John Shade
Encyclopedia
John Shade is a fictional character
in Vladimir Nabokov
's 1962 novel Pale Fire
.
married to his teenage sweetheart, Sybil. Their only child, a daughter named Hazel, apparently committed suicide
some time before the novel's action begins. Shade lives in the college town of New Wye, amidst the Appalachian Mountains
. His fame is sufficient for television
pundits to often mention him in the same breath (just "one oozy footprint behind") as his fellow poet Robert Frost
, an association which Shade does not entirely enjoy, perhaps because Frost is always mentioned first.
, Nabokov had complained from the lectern of authors who ask readers to accept a character's gifts on faith: "The author has hinted already that Gurov [the focus of Chekhov's Lady with the Little Dog] was witty in the company of women: and instead of having the reader take it for granted (you know the old method of describing the talk as 'brilliant' but giving no samples of the conversation), Chekhov makes him joke in a really attractive, winning way." The longest sample is Shade's 999-line work, rendered in heroic couplet
s (rhyming pairs of lines in iambic pentameter
), which is also titled "Pale Fire" and provides one facet of the novel's reflexive structure.
Divided into four cantos, Shade's poem describes his life, his obsession with the senses, and his boyhood-to-maturity preoccupation with death. The work is notable for its description of a near-death experience (Shade treats it with a mixture of skepticism and reverence), and for the "faint hope" of an afterlife
which it provides.
Shade's poetry is referenced in the last chapter of Nabokov's 1969 novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
.
, who may or may not be suffering delusions of grandeur. Kinbote is the presenter and annotator of Shade's poem. Some critics assert that Kinbote is Shade's invention, while others maintain that Shade is a literary device or a fiction that Kinbote employs to further his own ends. Other interpretations are possible; Zembla — the country Kinbote claims to come from — is after all a land of "resemblances."
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
's 1962 novel Pale Fire
Pale Fire
Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional John Shade, with a foreword and lengthy commentary by a neighbor and academic colleague of the poet. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are...
.
Shade and family
The structure is notoriously difficult to unravel, but most readers agree that Shade is a poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
married to his teenage sweetheart, Sybil. Their only child, a daughter named Hazel, apparently committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
some time before the novel's action begins. Shade lives in the college town of New Wye, amidst the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
. His fame is sufficient for television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
pundits to often mention him in the same breath (just "one oozy footprint behind") as his fellow poet Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
, an association which Shade does not entirely enjoy, perhaps because Frost is always mentioned first.
Shade's poetry
Nabokov provides some incidental samples of Shade's work—The Sacred Tree, The Swing— in addition to the title poem. This is a gallant authorial gesture, as when a professor at CornellCornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Nabokov had complained from the lectern of authors who ask readers to accept a character's gifts on faith: "The author has hinted already that Gurov [the focus of Chekhov's Lady with the Little Dog] was witty in the company of women: and instead of having the reader take it for granted (you know the old method of describing the talk as 'brilliant' but giving no samples of the conversation), Chekhov makes him joke in a really attractive, winning way." The longest sample is Shade's 999-line work, rendered in heroic couplet
Heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine. Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in...
s (rhyming pairs of lines in iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called "feet"...
), which is also titled "Pale Fire" and provides one facet of the novel's reflexive structure.
Divided into four cantos, Shade's poem describes his life, his obsession with the senses, and his boyhood-to-maturity preoccupation with death. The work is notable for its description of a near-death experience (Shade treats it with a mixture of skepticism and reverence), and for the "faint hope" of an afterlife
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
which it provides.
Shade's poetry is referenced in the last chapter of Nabokov's 1969 novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1969.Ada began to materialize in 1959, when Nabokov was flirting with two projects: "The Texture of Time" and "Letters from Terra." In 1965, he began to see a link between the two ideas, finally composing a unified novel...
.
Shade's commentator
John's next-door neighbor is Charles KinboteCharles Kinbote
Charles Kinbote is the unreliable narrator in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pale Fire.-Academic work:Kinbote appears to be the scholarly author of the Foreword, Commentary and Index surrounding the text of the late John Shade's poem "Pale Fire", which together form the text of Nabokov's novel...
, who may or may not be suffering delusions of grandeur. Kinbote is the presenter and annotator of Shade's poem. Some critics assert that Kinbote is Shade's invention, while others maintain that Shade is a literary device or a fiction that Kinbote employs to further his own ends. Other interpretations are possible; Zembla — the country Kinbote claims to come from — is after all a land of "resemblances."