NPPF: CANTO ONE - of Pheasants, Prodigals and Tasso

[cfalbert]

Apparently Chesterton stirs no interest, so we will move on... 
In the hope that this will light up mah niggaz on the P-list, and maybe,
just maybe, discomfit those coots........ 

Having concluded earlier that Nabokov is not primarily concerned with
"epigrammatic effects", let me now proceed to show where he employs such to,
at least my, great amusement..... 

Return to the matter of the pheasant and his tracks. As I pointed out in my
note, all pheasants, not resident in China, are, in effect, prodigals. Their
longing for home is noted in "finding your China". Less obvious is the
relationship of "Torquated" to this extended metaphor. Nabokov would not
likely be satisfied with the ornate term, or even the pun it effects on
"ring/Wring -necked"(until smothering is confirmed as more humane, the coup
de grace is delivered to game birds, not "cleanly head shot", by twisting
their neck). Even the recurring echo of torques association with lemniscate
(think of the latin root involving ribbons) will do......No, what "Old
McNab" does here is, well, eh......kinda brilliant.... 

I was very suspicious, for no particular reason, of this word - as it
appeared to be an adjectival derivative of Torquato, as in Tasso. 

No, I'm not a 18th century Italian poetry savant, but I DO recall that Tasso
was the original family name of the "Taxis" branch of the T&T of COL49.
(Note to N/P synthesists - Pynchon's source is likely limited to Alvin
Harlow's Old Post Bags). 

But where is the connection to Nabokov? 

Serendipity implored me to glance at my copy of the Arendt translation of
Eugene Onegin, particularly the notes. Within a few minutes I pulled a
direct reference to Tasso in the poem.

"A lonely boat, its paddles weaving,

Was on the slumbering river borne;

And wayward singing, and a horn

Charmed our ears, the silence cleaving...

Yet, 'mid nocturnal reveling

Torquato's octaves sweeter sing!"

Arendt translation - Chapter one - verse 48

 

 

Arendt is niggardly with detail, confining himself to the fact that Tasso is
the author of Jerusalem Revisited (there is that resurrection theme again -
JR, apparently is a story of crusading knights held captive by an
enchantress [sounds like a re-telling of the Lotus Eaters/Circe episodes of
the Oddyssey]) and Tasso is credited with the development of the "ottava
rima". 

Check 'resurrection', but I am not satisfied that I'm there yet..... 

Perhaps Nabokov, in his notes on Eugene Onegin, elaborates.........and
how.........The two lines of Arendt are expanded to two pages. This is the
part I like: 

"Finally, in 1829, accepting, as it were the Pilgrim's melancholy statement,
Pushkin, in the course of an unfinished elegy lists various remote lands
where he might seek to forget a "cruel mistress" and evokes Venice, where
the nocturnal boatman "does not sing Tasso." Vol. II, Eugene Onegin,
Commentary and Index, pg. 183 

Now recall that before the introduction of the pheasant, Nabokov refers to
"abstract larches" - and as we know, larches are the source of VENETIAN
Turpentine, which is employed as a paint thinner or solvent....

So now he has linked larches, pheasants, prodigals, torques, lemniscates,
Tasso  AND his beloved Onegin in a way that would make Pope proud......