NPPF Canto 1: 1-4 some random notes

[Michael Joseph]

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself. . . .

"Slain" also echoes Biblical language, which is exactly right for Shade
who contemplates transcendence, or a "feigned" (i.e., supposed; imaginary)
transcendence, a fairly conventional reading of "azure." The slaying could
conceivably have a secondary meaning in that Shade's implicit wish to
survive in his poetry is ironically granted in Kinbote's slaying of its
meaning and beauty. Kinbote of course peers in at Shade's windowpane, and
just as "azure" signifies (See Milton) the vault of Heaven, it also
signifies the blue color in coats of arms thus the "false azure" could
well represent the clownish Kinbote's delusion of being the self-exiled
King Charles: a false King.

If someone has discussed the form of the opening, I apologize for possible
duplication, but I awnt to point out that it seems very like a form of
Welsh poetry, such as we see for example in the Song of Amergin:

"I am the womb of every holt,
"I have been in many shapes....
I am the blaze on every hill,
I have been a drop in the air.
I am the queen of every hive,
I have been a shining star.
I am the shield to every head,
I have been a word in a book. ...
I am the tomb to every hope."
I have traveled, I have made a circuit,
            -- THE SONG OF AMERGIN.

... and The Hanes taliesin

THE BATTLE OF THE TREES.

      "I have obtained the muse from the Cauldron of Cerridwen;
       I have been bard of the harp to Lleon of Lochlin;
       I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn...."
            -- THE HANES TALIESIN.

... which Nabokov could conceivably have seen in several places,
including Graves's The White Goddess (1948).

These poems are generally considered to be involved with religious beliefs
and are incantatory - a telling choice for someone like Shade who, as
Brian Boyd points out, has "dedicated his whole life to fighting the
"inadmissible abyss" of death
(http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/boydpf1.htm), and for someone
like Nabokov, of course, who famously said "I do not believe in time." The
form is also possibly interesting for another, unrelated, reason: the
voice of the poem is multiple; that is, the "I" does not refer to one
single persona, but to multiple personae, or a transpersonal corporate
identity.


Michael