NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph

[jbor]

>> I'm inclined to reject this idea. I don't think the
>> poem is "first-rate" in itself. I do think it's a
>> first-rate parody of a type of  pseudo-Eliotesque
>> bombast, however. In that sense, it's Nabokov's poem,
>> rather than Shade's, which might be called
>> "first-rate".

and

>> <<... and my stance on this is that it is Nabokov's
>> poem, as parody and satire, which is a far greater
>> achievement than Shade's, *even though it's exactly
>> the same poem ...>>

on 15/7/03 12:40 AM, Malignd at malignd at yahoo.com wrote:

> It's interesting to consider the idea that VN in
> service of the novel Pale Fire, made the poem Pale
> Fire second rate, if only in specific ways; i.e., ways
> that invest Shade's character and frame him in a
> particular way.  One might say (although, it states
> the case too crudely; nevertheless--) that the quality
> of the poem as VN's is inversely proportional to the
> quality of the poem as Shade's.
> 
> But a question, then:  if VN can, because of the
> context, be applauded for intentional weaknesses
> within the poem, can one not say the same about Shade?
> Could Shade deliberately muck about in his own poem
> in response to his own aesthetic demands, e.g., a
> rigorously honest self-revelation, say, to
> intentionally assume a more ordinary voice, a less
> refined talent than he's capable of, much as a
> novelist might, writing in the first person?
> 
> More broadly, can any poet elevate, by his own
> insisted-upon context and point of view, something
> that would otherwise be deemed second-rate?  Could
> Shade himself not create the context that turns his
> Brillo box of a poem into art?  I think the answer
> must be yes, if we're going to allow that that's true
> for VN's poem within the novel Pale Fire.

I've put forward Pope's 'The Rape of the Lock' as a touchstone for this. My
point is that Nabokov's context (and thus his purpose) is obviously quite
different to Shade's. It is not his daughter who committed suicide because
she was stood up at the outset of a blind date, and it is not he who
suffered a heart attack at the "Crashaw Club" while giving a talk on "'Why
Poetry is Meaningful to Us'", thought he glimpsed Heaven whilst unconscious,
and who then went in search of "Mrs Z.", who he believed had had the same
vision but discovered that the newspaper report on her near-death experience
had misprinted "fountain" for "mountain". This is all quite funny stuff in
itself, but that Shade, a supposedly respected poet if not a major one, has
used it as the substance for an overblown verse epic meditating on life,
death and art, is even funnier. Much of the comedy of it, I find, is at
Shade's expense, though there are moments of true pathos and of stylistic
prowess in the poem as well. (I don't think it's a matter of the quality of
the poem being "inversely proportional" at all.)

I find it difficult to believe that Shade would intentionally write a
"second-rate" poem (and it's not so much a question of it being
"second-rate", which is a subjective call made by the reader, as it is of
him composing and presenting such a mix of ridiculous, banal and apparently
tragic personal material in this manner), certainly not one in this style,
of this length, and on these subjects and themes. That Nabokov has him write
it makes all the difference. As I said, I think Nabokov satirises Shade
(through the poem and through the other components of the text), and I think
the poem itself is intended (by Nabokov, though not by Shade) as a parody.

There's one other point you've made which I'd contest. You wrote of

> the membrane
> between Nabokov's novel and the artifact that it
> contains (and that happens, the artifact, to coincide
> word for word with the entirety of Nabokov's novel).

I don't think this is correct. Nabokov's novel incorporates a dedication to
Véra, his wife, and (arguably, at least) the Epigraph from Boswell's _Life
of Samuel Johnson_, which are outside "the artifact that it contains".

best