Dennis
2021-05-23 21:34:58 UTC
Bend Sinister, Nabokov's Political Dream -L.L. Lee
Above all, Ekwilism is an d must be opposed to the life of the Mind. As an acquaintance of Krug's holds (repeating Krug's thought): "Curiosity...is insubordination in its purest form." p.42) Ekwilism would destroy curiosity (i.e., any search for truth), although the lower kind of curiosity, the impulse to pry into other people's business, is made a virtue. Ekwilism would certainly destroy art, at least art as Nabokov understands it. Popular commonsense must spit out the caviar of moonshine and poetry, and the simple work, verbum sine ornatu, intelligible to man and beast alike, and accompanied by fit action, must be restored to power." p.98) These senselessly fumbled but frightening metaphors with their accent on action, an action that can mean only violence, are the language of the Ekwilist state - and the antithesis of art and artist. (It is not too surprising to discover that this sentence and part of the description of Fortinbras, which Nabokov gives to his Professor Hamm, are inspired variants of an actual sentence and certain remarks of Franz Horn, a n
I thinke I shall affect you,sir. This last speech of yours hath begun to make you deare to me.
Asotus. O god, sir. I would there were any thing in mee, sir, that might appeare worthy the least worthinesse of your worth, sir. I protest, sir, I should endevour to shew it, sir, with more then common regard, sir.
Crites. O here's rare motley, sir.
Amorphus. Both your desert, and your endeavours are plentifull, suspect them not: but your sweet disposition to travaile (I assure you) hath made you another my-selfe in mine eye, and strooke mee inamor'd on your beauties.
Asotus. I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir, and yet I would travaile too.
Amorphus. O, you should digresse from your selfe else: for (beleeve it) your travaile is your only thing that rectifies, or (as the Italian saies ) vi rendi pronto all' attioni, makes you fit for action.
In 1911, Gentlemen's Tailor Magazine investigated the construction of the doublet and reported:
"The tunic, coat, or whatever the garment may have been called at the time, is so strangely illustrated that the right hand-side of the forepart is obviously the left-hand side of the backpart, and so give[s] a harlequin appearance to the figure, which it is not unnatural to assume was intentional and done with express object and purpose.
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Nabokov - Bend Sinister 1947
Who is he?
William X, cunningly composed of *two left arms* and a mask?
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ALL FOOLS Chapman
And what is beauty? a meer Quintessence,
Whose life is not in being , but in seeming:
And therefore is not to all eyes the same
But like a cozening picture which one way
shows like a Crow, another like a Swan.
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Quintus Horatius Flaccus his Book of the Art of Poetry to the PISO'S.
transl. Ben Jonson
IF to a womans head, a painter would
A horse neck joyn, & sundry plumes or-fold
On every limb, ta'ne from a several creature,
Presenting upwards a fair female feature,
Which in a blacke foule fish uncomely ends:
Admitted to the sight, although his friends,
Could you containe your laughter? credit me,
That Book, my Piso's, and this piece agree,
Whose shapes like sick mens dreams are form'd so vain,
As neither head, nor foot, one forme retain.
**************************
Selfhood and the Soul
Shadi Bartsch
"The Ars Poetica, which began with a* disconnected human head as a sign of faulty poetic skill* now ends, with the three words 'plena cruoris hirudo',a leech full of blood" to indict not the untalented man, but the crazy one.'
***************************
Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy and the Figural
Shadi Bartsch
The Ars poetica’s teachings on propriety, then, touch on several interrelated themes that span the literal and the metaphorical. Figuratively, Horace opens with misplaced and missing limbs in order to populate a repeated metaphor for what epic and tragic poetry should avoid: lack of unity, purple passages, the grotesque. On the literal level, he informs us that certain kinds of subject matter have no place in tragedy, especially those related to the mutilation or consumption of the human body. Finally, when he mentions characters such as Thyestes or Lamia, their consumption of human body parts sets up a suggestive but underplayed parallel with the mutilation and rearrangement of the poetic text.
*****************************
Above all, Ekwilism is an d must be opposed to the life of the Mind. As an acquaintance of Krug's holds (repeating Krug's thought): "Curiosity...is insubordination in its purest form." p.42) Ekwilism would destroy curiosity (i.e., any search for truth), although the lower kind of curiosity, the impulse to pry into other people's business, is made a virtue. Ekwilism would certainly destroy art, at least art as Nabokov understands it. Popular commonsense must spit out the caviar of moonshine and poetry, and the simple work, verbum sine ornatu, intelligible to man and beast alike, and accompanied by fit action, must be restored to power." p.98) These senselessly fumbled but frightening metaphors with their accent on action, an action that can mean only violence, are the language of the Ekwilist state - and the antithesis of art and artist. (It is not too surprising to discover that this sentence and part of the description of Fortinbras, which Nabokov gives to his Professor Hamm, are inspired variants of an actual sentence and certain remarks of Franz Horn, a n
I thinke I shall affect you,sir. This last speech of yours hath begun to make you deare to me.
Asotus. O god, sir. I would there were any thing in mee, sir, that might appeare worthy the least worthinesse of your worth, sir. I protest, sir, I should endevour to shew it, sir, with more then common regard, sir.
Crites. O here's rare motley, sir.
Amorphus. Both your desert, and your endeavours are plentifull, suspect them not: but your sweet disposition to travaile (I assure you) hath made you another my-selfe in mine eye, and strooke mee inamor'd on your beauties.
Asotus. I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir, and yet I would travaile too.
Amorphus. O, you should digresse from your selfe else: for (beleeve it) your travaile is your only thing that rectifies, or (as the Italian saies ) vi rendi pronto all' attioni, makes you fit for action.
In 1911, Gentlemen's Tailor Magazine investigated the construction of the doublet and reported:
"The tunic, coat, or whatever the garment may have been called at the time, is so strangely illustrated that the right hand-side of the forepart is obviously the left-hand side of the backpart, and so give[s] a harlequin appearance to the figure, which it is not unnatural to assume was intentional and done with express object and purpose.
*******************************
Nabokov - Bend Sinister 1947
Who is he?
William X, cunningly composed of *two left arms* and a mask?
*******************************
ALL FOOLS Chapman
And what is beauty? a meer Quintessence,
Whose life is not in being , but in seeming:
And therefore is not to all eyes the same
But like a cozening picture which one way
shows like a Crow, another like a Swan.
*******************************
Quintus Horatius Flaccus his Book of the Art of Poetry to the PISO'S.
transl. Ben Jonson
IF to a womans head, a painter would
A horse neck joyn, & sundry plumes or-fold
On every limb, ta'ne from a several creature,
Presenting upwards a fair female feature,
Which in a blacke foule fish uncomely ends:
Admitted to the sight, although his friends,
Could you containe your laughter? credit me,
That Book, my Piso's, and this piece agree,
Whose shapes like sick mens dreams are form'd so vain,
As neither head, nor foot, one forme retain.
**************************
Selfhood and the Soul
Shadi Bartsch
"The Ars Poetica, which began with a* disconnected human head as a sign of faulty poetic skill* now ends, with the three words 'plena cruoris hirudo',a leech full of blood" to indict not the untalented man, but the crazy one.'
***************************
Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy and the Figural
Shadi Bartsch
The Ars poetica’s teachings on propriety, then, touch on several interrelated themes that span the literal and the metaphorical. Figuratively, Horace opens with misplaced and missing limbs in order to populate a repeated metaphor for what epic and tragic poetry should avoid: lack of unity, purple passages, the grotesque. On the literal level, he informs us that certain kinds of subject matter have no place in tragedy, especially those related to the mutilation or consumption of the human body. Finally, when he mentions characters such as Thyestes or Lamia, their consumption of human body parts sets up a suggestive but underplayed parallel with the mutilation and rearrangement of the poetic text.
*****************************