In Soft Flame the brand new gay Kinbote refers to “Alfred Housman (1859-1936), whoever range The latest Shropshire Lad vies towards the Into the Memoriam regarding Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) inside the symbolizing, maybe (no, delete it craven ‘perhaps’) the best conclusion away from English poetry when you look at the a hundred years” ( PF 269)

: my chap, my very, my love, take pity : Darkbloom : “paraphrase from a great verse from inside the Housman.” Away from A great Shropshire Lad (1896), from the Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936), poem V (“Oh observe thick the goldcup plants”), l.31: “Getting kind, possess pity, my own personal, my quite.” Even though this comic poem off a failed seduction involves “lass and you may chap,” Nabokov adjustment in order to “my lad, my very, my love” to point to help you Housman’s homosexuality, never too far throughout the epidermis of the wistful poems for the this range. Nabokov, whom noticed Housman on mealtimes on Trinity College or university Hallway all because of his ages on Cambridge (SM 273), himself ranked A Shropshire Chap really extremely: into the an unpublished 1937 interview, questioned to call his favourite book, the guy responded: “The publication I will create some date. ‘” (VNA)

-28: ballatetta . . . mente : Darkbloom : “fragmentation and you will distortion out of a passage when you look at the a good ‘little ballad’ because of the new Italian poet Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300). Read more about Also: ‘Eugene Onegin,’ ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Madame Bovary, ‘The Shropshire Chap …