NPPF Aunt Maud

[jbor]

on 2/9/03 11:40 AM, Don Corathers wrote:

> Lines 86-90: Aunt Maud
> 
> I think this group is already a bit ahead of where the author expected his
> readers to be at this point in plumbing Maud's eccentricities.

The thing that strikes me about this entry is just how thoroughly wrong
Kinbote's interpretation of the poem is. He writes: "At her [Maud's] death,
Hazel (born 1934) was not exactly a 'babe' as implied in line 90."

I don't for the life of me see that this is a relevant criticism of line 90.

One wonders though -- Kinbote answering Keith here perhaps -- whether there
is something in this superimposition of Hazel onto Maud. Given the lesbian
and incest speculations, the mirroring effects in the goings-on in the
Zemblan court and the Shade household, the lack of any mention in the poem
of Maud's presence as Hazel was growing up, and Hazel's latent emotional
disorders, is there cause to consider Maud as *Hazel's* seducer? Perhaps the
imagery in Shade's poem is a subconscious manifestation of the *parental*
shame and remorse he has tried to submerge since his daughter's suicide?

best