Something which we have discovered is the meaning of a lemniscate, mentioned in Pale Fire in canto one of the poem. It is a figure -eight, at least that is how best I can describe it. I now know what a figure eight's proper name is. And, in seeing one as made by bicycle tires, Shade experiences something which a German philosopher named Behma(sic?) called "the signature of all things." All of this goes right over Kinbote's head. Why are we not suprised?
Another large thing that discussed is the imagination, and the role it plays in empathy and understanding and reasoning, perhaps even more so than direct experience. Stephan Crane hadn't been in battle(he was just a correspondent)yet he wrote The Red Badge of Courage. N. is also a firm believer in the superior power of the imagination--this is what enfuses so much of N.'s fictive universe that it must not be underestimated.
Friday, October 16, 2009
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