NPPF some notes pp 224-235 (2)

[Jasper Fidget]

p. 230
"as Parmentier had his pet tuber undergo"

French agriculturalist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813) who
introduced the potato to France.
 
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11506a.htm


p. 231
"see note to line 664"

Whether this is a typo or if there's some deeper meaning, there is no note
to line 664; the Goethe reference is in the note to line 662.

p. 231
"Tanagra Dust"

Tanagra, a Boeotian town near Pindar's Thebes.  Birthplace of the Greek poet
Korinna (~500 BCE), one of the nine earthly muses, who according to
Pausanias defeated Pindar in a poetry competition.

"Korinna wrote choral poetry for celebrations using a Boeotian dialect.
Unlike Pindar, she focused on local myths, and drew parallels between the
world of mythology and ordinary human behavior."

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/glossary/bl_korinna.htm

Tanagra was also the site of a large battle in 457 BCE (First Peloponnesian
War) in which the Spartans defeated the Athenians (recorded by Thucydides).
The Peloponnesian Wars eventually ended in the domination of Sparta and the
destruction of Athens, so Gradus is more or less being equated with the end
of classical civilization.

http://www.lbdb.com/TMDisplayBattle.cfm?BID=412&WID=55

Tanagra is also a site where archeologists discovered terracotta figurines
dating from 330-200 BCE (recalling the cracked krater near the headless
statue of Mercury in the tunnel under the Onhava palace).

http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bycountry/germany/berlin/museums/altesmuseum
/ceramics/greece/tanagra/index.html

And finally in mythology Tanagra was the daughter of Aeolus and Enarete,
written of by Korinna, who married Poemander (another name worth
investigation qua PF) who named his city after her.  Later in life, Tanagra
was nicknamed Graea (shades of Gradus?).

http://www.forumromanum.org/mythology/tanagra.html

Graea may have formed some source material for Shakespeare's MacBeth: they
were three withered old crones who shared one eye and one tooth between
them, extorted by Perseus for information (he took their eye).  The word
Graea shares the root for "old man" and "old woman", so they may have
personified old age.

http://www.ndavidking.com/portfolio/graea.htm
http://www.dl.ket.org/latin1/mythology/2creatures/graeae.htm


p. 231
"/shargar/"

Has some similarity to garđr.  There must be more in this word though...?


p. 231
"'Lenin/grad/ /us/ed to be Petrograd?'  'A pri/g/ /rad/ (obs. past tense of
read) /us/?'"

Movement of time and change embodied again by Gradus as associated with
Leningrad / Petrograd.  "prig rad us" has a similarity to "prigorod," a
Russian suburb, which is derived from "grad" for city from which the word
"gorod" has evolved.  In the suburbs of St. Petersburg (aka Petrograd,
Leningrad) is the Vyra estate, once the summer home of the Nabokov family.


p. 232
"his eyesight was not too good"

Again, Gradus as a bat.

p. 232
"Oh my sweet Boscobel!"

Charles II of England's departure point into exile.


p. 232
"the maddening intimations, and the star that no party member can ever
reach"

Wordsworth's Intimations Ode again.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.

http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html


p. 233
"I am thinking of yet another Charles, another long dark man above two yards
high"

Charles II of England.


p. 234
"Edsel Ford"

The name of Henry Ford's son after whom the famously failed automobile is
named.  They were in production around the time Shade writes his poem and
Kinbote his commentary.

http://www.edsel.com/pages/edslford.htm

p. 235
"Now it is quieter" etc

Kinbote is completely alone now as his work nears completion.

p. 235
"two tongues"

Aside from Zemblan, English/American is the only non-Slavic language.
"American and European" would be VN himself.

Jasper Fidget