NPPF: Preliminary: The Epigraph

[Malignd]

<<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.>>

I get your point, but calling it "a mix of ridiculous,
banal and apparently tragic personal material" is
certainly a "subjective call."  So I think your point
still rests on your particular evaluation of the poem.
 I think an objective standard will be, always,
elusive.  Part of the problem, part of the fun.

<<I don't think it's a matter of the quality of
the poem being "inversely proportional" at all.>>

This was just a rough way of paraphrasing what you're
saying; Nabokov's satirization of Shade will be at the
expense of the poem, as considered as Shade's; the
better the satire, the worse for Shade. 

<<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".>>

True enough. 


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