Pale Fire  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
Revision as of 16:42, 20 February 2013
Jahsonic (Talk | contribs)

← Previous diff
Current revision
Jahsonic (Talk | contribs)

Line 5: Line 5:
==Explanation of the title== ==Explanation of the title==
-As Nabokov pointed out himself, the title of John Shade's poem is from [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Timon of Athens]]:'' "The moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Act IV, scene 3), a line often taken as a metaphor about creativity and inspiration. Kinbote quotes the passage but does not recognize it, as he says he has access only to an inaccurate Zemblan translation of the play "in his [[wikt:Timonian|Timonian]] cave"<!--Index, Kinbote, p. 308-->, and in a separate note he even rails against the common practice of using quotations as titles.+As Nabokov pointed out himself, the title of John Shade's poem is from [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Timon of Athens]]:'' "The moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Act IV, scene 3), a line often taken as a metaphor about creativity and inspiration. Kinbote quotes the passage but does not recognize it, as he says he has access only to an inaccurate Zemblan translation of the play "in his [[Timonian|Timonian]] cave"<!--Index, Kinbote, p. 308-->, and in a separate note he even rails against the common practice of using quotations as titles.
Some critics have noted a secondary reference in the book's title to ''[[Hamlet]]'', where the Ghost remarks how the glow-worm "'gins to pale his uneffectual fire" (Act I, scene 5). Some critics have noted a secondary reference in the book's title to ''[[Hamlet]]'', where the Ghost remarks how the glow-worm "'gins to pale his uneffectual fire" (Act I, scene 5).

Current revision

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Pale Fire (1962) is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a poem titled "Pale Fire" by a fictional author, with an introduction and commentary by a fictional friend of his. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are central characters.

The novel's unusual structure has attracted much attention, and it is often cited as an important example of metafiction. Pale Fire has spawned a wide variety of interpretations and a large body of written criticism. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel".

Explanation of the title

As Nabokov pointed out himself, the title of John Shade's poem is from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens: "The moon's an arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun" (Act IV, scene 3), a line often taken as a metaphor about creativity and inspiration. Kinbote quotes the passage but does not recognize it, as he says he has access only to an inaccurate Zemblan translation of the play "in his Timonian cave", and in a separate note he even rails against the common practice of using quotations as titles.

Some critics have noted a secondary reference in the book's title to Hamlet, where the Ghost remarks how the glow-worm "'gins to pale his uneffectual fire" (Act I, scene 5).

The title is first mentioned in the foreword: "I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator..."




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Pale Fire" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools