<h3>''Butterfly Larva''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/butterfly_larva.png" style="float:left">The caterpillar, or larva, hatches from the egg that has been laid by an [[adult->Butterfly Adult]]. Most larvae feed on plants, but a few eat other insects. Some larvae retain plant toxins into the adult stage as [[protection for the butterfly->Mimicry in Butterflies]]. Many species have developed symbiotic relationships with ants, which protect the larvae in return for food. At the right time, the larva forms a [[chrysalis->Butterfly Pupa]] (or cocoon) form which [[the Imago->Imago]] emerges. The larva's coloration normally mimics the wings of an adult.<h3>''Butterfly Adult''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/butterfly_adult.png" style="float:left">The adult is also known as the //[[Imago]]//, a creature that cannot fly until has dried its wings for one to three hours. All butterflies have four wings and six legs, and can feed only on liquids. Butterflies are territorial, have excellent vision, sometimes [[micic->Mimicry in Butterflies]] others, or [[migrate->Red Admirable]] long distances. See [[Psyche]] and [[Leptosia nina]].<h3>''Mimicry in Butterflies''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/mimicry_in_butterflies.png" style="float:left">Batesian mimicry involves identical markings in two species where one is poisonous and the other is not. In Mullerian mimicry both [[subjects->Subject]] are poisonous and derive mutual benefit from the "enharmonics." One individual in each vertical pair (above) is a Batesian mimic. See [[enharmonics in music->Enharmonics in Music]] and [[speech->Enharmonics in Speech]], [[Nabokov on mimicry->Nabokov on Mimicry]], and [[telos->Telelogical]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Imago''</h3>
Latin root of the English //image// and //imagination//. 1: an [[adult butterfly->Butterfly Adult]], or any insect, normally winged, in its sexually mature state. 2. an [[idealized mental image->Shade on His Art]] of teh self or another person (often formed in response to one's parents). See //[[Imago Dei]]//, [[conlang->Constructed Languages]], and [[Psyche]].<h3>''Imago Dei''</h3>
Belief that the human person is created in the [[image->Imago]] of God. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27). Human life is therefore [[of inherent meaning, worth, and purpose->Telelogical]], independent of individual activities, roles, or functions. Humans, like God, have conscience, personality, free will, intellect, and a moral nature. Though not God, the human person [[embodies the regency->Regicide]] or imminence of God in the material world and represents the means whereby God is self-actualized in creation.<h3>''Constructed Languages''</h3>
Artificial languages that have sprung from the [[imagination->Imago]] of individuals or groups, and that have not evolved naturally. Unlike mathematical or programming languages, "conlangs" [[are designed->Telelogical]] to be spoken to other people. Of the more than 300 known conlangs, Esperanto and Klingon are two of the more famous. Fiction writers who have invented languages to [[make fantastic worlds come alive->Zembla]] include Tolkien (Elvin and Hobbit), and [[Nabokov->Vladimir Nabokov]] ([[Zemblan]]). Tolkein coined the term //glossopoeia// in reference to constructed languages.<h3>''Psyche''</h3>
The mortal Psyche is married to the god Cupid, whom she loses by betraying her promises never to look at him. To regain his love, she descends to [[the underworld->Tsalal]] to retrieve Persephone's box of [[pure beauty->Shade on His Art]] as a gift to Venus. In hubris, she applies the beauty to her own face and dies. Cupid, who has loved Psyche all the while, [[wipes away the mask of death->Kinbote on Providence]] and resurrects Psyche, whereupon she is [[metamorphosed->Metamorphosis of Idea]] into a god. In the lower case, //psyche// was the Greek word for [[soul->Mythopoetic Meaning of Butterfly]], [[mind->Kinbote on "The Mind"]], and [[butterfly->Butterfly Adult]]. See [[Psychogenic]] and [[Leptosia nina]].<h3>''Telelogical''</h3>
From Greek //telos//, a goal-driven purpose or end. 1. the study of [[evidences of design->Mimicry in Butterflies]], especially in nature; the doctrine that [[ends and purposes->Leptosia nina]] can be detected in nature; the explanation of natural phenomena, including the [[human person->Imago Dei]], in terms of final causes 2. the attribute of nature in which processes are seen as [[directed toward an end->Kinbote on Providence]] or [[shaped by a purpose->Butterfly Pupa]] 3. any [[imagination->Imago]] of [[design or purpose->Shade on His Art]] used to explain natural phenomena. The [[fugue->Fugue]] is telelogical, as is //[[Pale Fire]]//, the [[arrow->Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow]], the [[morphology of butterflies->Butterfly Larva]], and [[getting an education->Etymology of "Gradus"]]. Se [[Nabokov on mimicry->Nabokov on Mimicry]] and [[conlang->Constructed Languages]].<h3>''Zembla''</h3>
In [[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] Index to //[[Pale Fire]]//, Zembla is called a cryptic "distant northern land." But in his commentary on I. 894 of [[John Shade's->John Shade]] poem, Kinbote describes Zembla as "a land of [[reflections->Retrograde]], of [[resemblers->Mimicry in Butterflies]]," to which Shade responds: "Resemblances are [[the shadows->Tsalal]] of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences." Zembla is the world of [[metaphor->Metaphor]] and simile, not a real place, but of Kinbote's [[imagination->Imago]]. Figuratively, Zembla is the opposite of [[New Wye]], the archetype of a "real" place because it exists in the material world. See [[Nabokov on mimicry->Nabokov on Mimicry]] and [[Zemblan]].<h3>''Vladimir Nabokov'' (1899-1977)</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/vladimir_nabokov.png" style="float:right">Russian writer, [[lepidopterist->Lepidopterist]], [[synesthete->Synesthesia]], and student of chess problems-author of many short stories and nine novels, including the controversion //Lolita// (1955) and [[contrapuntal->Counterpoint]] //[[Pale Fire]]// (1967). In additional to its typically Nabokovian [[wordplay->Xavier]], [[mimicry->Nabokov on Mimicry]], and [[symbols->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]], //Pale Fire// exemplifies [[metafiction->Metafiction]] and the prefiguration of [[hypertext->Hypertext]], the conceptual basis behind the Internet. See the [[Red Admirable]] and [[Shade's creative method->Shade's Creative Method]].<h3>''Zemblan''</h3>
[[Constructed language->Constructed Languages]] spoken in [[Zembla]]. [[Charles Xavier Kinbote]] calls it "our magic Zemblan," and quotes Conmal's, "the tongue of the [[mirror->Retrograde]]." Resembling Russian, Zemblan sometimes echoes Old English, as in the translation of a couplet from Marvell's "The Nymph on the Death of her Fawn."
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Id wodo bin, war id lev lan
Indran iz lil ut roz nitran.
|==|
Had it lived long it would have been / Lilies without, roses within.<h3>''Leptosia nina'' ([[Psyche]])</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/leptosia_nina.png" style="float:left">Of the family Pieridae, the [[Psyche]] is found in the lower ranges of the Himalayas from India to China, Burma, and the Malayan region. Its flight is erratic, and its body bounces up and down as it flits about. The Psyche rarely flies higher than a couple of feet. See [[Imago]], [[Lepidopterist]], [[mythopoetic meaning of butterfly->Mythopoetic Meaning of Butterfly]], and [[The Dunciad]].<h3>''Pale Fire''</h3>
Last work of the poet [[John Shade]] of [[New Wye]]. The words are from Shakespeare's lesser-known play, //Timon of Athens//.
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her ''[[pale->Tsalal]] fire'' she snatches from the sun.
Shade's poem, together with the [[Foreword->Cedarn, Utana]], [[Commentary->Kinbote's counterpoint to Shade I. 734]] and Index by [[Charles Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]], comprise [[Vladimir Nabokov's->Vladimir Nabokov]] novel by the same title-//Pale Fire//. The [[subject->Subject]] is [[mimicry->Nabokov on Mimicry]].<h3>''Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow''</h3>
[[The arrow->Shade I. 27]] is a masculine figure, symbol of war, power, swiftness, time, the sun's rays, and knowledge, as well as various Greco-Roman and Hindu deities of the hunt, sexual attraction, and even the weather. It is the astrological sign of the archer, Sagittarius. [[St. Sebastian->Composer of Genius]], one of the "[[Fourteen->Significance of Fourteen]] Holy Helpers" and protectors of persons threatened by plague, is portrayed with arrows, the manner in which he was slain. The arrow's direction is [[telelogical->Telelogical]], and its [[reversal->Palindrome]] the undoing of what was done. Like St. Sebastian, [[the Internet->Hypertext]] is shot through with arrows. See [[Psyche and Cupid->Psyche]].<h3>''Nabokov on Mimicry''</h3>
"Natural selection," in the Darwinian sense, could not explain the [[miraculous->Psychogenic]] [[coincidence->Shade I. 807]] of [[imitative aspect->Mimicry in Butterflies]] and imitative behavior, nor could one appeal to the theory of "the struggle for life" when a protective device was carried to the point of mimetic subtlely, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator's power of appreciation. I [[discovered in nature->Telelogical]] the [[nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art->Shade on His Art]]. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception."
==>
[[Vladimir Nabokov]], //Speak//, //Memory// p. 125<h3>''[[''Kinbote''->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] on Providence''</h3>
With no Providence the soul must rely on the [[dust of its husk->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]], on the experience gathered in the course of corporeal confinement, and cling childishly to small-town principles, local by-laws and a personality consisting mainly of [[the shadows->The Shadows]] of [[its own prison bars->Tsalal]]. Such an idea is not to be entertained one instant by the religious mind. How much more intelligent it is - even from a proud infidel's point of view! - to [[accept God's presence->Kinbote on Shade's Doubt]] - a [[faint phosphorescence->Metaphor]] at first, a [[pale light->Pale Fire]] in the [[dimness of bodily life->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]], and a [[dazzling radiance->The Kinbotean Mirror]] after it?<h3>''[[''Shade''->John Shade]] on His Art''</h3>
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A feeling of [[fantastically planned->Kinbote on Providence]],
Richly rhymed life.
<font color="ffffcc">Richly rhymed life.</font> I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of [[combinational delight->Double Counterpoint]];
And if my private universe scans right,
So does the verse of galaxies divine
Which I suspect is an iambic line.
I'm reasonably sure that we survive
And that [[my darling->Hazel Shade]] somewhere is alive.
|==|<h3>''Fugue''</h3>
[[Contrapuntal->Counterpoint]] process that develops a [[subject->Subject]] in such a manner as independent melodies can be heard as belonging to distinct voices that interpret and transform one's perception of the others. The fugal [[telos->Telelogical]] involves imitation ([[mimicry->Mimicry in Butterflies]]), [[double counterpoint->Double Counterpoint]], [[melodic inversions->Inversion]], and occasional [[retrogrades->Retrograde]] - elaborations that are "[[Zemblamatic->Zembla]]" of [[mirrors and reflections->Chi]]. The [[Composer of Genius]] in [[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] commentary on line 549 of [[Shade's->John Shade]] poem //[[Pale Fire]]// was a skilled composer of fugues.<h3>''Etymology of "Gradus"''</h3>
Sometimes translated "steps," //Gradus// is the Latin root of grade, gradual, gradient, gradation, graduate, and graduation - implying measured change, in time or space, from [[one state to another->Metamorphosis of Idea]]. [[Nabokov's->Vladimir Nabokov]] personification of [[mortality->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]] in [[Gradus the Assassin->Jakob Gradus]] is apropos, as is [[Shade's->John Shade]] description (II. 147-150) of his first near-death experience.
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<font color="ffffcc">...................</font>The [[blackness->Tsalal]] was sublime.
I felt distributed through space and time:
One foot [[upon a mountaintop->Gradus ad Parnassum]], one hand
Under the pebbles of a panting strand.
|==|<h3>''John Shade''</h3>
Middle-aged poet, contemporary of [[Robert Frost]], who lives in [[New Wye]], married to his childhood sweetheart, Sybil. Shade's last work is a 999-line poem, called //[[Pale Fire]]//, composed in [[heroic couplets->Alexander Pope]] on [[80 file cards->Shade's Creative Method]]. Shade is murdered by [[Gradus->Jakob Gradus]] before writing the final line. The poem's [[subject->Subject]], Shade's [[intuition of life after death->Kinbote's counterpoint to Shade I. 734]], is developed in his account of two near-death experiences and his daughter's suicide. The first couplet employs [[the mirror->Chi]] to "reflect" this intuition.
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[[I am the shadow->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]] of the [[waxwing->Waxwing]] slain
By the false azure in the windowpane.<h3>''New Wye''</h3>
Small college town in Appalachia, home of the academic poet [[John Shade]] and refuge of the banished King Charles II of [[Zembla]], otherwise known as [[Charles Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]]. Also teaching at the college is the pathetic [[Vseslav Botkin->Vseslav Xavier Botkin]], a [[subject->Subject]] upon whom Shade has compassion, indulging him in long walks around New Wye. Figuratively, New Wye is the intellectual opposite of that place of [[metaphor->Metaphor]] and simile known as Zembla.<h3>''Tsalal''</h3>
//Tsalal// (Hebrew) means to [[shade->John Shade]], as twilight or an opaque object, to [[begin to be dark by shadowing->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]]. //Tsalal// was Poe's dark island in //The Narriative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket//, a work that [[Nabokov->Vladimir Nabokov]] admired. Here, in one of the first examples of literature to invent a world like [[Zembla]], we discover [[mystical allusions->The Kinbotean Mirror]], [[self-reflexive symbols->Red Admirable]], [[anagrams->Significance of Fourteen]], [[puns->Cedarn, Utana]], [[metaphorical epiphanies->The Shadean Mirror]], as well as the [[retrogradation->Retrograde]] of Poe's name and the island of //Tsalal// itself (//la-last// toward book's end).<h3>''Cedarn, Utana''</h3>
<video src="https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15GYg3EfkDidVXGLCommfcgiZBOjmoC15" autoplay><img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/cedarn.gif" style="float:left"></video> [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] signs the Foreword Oct. 19, 1959, Cedarn, Utana. Cedarn references the [[Cedar Waxwing->Waxwing]]. Later he comments on [[Shade's->John Shade]] visit to "Cedarn in Utana on the Idoming border."
Kinbote evidently learned the [[chiastic symmetry->Chi]] from the [[fugal->Fugue]] [[double counterpoint->Double Counterpoint]] of that [[Zemblan]] [[Composer of Genius]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Charles [[''Xavier''->Xavier]] Kinbote''</h3>
Author of the [[Foreword->Cedarn, Utana]], [[Commentary->Kinbote's counterpoint to Shade I. 17]] and Index in the published version of //[[Pale Fire]]//, the last poem of the late [[John Shade]]. Kinbote fancies himself to be the exiled king Charles Xavier II of [[Zembla]]. His commentary implies that Shade's poem is really about him, the imaginary Zembla, and that he himself was the [[kingly target->Regicide]] of [[Jakob Gradus]] who ends up murdering Shade by mistake. Though delusional, Kinbote demonstrates [[psychogenic->Psychogenic]] [[insight into the mind->Kinbote on "The Mind"]] and [[rationality->Kinbote on Shade's Doubt]]. It is possible that Kinbote was really the creation of [[Vseslav Botkin->Vseslav Xavier Botkin]] (Kinbote in [[retrograde->Retrograde]]).<h3>''Subject''</h3>
1. Person [[under the authority of a king->Regicide]] 2. Any entity to which a quality, or attribute, or relationship can be affirmed or to which it may inhere 3. The [[mind->Kinbote on "The Mind"]], ego, [[imagination->Imago]], or whatever agent that sustains or assumes the form of thought or consciousness 4. A department of knowledge or learning 5. Person who is acted upon or whose reactions are studied 6. Topic about which something is said or done 7. [[Something represented in a work of art->Shade on His Art]] 8. The term of a logical proposition denoting something affirmed or denied 9. The principle melody of a musical work, especially [[fugue->Fugue]].<h3>''Regicide''</h3>
The killing of a king. Because the king makes lae, regicide is more than murder, but repudiation of the very premise of law. Regicide is rebellion, revolution, chaos, and anarchy. "Thou shalt not kill" is the "[[pale fire->Pale Fire]]" of regicide insofar as it interdicts violence against the [[imago Dei->Imago Dei]]. The modern nihilism of Nietzsche and Sartre [[laments the ultimate regicide->Kinbote on Providence]] - the slaying of God in modern thought, art, and jurisprudence. The opposite of [[measured change->Etymology of "Gradus"]]. See [[the Shadows->The Shadows]].<h3>''Kinbote on "the Mind"''</h3>
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I know also that the world could not have occurred fortuitously and that somehow Mind is involved as a main factor in the making of the universe. In trying to find [[the right name for that Universal Mind->Kinbote on Providence]], or First Cause, or the Absolute, or [[Nature->Telelogical]], I submit that the [[Name of God->Shade on God]] has priority.
|==|
The above follows Shade's dismissiveness of Augustine, to which Kinbote has persisted, "As St. Augustine said, 'One can know what God is not; one cannot know what He is'."<h3>''Counterpoint''</h3>
From the Latin //punctus contra punctum// - point against point (or [[dot vs. dot->Shade I. 27]]. See //[[Gradus ad Parnassum]]//). In the history of music notation, the symbol of a pitch was called a //punctum//, a visual dot. Counterpoint was born with the invention of polyphony, the art of composing voices where the whole is perceivable in the independence of its parts. Techniques include stretto, [[melodic inversion->Metamorphosis of Idea]], [[retrograde->Retrograde]] (incl. [[palindrome->Palindrome]]), [[chiasmus->Chi]], [[double counterpoint->Double Counterpoint]], transposition, mutation, and scale-degree shift. The discipline attained its summit in the [[fugues->Fugue]] of that [[Zemblan->Zembla]] [[Composer of Genius]].Double-click this passage to edit it.Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Retrograde''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/retrograde.gif" style="float:left">Retrogradiation involves mirroring along a vertical axis. Where space is not involved, the mirror exists in time. Terms like [[Hty Ms. Myth]], that read the same in retrograde, are [[palindromic->Palindrome]]. The [[chiastic wordplay->Chi]] in [[Pale Fire]] includes retrogradations like Nodo and his half-brother Odon (for whom [[butterflies->Leptosia nina]] have been named in [[Nabokov's->Vladimir Nabokov]] honor), as well as [[Jakob Gradus]] and [[Sudarg of Bokay]], maker of mirrors. Hazel Shade was said to have read words in their retrograde, and [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] notes that T. S. Eliot in retrograde is "toilest." Not the same as [[enharmonic->Enharmonics in Speech]].<h3>''Chi (chiastic, chiasmus)''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/chi.gif" style="float:left">Twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet, first in Χρίστος (//Christos//) "Christ" and the root of χρυσός (//chrysos//) from which we derive [[chrysalis->Butterfly Pupa]] and crystal. A Christological sign. The [[Composer of Genius]] used χ in place of "cross." The symmetry and [[crossed lines->Double Counterpoint]] undergird the literary and artistic device of //chiasmus//, where analogous elements on either side of an axis are //chiastic//. This can involve retrogradation ([[vertical mirror->Retrograde]]), inversion (horizontal mirror), or retrograde-inversion (both mirrors, which equates to a 180-degree rotation).<h3>''Composer of Genius''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/composer_of_genius.png" style="float:left">"The Reformation with us had been headed by a composer of genius; our liturgy is penetrated with rich music; our boy choirs are the sweetest in the world."
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[[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] note to [[Shade->John Shade]] I. 549
<==
Kinbote has referenced the 18th-century [[contrapuntist->Counterpoint]] and composer of [[fugues->Fugue]], although his [[Zemblan->Zembla]] association is unreliable. See [[Kinbote on Shade's Doubt]], and [[Calov Bible->Calov Bible Commentary]].<h3>''Shade I. 27''</h3>
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And in the morning, [[diamonds of frost->Frost's Poetry]]
Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have [[crossed->Chi]]
From left to right the blank page of the road?
Reading from left to right in [[winter's code->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]]:
` `[[A dot->Counterpoint]], [[an arrow->Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow]] pointing back; repeat:
Dot, arrow pointing back . . . A Pheasant's feet?
Was he Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose
Tracks pointed back when he [[reversed his shoes->Palindrome]]?
==>
//Pale Fire// II. 19-24, 27-28
<==
|==|
See [[retrograde->Retrograde]].<h3>''Gradus ad Parnassum''</h3>
In 1745 Fux's //Gradus ad Parnassum//, the classic text on 16th-century [[counterpoint->Counterpoint]], was translated from Latin to German by L. C. Mizler, student of the [[Composer of Genius]], who obtained a copy shortly thereafter. Known by musicians today simply as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qQOnQZNvVSAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Gradus+ad+Parnassum%22&ei=zl8oSfCPJpSWkAS29KTQAw#v=onepage&q=%22Gradus%20ad%20Parnassum%22&f=false" target="_blank"><font color="black">Gradus</font></a>, the title means //[[Steps->Etymology of "Gradus"]] to Parnassus//. The mythological Mt. Parnassus, dwelling of the muses, signifies [[perfection in art->Shade on His Art]] and //Gradus// means the "steps" thereto. In [[Jakob Gradus]], //[[Pale Fire]]// implies an [[ominous meaning of counterpoint->Contrapuntal Implications of "Gradus"]], as well as [[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] idealized Zemblan Mountains and [[Shade's->John Shade]] Appalachia.Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Palindrome''</h3>
[[Chiastic->Chi]] subset of [[retrogrades->Retrograde]] where the [[subject->Subject]] reads the same, forward as backward (in music, a "crab canon"). Palindromes can exist in letter (//Poor Dan is in a droop//), word (//Escher, drawing hands, drew hands drawing Escher//), or lines of poetry. In mirror palindromes like A TOYOTA, every letter retrogrades to itself. Signifier of revolution, the grotesque, the reverse metamorphosis of [[chrysalis->Butterfly Pupa]] that hatches as [[worm->Butterfly Larva]], the snake that eats itself, [[regicide->Regicide]], and the antithesis of [[telos->Telelogical]]. See [[Sudarg of Bokay]] and the [[mythopoetic meaning of arrow->Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow]].<h3>''Frost's Poetry''</h3>
"one personal and physical, the other [[metaphysical and universal->Shade on His Art]]." (from [[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] commentary on [[Shade->John Shade]] I. 426). Here Kinbote alludes to [[Frost's->Robert Frost]] "Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening," where "sleep" is first literal, then [[Zemblamatic->Zembla]] of [[death->Red Admirable]]. See [[Myth's->Hty Ms. Myth]] "[[Enharmonics->Enharmonics in Speech]]."
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These woods are lovely, [[dark and deep->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]]
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
|==|<h3>''Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality''</h3>
Of the condemned man who [[steps->Etymology of "Gradus"]] toward his execution, Kinbote writes: "At the foot of the scaffold, on a raw and gray morning, [[it is Gradus->Jakob Gradus]] who sweeps the [[night's powder snow->Shade I. 27]] off the narrow steps." Kinbote concludes his note on [[Shade I. 171]] as follows:
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The world needs Gradus. But [[Gradus should not kill kings->Regicide]]. Vinogradus should never, never provoke God. Leningradus should not aim his peashooter at people even in dreams.
|==|Double-click this passage to edit it.Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Hty Ms. Myth'' (b. 1951)</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/hty_ms_myth.png" style="float:right">Collection of Ecuadorian butterflies, ca. 1965 by the [[lepidopterist->Lepidopterist]] and fan of [[V. Nabokov->Vladimir Nabokov]] from Zembla's province of [[Palindrome]].<h3>''Enharmonics in Speech''</h3>
Identical sounds with different meanings, normally represented in varied spellings as in the quatrain by [[Ms. Myth->Hty Ms. Myth]].
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This emic riddle should not bamboozle eyes
That recognize the string of lies (or flies):
//Beware, the Count erodes their May romance;
Beware the county roads, there may roam ants.//
|==|
Not the same as [[palindrome->Palindrome]]. See [[Frost->Frost's Poetry]], as well as [[enharmonics in music->Enharmonics in Music]] and [[butterfly mimicry->Mimicry in Butterflies]].<h3>''Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade''</h3>
Among Webster's many "shades" of [[gray->Etymology of "Gradus"]], the following apply to [[Pale Fire's->Pale Fire]] lead character, [[John Shade]]. 1. shadows that gather as darkness comes on 2. NETHERWORLD, HADES 3. a disembodied spirit: GHOST 4. used to signal the similarity between a previously encountered person or situation and one at hand; usually in the plural (e.g. shades of [[Robert Frost]], or the shade of the [[fugue's->Fugue]] [[subject->Subject]] is heard in its [[inversion->Inversion]], or [[Nabokov's->Vladimir Nabokov]] creative method is the [[shade of Shade's->Shade's Creative Method]], or the unborn shade of the [[Imago Dei]]). See [[the Shadows->The Shadows]] and [[Tsalal]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Shade's Creative Method''</h3>
In the Foreword to //[[Pale Fire]]//, [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] informs us that [[Shade->John Shade]] authored the poem on 80 medium-size index cards, each with a pink header followed by [[fourteen->Significance of Fourteen]] lines in light blue. [[Nabokov->Vladimir Nabokov]], who used the same technique, is rumored to have sequestered a novel of bundled cards in a Swiss vault, awaiting publication at some uncertain date. More recently [[Ms. Myth->Hty Ms. Myth]] stumbled upon the current [[hypertext->Hypertext]] of 80 cards in an Ecuadorian monastery, bundled with a [[butterfly->Leptosia nina]] bandage, and significant for its [[Shadean->The Shadean Mirror]] and [[Kinbotean->The Kinbotean Mirror]] "mirrors" on the [[fugue->Fugue]] in [[c-sharp minor->Metamorphosis of Idea]] of [[Zembla's->Zembla]] [[Composer of Genius]].<h3>''Jakob Gradus''</h3>
Sinister character dispatched by [[Zemblan revolutionaries->The Shadows]] to assassinate King Charles II of [[Zembla]], a narriative that hinges entirely upon the word of [[Charles Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]], who claims himself to be the exiled King. Gradus happens to have been born on the same day as [[John Shade]], and his [[measured steps->Etymology of "Gradus"]] lead ironically to Shade's murder in an apparent tragedy of mistaken identity. Jakob Gradus ([[retrograde->Retrograde]] of [[Sudarg of Bokay]]) is Kinbote's Zemblan [[metaphor of mortality->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]]. See //[[Gradus ad Parnassum]]//.<h3>''Waxwing''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/waxwing.png" style="float:right">Woodland bird of the passerine family, identified in [[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] index to //[[Pale Fire]]// with the genus //Bombycilla shadei// (referential to [[John Shade]]). This is the North American Cedar Waxwing. [[Cedarn->Cedarn, Utana]] is Kinbote's wordplay on the Cedar Waxwing. With its red-tipped wings, the bird is [[counterpointed->"Pale Fire" as Counterpoint]] in //Pale Fire// by the [[Vanessa->Red Admirable]], also with red tips.<h3>''Vseslav [[''Xavier''->Xavier]] Botkin''</h3>
Unsuccessful Northern Europoean academic and colleague of poet [[John Shade]] at the college in [[New Wye]], Appalachia. Shade, who pities Botkin, humors him in long walks around New Wye. Because Botkin is the [[syllabic retrograde->Xavier]] of [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]], some commentators theorize that the former invented the latter.<h3>''Metaphor''</h3>
Broadly speaking, any figurative language. More specifically, a figure of speech where one word [[snatches or robs->Pale Fire]] its meaning from that of another in order to suggest a likeness between them (as in the [[fugal->Fugue]] [[butterfly->Mythopoetic Meaning of Butterfly]], [[listening to the human mind->Lewis Thomas]], the "[[arrow of time->Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow]]," or the [[mind's->Kinbote on "The Mind"]] [[eye->The Patron Eyes of the Erogla]]). See [[synesthesia->Synesthesia]], [[inversion->Inversion]], and [[metamorphosis->Metamorphosis of Idea]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Hypertext''</h3>
Ted Nelson's 1965 term for text that disrupts the [[unidirectionality->Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow]] of the traditional word. The author forfeits control over sequencing, granting the reader opportunity to find targeted information direcetly, bypassing all else. Nelson cites //[[Pale Fire]]// as prototype. Dictionaries and [[file cards->Shade's Creative Method]] represent pre-industrial attempts, as does [[Calov's commentary->Calov Bible Commentary]] on Luther's commentary on the Bible. Hypertext advanced in the world ward, flowering only since the realization of Shade's "[[web of sense->Shade I. 807]]" under the [[patron eyes of the Erogla->The Patron Eyes of the Erogla]]. See [[conlang->Constructed Languages]] and [[metafiction->Metafiction]].Double-click this passage to edit it.Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Lepidopterist''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/lepidopterist.png" style="float:left">A person who studies butterflies. The novelist [[Vladimir Nabokov]], an expert in the family //Lycaenidae// such as the Eastern Tailed Blue (left), alludes often to butterflies in //[[Pale Fire]]//. The creature's marvelous life cycle, with its [[larval caterpillar->Butterfly Larva]] stage, [[dormant pupa->Butterfly Pupa]], and a dazzling [[metamorphosis->Metamorphosis of Idea]] into a colorful [[winged adult->Butterfly Adult]], has lent the butterfly a [[mythopoetic significant->Mythopoetic Meaning of Butterfly]]. See [[Leptosia nina]].<h3>''Mythopoetic Meaning of Butterfly''</h3>
The Greek for "butterfly" is ''ψυχη'' (//[[psyche->Psyche]]//), meaning soul or mind. In Japan the butterfly is the material representation of a human soul. Upon waking from a dream of a butterfly, the Taoist philosopher, Zhuangzi, asked "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly that dreams about being a man?" In many cultures the butterfly is "[[Zemblematic->Zembla]]" of rebirth or good luck. In the fiction of [[Vladimir Nabokov]], the butterfly can signify the authorial presence or the [[portent of death->Red Admirable]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Kinbote's [[''counterpoint''->Counterpoint]] to [[''Shade''->John Shade]] I. 17''</h3>
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And then the [[gradual->Etymology of "Gradus"]] and dual blue
As [[night->Tsalal]] unites the viewer and the view.
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//[[Pale Fire]]// II. 17-18
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Of I. 17 [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] writes: "By an extraordinary coincidence (inherent perhaps in the [[contrapuntal nature->Double Counterpoint]] of Shade's art) our poet seems to name here ([[gradual->Etymology of "Gradus"]], [[gray->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]]) a man, whom he was to see for one fatal moment three weeks later, but of whose existence at the time (July 2) he could not have known. [[Jakob Gradus]] called himself variously Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de Gray."<h3>''Psychogenic''</h3>
1. of or relating to the [[psyche->Psyche]] 2. Lying [[outside the sphere of physical science->Kinbote on Providence]] or knowledge: [[immaterial->Tsalal]], moral, or spiritual in origin or force 3. sensitive to nonphysical or supernatural forces and influences: marked by [[extraordinary or mysterious sensitivity->Shade on His Art]], perception, or understanding. See [[the imago->Imago]], [[the Dunciad->The Dunciad]], [[Kinbote on the Mind->Kinbote on "The Mind"]], and [[Nabokov on mimicry->Nabokov on Mimicry]].<h3>''Kinbote on Shade's Doubt''</h3>
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When one considers the numberless thinkers and poets in the history of human creativity whose freedom of mind was [[enhanced rather than stunted->Kinbote on Providence]] by Faith, one is bound to question the wisdom of this easy aphorism.
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Kinbote declines to respond to [[Shade's doubt->Shade on God]] in ontological or polemical terms. Instead he simply reminds the reader of an historical fact. See [[Kinbote on the Mind->Kinbote on "The Mind"]].<h3>''Sudarg of Bokay''</h3>
Patron saint of Bokay in the mountains of [[Zembla]]. In the index to his commentary on [[Shade's->John Shade]] //[[Pale Fire]]//, [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] identifies Sudarg as "a mirror maker of genius," and a man whose life span was unknown. Sudarg of Bokay is the [[mirror->Retrograde]] of [[Jakob Gradus]]. Bokay is rumored to have prophesied the following absurd and untranslatable [[Palindrome]] in the Naksala dialect:
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//E mord nilap [[haras->Tsalal]] arahp alind Rome;
Emor d'nilaph arasa rahpa l'indro me.//
|==|Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''The Dunciad''</h3>
In this 1743 work, [[Alexander Pope]] uses the [[butterfly->Mythopoetic Meaning of Butterfly]] to satirize the pursuit of facts at the expense of [[values->Kinbote on Providence]]. Here the butterfly collector [[imagines->Imago]] his [[quest->Psychogenic]] before the factual Goddess of Dullness:
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I saw, and started from its vernal bow'r
The rising game, and chac'd from flow'r to flow'r.
It fled, I follow'd; now in hope, now pain;
It stopt, I stopt; it mov'd, I mov'd again.
|==|<h3>''Enharmonics in Music''</h3>
<img src="https://digital-bach.neocities.org/enharmonics_in_music.gif" style="float:left">Two pitches (or keys) that sound the same, but with different appearance in their notation, are "enharmonic." Each chord to the left is the aural [[mimic->Mimicry in Butterflies]] of the others. //Mutation// involves hearing identical melodic contours in different modes. //Scale Degree Shift// involves hearing identical contours in the same mode, but commencing on different scale steps. See also [[Myth's->Hty Ms. Myth]] entry on [[enharmonics in speech->Enharmonics in Speech]].<h3>''Synesthesia''</h3>
The perception of a concomitant sense or [[image->Imago]] other than the one being stimulated. To taste hops when hearing jazz, or see purple while reading [[Pope->Alexander Pope]], are two examples. Once thought rare, it is now known that one in 200 is synesthetic, including the composers Messiaen & Scriabin, as well as the novelist [[Vladimir Nabokov]] (who saw various letters in different colors). [[Aesthetic perception->Shade on His Art]] may involve synesthesia-like processes, where the stimulus of a particular area of the brain "overflows" into non-stimulated areas. See [[Shade's synesthesia->Shade's Synesthesia]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''Metafiction''</h3>
A fictional work where the author becomes the [[subject->Subject]] of fiction. Stories are nested within other stories, each layer introducing symbolic and psychological meanings that interpret the opposite story. In //[[Pale Fire]]//, it is not [[Nabokov->Vladimir Nabokov]] who [[comments->Kinbote's counterpoint to Shade I. 830]] on [[Shade's->John Shade]] poem, but the imaginary [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]]. Thus the real author becomes distant, and the novel's genesis confused. Irony, self-reflection, [[mimicry->Mimicry in Butterflies]], and [[hypertext->Hypertext]] blur distinctions between what is imaginary and real. Metacompositional technique is exemplified in [[counterpoint->Counterpoint]], especially the [[fugues->Fugue]] of that Zemblan [[Composer of Genius]].<h3>''The Shadows''</h3>
''Pale Fire'': a "[[regicidal->Regicide]] organization" of "Extremists" bent on overthrowing the [[Zemblan->Zembla]] order. [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] describes [[Gradus->Jakob Gradus]], the most grotesque of the Shadows, as the cross between a bat and a [[crab->Palindrome]].
''Webster'': 1. a [[reflected image->Inversion]], imperfect or [[faint representation->Tsalal]] 2. [[an imitation->Metamorphosis of Idea]] COPY 3. PHANTOM 4. [[DARK->Mythopoetic Meaning of Shade]] 5. an attenuated form or vestigial remnant 6. an inseperable companion or follower 7. one (as a spy) that shadows 8. source of gloom or unhappiness 9. a pervasive or dominant influence.<h3>''Shade I. 171''</h3>
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<font color="ffffcc">...............................</font>I alone
Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy
Of books and people hid the truth from me.
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//Pale Fire// II. 170-172
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[[Kinbote's->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] extended comment on the "[[great conspiracy->The Shadows]]" of line 171 touches upon the [[etymology->Etymology of "Gradus"]], and [[metaphor->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]] (though not its [[textbook form->Gradus ad Parnassum]]) of [[Gradus->Jakob Gradus]] as purveyor of [[regicide->Regicide]].Double-click this passage to edit it.<h3>''The Patron Eyes of the Erogla''</h3>
[[Zemblan->Zembla]] secret society, peopled by divas and dons, devoted to the manifest destiny of the Erogla, a Tunisian operative who [[cocooned->Butterfly Pupa]] briefly to sprout a beard, come under the wing of the truth fairy, hatch itself green, and turn out in continents globally an host hopeful of hearing the sad gloaming warble of the //[[Bombycilla shadei->Waxwing]]//, for which he was summoned to Mecca to receive Nestle's Ralipop Lebon wreath, [[fourteen->Significance of Fourteen]] carbon offsets, and a jet. Challenger of the [[Composer of Genius]] to a dual. See [[flimsy nonsense->Shade I. 807]], [[metafiction->Metafiction]], and [[Pope->Alexander Pope]].<h3>''Syllogism''</h3>
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A syllogism: //other men die; but I
Am not another; therefore I'll not die.//
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[[John Shade]], //[[Pale Fire]]// II. 213-214
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|==|<h3>''Shade's Synesthesia''</h3>
Two passages in [[Shade's->John Shade]] poem suggest that he was a [[synesthete->Synesthesia]].
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All colors made me happy: even [[gray->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]].
My eyes were such that literally they
Took photographs. Whenever I'd permit,
Or, with a silent shiver, order it. (II. 29-32)
I had a [[brain->Shade on "the Brain"]], five senses ([[one unique->Shade on His Art]]),
But otherwise I was a cloutish freak. (II. 133-4)
|==|<h3>''Shade on "the Brain"''</h3>
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...blood-black nothingness began to spin
[[A system of cells interlinked->Hypertext]] within
Cells [[interlinked within cells interlinked->Metafiction]]
[[Within one stem->Kinbote on "The Mind"]].
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//[[Pale Fire]]// II. 703-706
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Shade describes the sensation of his heart attack by referencing to the literal cells of his brain. Objecting that the [[mind is not made of 'our atoms.'->The Dunciad]], he observes, "[[The sense behind the sense->Kinbote on Providence]] was not our sense." (II. 708-710).<h3>''Hazel Shade''</h3>
The homely and dyslexic daughter of John and Sybil Shade, and primary subject of //[[Pale Fire's->Pale Fire]]// Canto Two, where she is portrayed as [[twisting words->Retrograde]]: pot/top, spider/redips, and powder/red wop. Having been stood up by her blind date, Hazel ventures on to thin ice and is drowned. Boyd speculates that [[Botkin->Vseslav Xavier Botkin]] may have written //Pale Fire// from information through the specter of Hazel Shade, the "domestic ghost." Hazel is kindly indexed by [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] as deserving respect for "having preferred the beauty of death to the ugliness of life."<h3>''Lewis Thomas''</h3>
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We listen to the [[Composer of Genius]] [[transfiχed->Xavier]]
because this [[transfigures->Kinbote on Providence]] the [[human brain->Shade on "the Brain"]].
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Recalling the quotation from memory, [[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] confesses uncertainty if the last two words were "human brain." or "[[cosmic mind->Kinbote on "The Mind"]]." (from Kinbote's English translation of the nearly forgotten [[Zemblan->Zembla]] rendition by his uncle Conmal, the Duke of [[Aros->Mythopoetic Meaning of Arrow]], and half-brother of the younger Queen Blenda) See [[flimsy nonsense->Shade I. 807]].<h3>''Kinbote's [[''counterpoint''->Counterpoint]] to [[''Shade''->John Shade]] I. 830''</h3>
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<font color="ffffcc">..............</font>. . . . Making ornaments
Of accidents and possibilities
Stormcoated, I strode in: Sybil, it is
My firm conviction . . . .
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//[[Pale Fire]]// II. 828-831
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Of the [[enharmonic->Enharmonics in Speech]] "possibilities/Sybil it is,"[[Kinbote->Charles Xavier Kinbote]] comments: "This elaborate rhyme comes as an apotheosis crowning the entire canto and synthesizing the [[contrapuntal aspects->Double Counterpoint]] of its 'accidents and possibilities'."<h3>''Shade on God''</h3>
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[[My God->Kinbote on "The Mind"]] died young. Theolatry I found
Degrading, and its premises, unsound.
No free man needs a God, but was I free?
How fully [[I felt nature glued to me->Telelogical]].
[[Shade->John Shade]], II. 99-103
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See [[Kinbote's refutation->Kinbote on Shade's Doubt]] of the above. Shade follows the above with an inspiring description of "nature's glue," in the middle of which he exclaims, "[[For we are most artistically caged->Shade on His Art]]."<h3>''Contrapuntal Implications of "Gradus"''</h3>
It is possible that [[Pale Fire's->Pale Fire]] enigmatic [[Jakob Gradus]] references //[[Gradus ad Parnassum]]// (1725) the seminal text on [[counterpoint->Counterpoint]] by Johann Joseph Fux. In this interpretation, the [[telos->Telelogical]] of fugal counterpoint is a [[metaphor of mortality->Gradus as Metaphor of Mortality]]. Kinbote's variant "Tana''gra dus''t" (note to I. 596) and Shade's "[[''gradu''al->Etymology of "Gradus"]] and dual view, as [[night unites the viewer and the view->Kinbote's counterpoint to Shade I. 17]]" intuit Gradus the Assassin.