:10 CDT 2003
I'm leaning towards this as the Boswell footnote Kinbote has in his black
pocketbook:
3 I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams,
and Dr. Johnson confirmed it.Bramston,
in his "Man of Taste," has the same thought:
"Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst."
[Johnson's meaning however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead, must be
the worst of all blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in
the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains, that all scholars
are blockheads, on account of their scholarship. -- J. BOSWELL.]
_________________________________________
The mention of having a Boswell footnote occurs on page 154. In the first
full paragraph of page 155, some 16 lines later, Shade confirms with an
"Exactly," Kinbote's suggestion that he regards negative book reviews as
"the blabber of a blockhead."
On a separate, but related topic, on page 267, Samuel Johnson is listed by
Shade as one of at least four people he has been said to resemble. Perhaps
Kinbote is one to have said such, and to have written the epigraph,
imagining himself to be Shade's Hodge.
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