VLVL2 and NPPF: The Nature of Reality (part 1)

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Tim Strzechowski
> 
> The nature of reality is a theme introduced and explored both in the
> "Foreward" to Pale Fire and Chapter One of Vineland.
> 
> Early in the "Foreward," Kinbote declares that Shade's poem "contains not
> one gappy line, not one doubtful reading" (14).  To illustrate, Kinbote
> explains how "our professed Shadeans" dismiss the poem as "disjointed" and
> textually inadequate, yet they've made this claim "without having seen the
> manuscript of the poem" [italics are Nabokov's].  Furthermore, Kinbote
> replies to the statements of Prof. Hurley that the existing Shade poem is
> "only a small fraction" of the full work Shade intended to write.  In
> response, Kinbote references a 7/25/59 document by Sybil Shade which
> indicates otherwise, and recalls a conversation he himself had with Shade
> to demonstrate that, save for the final line, the poem was finished.
> 
> Here, Nabokov is deliberately and skillfully using the very nature of
> literary analysis itself to examine and question the nature of reality.
> When assessing the value of a work of art, how much must one consider the
> "drafts" or manuscript of the work versus the Fair Copy?  How much
> credence can one give to a letter written by a secondary source like a
> spouse (vs. the author himself)?  How much credence can be given to an
> alleged comment made by the author in confidence to a secondary source?
> Finally, at what point must the reader consider the literary artifact
> itself a self-contained work of art, a work of art that must be judged on
> its own merits, without benefit of biographical data, secondary
> scholarship, drafts of the writing-in-process, etc. (questions many of us
> wrangled with in our college Lit. Crit. courses, I'm sure)?
> 
[...]


Admirable work, Tim.  Perhaps we should note that PF was written while most
American college lit departments were rooted in New Criticism.  I wonder
what we can make of Kinbote's decidedly *non* New Critic approach to "Pale
Fire", especially when taken in conjunction with its allusions to Eliot, who
wrote that a poem should be treated "primarily as poetry and not another
thing," independent and self-contained.  While K seems to give the New
Critics ample justification for their principles, what to make of _Pale
Fire_ the novel, which *is* poetry and "another thing"?  Did VN agree with
the New Critics?  Does PF help prove their case or does it work to refute
it? 

Jasper