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Speakers): Paul Kiparsky (Professor, Linguistics) and Dyche Mullins (Professor, UCSF School of Medicine)

Please join the Workshop in Poetics for our annual Lost Classic event, in which we revisit a neglected but important contribution to poetic theory and criticism:
- Tuesday, Nov. 1, 6-8pm in the ������ý Humanities Center Boardroom
- Reading: selection from “Notes on Prosody” by Vladimir Nabokov and “Conjuring in Two Tongues: The Russian and English Prosodies of Nabokov’s ‘Pale Fire’” by R. Dyche Mullins
- In conversation with  (UCSF) and  (Linguistics, ������ý) 
Classics of criticism are best revisited in the context of current research. In that spirit, Paul Kiparsky and Dyche Mullins will be leading a discussion at Poetics of Nabokov’s “Notes on Prosody” as a springboard for a look at the “Russian Method” of literary analysis. We will also look at Dyche Mullins’ recent essay as a contemporary example of that method at work. The two texts are can be downloaded from  in full, with suggested excerpts below:
 
Nabokov, “Notes on Prosody”
- Sections 1-6: pp. 3-33
- Section 9: pp. 51-54
Mullins, “Conjuring in Two Tongues”
- Introduction pp. 1-3
- Form Carries Meaning pp. 10-23
- Rhythmic Modulation …  pp. 45-72
 
Of his paper, Professor Mullins writes:
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While translating Eugene Onegin from Russian —and shortly before composing “Pale Fire” in English— Vladimir Nabokov wrote up the rules by which he engaged with both Russian and English iambic verse. Published as Notes on Prosody, these rules of engagement were inspired by mathematically minded Russian poets and critics like Andrei Bely and Boris Unbegaun, whose approaches to prosody were more quantitative and taxonomic than those of their English-speaking counterparts. This explains why Nabokov could reasonably claim that he had “…not come across a single work that treated English iambics ... in a way even remotely acceptable to a student of prosody.” It should not surprise us that Nabokov —unofficial curator of lepidoptera at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology— admired critics who read poems the way naturalists dissect butterflies: examining their internal structures for individuating details that separate one species from another. In Notes on Prosody, Nabokov proposed six prosodic features capable of distinguishing English and Russian iambic rhythms. These six individuating details turn out to be as important for reading Nabokov’s own poetry as for appreciating his translations. Using his own prosodic lenses we can see how Nabokov associates Russian rhythms with themes of exile and dislocation, and uses them to create an unsettling sense of otherworldliness  (потусторонность) in his English poetry. The émigré professor of “An Evening of Russian Poetry” employs Russian rhythms to illustrate his major points and also when he is confronted by a spectral, “Russian something” that follows him everywhere. Similarly, the most concentrated Russian rhythm in “Pale Fire” is bracketed by a dying man who “conjures in two tongues” and a spirit who raps out messages from the afterlife. We hear these ghostly whispers only when we dissect Nabokov’s poetry with his own tools, introduced to the English-speaking world in Notes on Prosody.
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R. Dyche Mullins studied mathematics and Russian literature at the University of Kentucky before becoming interested in biology. Following his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, Mullins worked at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Currently, Dr. Mullins is professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the UCSF medical school in San Francisco (). Mullins also maintains an interest in Russian poetry but strives to maintain his amateur standing.