Information About ™John Shade |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT JOHN SHADE | |
| characters in written fiction | |
| shade, john | |
| fictional poets | |
| vladimir nabokov | |
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Nabokov provides few samples of Shade's poetry besides the 999-line work, rendered in Heroic Couplet s (rhyming pairs of lines in Iambic Pentameter ), which is also titled ''Pale Fire'' and which provides one facet of the novel's self-reflexive structure. Shade's poem, in four cantos, describes his life, his obsession with the senses and his preoccupation with death. It is notable for its description of a Near-death Experience that Shade treats with a mixture of skepticism and reverence, and for the "faint hope" of an Afterlife which it provides. John's next-door neighbor is Charles Kinbote , who may or may not suffer delusions of grandeur. Some critics assert that Kinbote is Shade's invention, while others maintain that Shade is a literary device or a delusion which Kinbote employs to further his own ends. Other interpretations are possible. |
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