Editing Pale Fire (section)

==Allusions and references==
The first two lines of John Shade's 999-line poem, "Pale Fire", have become Nabokov's most quoted couplet:

<blockquote><poem>I was the shadow of the [[waxwing]] slain
By the false azure in the window pane</poem></blockquote>

Like many of Nabokov's fictions, ''Pale Fire'' alludes to others of his. "Hurricane [[Lolita]]" is mentioned, and "[[Pnin (novel)|Pnin]]" appears as a minor character.  There are many resemblances to "[[Ultima Thule (short story)|Ultima Thule]]" and "[[Solus Rex (short story)|Solus Rex]]",<ref>Boyd (1999) reviews the resemblances.</ref> two [[The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov|short stories by Nabokov]] intended to be the first two chapters of a novel in Russian that he never continued.  The placename [[Thule]] appears in ''Pale Fire'', as does the phrase ''[[solus rex]]'' (a chess problem in which one player has no pieces but the king).

The book is also full of references to culture, nature, and literature. They include, but are not limited to:
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* [[Bobolink]]
* [[Maud Bodkin]]
* ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]''
* [[Robert Browning]], including "[[My Last Duchess]]" and ''[[Pippa Passes]]'' (inspired in a wood near [[Dulwich]]<ref name=deVries>{{cite journal | last = de Vries | first = Gerard | year = 1991 | title = Fanning the Poet's Fire: Some Remarks on Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'' | journal = Russian Literature Triquarterly | volume = 24 | pages = 239–267}}</ref>)
* [[Cedrus|Cedar]], including a colloquial American meaning, [[juniper]]<ref>Boyd, ''Magic of Artistic Discovery'', pp. 278–279.</ref>
* [[Ben Chapman (baseball)|Ben Chapman]]. Some have said the newspaper headline "Red Sox Beat Yanks 5–4 On [[On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer|Chapman's Homer]]" was genuine<ref name=LOA>{{cite book | last = Boyd | first = Brian | year = 1996 | title = Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962: Lolita / Pnin / Pale Fire | chapter = Notes | publisher = Library of America | editor = Vladimir Nabokov | editor2 = Brian Boyd | isbn = 1-883011-19-1 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/vladimirnabokov0000unse }}</ref> and "[u]nearthed by Nabokov in the stacks of the Cornell Library",<ref>{{cite book | last = Appel | first = Alfred Jr. | title = Nabokov's Dark Cinema | url = https://archive.org/details/nabokovsdarkcine0000appe | url-access = registration | year = 1974 | publisher = Oxford University Press | page = [https://archive.org/details/nabokovsdarkcine0000appe/page/30 30] | isbn = 0-19-501834-6}}</ref> but others have stated no such game occurred.<ref>{{cite web | last = Donohue | first = Michael | date = 2004-10-31 | title = Chapman's Homer: Definitive Statement | work = Post to NABOKV-L | url = http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=NABOKV-L&P=R43338&I=-3|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227174021/http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=NABOKV-L&P=R43338&I=-3|archive-date=27 February 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last = Croning | first = Brian | date = 2011-02-16 | title = Sports Legend Revealed: Did Vladimir Nabokov work an actual baseball headline into his novel 'Pale Fire'? | work = Los Angeles Times | url = http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/02/sports-legend-revealed-did-vladimir-nabokov-work-an-actual-baseball-headline-into-his-novel-pale-fir.html | access-date = 2011-02-18}}</ref>  However, a different player, Sam Chapman of the Philadelphia Athletics, did hit a home run in the 9th inning on September 29, 1938, to defeat the Yankees, 5–4.<ref>{{cite web|website=Baseball-reference.com|title=Philadelphia Athletics at New York Yankees Box Score, September 28, 1939|url=https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA193909282.shtml}}</ref>
* [[Charles II of England]]
* [[Charles VI of France]], known as Charles the Well-Beloved and Charles the Mad<ref name=LOA/>
* [[Disa (plant)|''Disa'']] orchid and the butterflies ''[[Erebia disa]]'' and ''[[Erebia embla|E. embla]]'' (which may lead to [[Disa]] and [[Embla]]<ref name=Meyer/>)
* [[T. S. Eliot]] and ''[[Four Quartets]]''
* ''"[[Der Erlkönig]]"''
* Et in Arcadia ego
* [[Thomas Flatman]]
* [[Edsel Ford (poet)]] and the poem "The Image of Desire"<ref name=Roth>{{cite journal | last = Roth| first = Matthew | year = 2007 | title = Three Allusions in Pale Fire | journal = The Nabokovian | volume = 58 | pages = 53–60}}</ref>
* ''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]''<ref>Boyd, ''Magic of Artistic Discovery'', p. 271.</ref>
* [[Robert Frost]] and the poems "[[Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening]]" and possibly "Of a Winter's Evening"<ref>{{cite journal | last = Socher | first = Abraham | date = July 1, 2005 | title = Nabokov | journal = Times Literary Supplement | url = http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/socher.htm}}</ref>
* [[Oliver Goldsmith]]
* [[Gradus ad Parnassum]]
* [[Gutnish]]
* [[Thomas Hardy]] and the poem "Friends Beyond" (for the word "stillicide")<ref name=LOA/>
* [[Bret Harte]] and his character Colonel Starbottle<ref name=Roth/>
* [[Hebe (mythology)|Hebe]] and the poem ''"Vesennyaya Groza"'' ("Spring Thunderstorm") by [[Fyodor Tyutchev]]<ref>{{cite web | last = Dolinin | first = Alexander | date = 1995-12-12 | title = Re: Library of America queries (fwd) | work = Post to NABOKV-L | url = http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9512&L=nabokv-l&P=1103 | access-date = 2008-09-28}}</ref>
* [[Sherlock Holmes]] and "[[The Adventure of the Empty House]]"<ref>{{cite book | last = Sisson | first = Jonathan B. | year = 1995 | chapter = Nabokov and some Turn-of-the-Century English Writers | editor =  Vladimir E. Alexandrov | title = The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov | publisher = Garland Publishing | page = 530 | isbn = 0-8153-0354-8}}</ref>
* ''[[A Hero of Our Time]]''
* [[A. E. Housman]], including "[[To an Athlete Dying Young]]"
* ''[[In Memoriam A.H.H.]]''
* ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]''<ref name=deVries/>
* [[Samuel Johnson]], [[James Boswell]], Boswell's ''[[Life of Johnson]]'' and [[Hodge (cat)|Hodge]]
* [[James Joyce]]
* ''[[Kalevala]]''
* [[John Keats]], including "[[La Belle Dame sans Merci]]"<ref>Shvabrin, Stanislav. "Nabokov's 'La Belle Dame sans Merci': A Study in the Ethics and Effects of Literary Adaptation," ''Comparative Literature'' 65.1 (2013), pp. 117–118.</ref>
* The ''[[Konungs skuggsjá]]'' or ''Royal Mirror''
* [[Krummholz]]
* [[Jean de La Fontaine]] and "[[The Ant and the Grasshopper]]" (or cicada)
* [[Franklin Knight Lane]]
* Angus McDiarmid or MacDiarmid, author of ''[[Striking and Picturesque Delineations of the Grand, Beautiful, Wonderful, and Interesting Scenery Around Loch-Earn|Striking and Picturesque Delineations...]]''<ref>{{cite book | last = McDiarmid | first = Angus | year = 1815 | title = Striking and picturesque delineations of the grand, beautiful, wonderful, and interesting scenery around Loch-Earn | publisher = John Moir | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2MUHAAAAQAAJ&q=barbarous+%22incoherent+transactions%22&pg=PA24 | access-date = 2008-09-28}}</ref>
* The [[Biblical Magi|Magi]], including Balthasar and Melchior
* Novaya Zemlya
* ''[[Papilio]] nitra'' (now ''[[Papilio zelicaon|P. zelicaon]] nitra'') and ''P. indra''
* ''[[Parthenocissus]]''
* [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and the poem "To One in Paradise" (for the phrase "Dim gulf")<ref name=LOA/>
* [[Alexander Pope]] and [[Jonathan Swift]]
* [[Marcel Proust]]
* [[François Rabelais]]
* Red admiral butterfly, ''[[Vanessa atalanta]]''
* [[Alberto Santos-Dumont]]
* [[Walter Scott]], including "[[Glenfinlas (poem)|Glenfinlas, or Lord Ronald's Coronach]]",<ref name=deVries/> "[[The Lady of the Lake (poem)|The Lady of the Lake]]", and ''[[The Pirate (novel)|The Pirate]]''
* [[Robert Southey]], in particular, the Poet Laureate's rivalry to [[Lord Byron]] as alluded to in the latter's ''[[Don Juan (poem)|Don Juan]]'' dedication
* ''[[Speyeria diana]]'' and ''[[Speyeria atlantis|S. atlantis]]''
* [[Thormodus Torfaeus]]
* [[Waxwing]]
* [[Pierinae]]
* [[Word golf]]
* [[William Wordsworth]], including "The River Wye", and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], including "[[Kubla Khan]]"
* [[Lev Yashin]], a "stupendous [[FC Dynamo Moscow|Dynamo]] goalkeeper"
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See also ''[[The Ambidextrous Universe]]'', a later book referencing ''Pale Fire'' which in turn triggered a reciprocal response in a subsequent Nabokov novel (''[[Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle|Ada]]'', 1969).