Something is amiss in the way Dr. Kinbote is interpreting John Shade’s poem. Kinbote attempts to connect obscure facts or occurrences in his life to several lines in the poem, assuming that Shade wrote the lines specifically in reference to subjects or events in which Kinbote has an interest. In a way, Kinbote seems to be reading too far into the poem and drawing obscure conclusions that Shade himself probably never intended. This pattern of Kinbote recklessly making connections to his own life is apparent from the beginning of his analysis, when he claims on page 74 that the phrase “crystal land” in line 12 of Shade’s poem is, “Perhaps an allusion to Zembla, my dear country.” This supposed reference to Zembla launches Kinbote into a discussion of Zemblan kings, which is clearly a subject he is interested in, but also a topic that seems to have nothing to do with the poem. It is odd that Kinbote would make such a specific connection when in the context of the poem, Shade uses “crystal land” to describe the landscape outside his window covered in snow on a winter morning. Even if “crystal land” was a reference to a certain place that Shade was fond of, how could Kinbote be so arrogant as to assume that it alluded to Zembla, a place in which Kinbote himself is interested? Making such an assumption would be similar to reading a poet’s description of some unknown town he viewed in a favorable light and automatically presuming that the poet was writing specifically about the reader’s hometown. These swift and murky conclusions that Kinbote draws seems to compromise his validity as a literary critic.
Kinbote later states that “One is too modest to suppose that the fact that the poet and his future commentator first met on a winter day somehow impinges here on the actual season,” (page 79). Here Kinbote is downplaying the suggestion that Shade drew heavily from images of winter even though the poem was written in the summer solely because Shade had met Kinbote during the winter. Kinbote claims that he is too modest to believe this idea, but even mentioning such a suggestion portrays arrogance. That Shade wrote his poem with the concept winter in mind only because he met one of his literary critics in winter appears to be such a ridiculous, unlikely suggestion that it portrays Kinbote as overly conceited and self centered for even proposing it. Shouldn’t he instead have devoted this sentence to, for example, discussing the similarities between the season of winter and the speaker’s emotions in the poem? Kinbote seems to overly involve his personal life when analyzing this poem, which is not a good habit for a supposedly objective commentator to employ.
Readers also learn on page 80 and 81 that Kinbote had some sort of influence on Shade’s writing of the poem. Kinbote claims that he tried to “saturate” Shade with images and descriptions of Zembla and that he was the one who convinced Shade to write the poem in the first place. It does not seem right that someone who played such an integral role in the composition of a poem should be the one who dissects and analyzes it in the end, especially when the analysis is littered with personal anecdotes that appear to have no relevance to the poem. Kinbote later attempts to back off assertions of his influence on Shade’s poem by stating “Oh yes, the final text of the poem is entirely his.” The off-handed nature of this statement at the end of a paragraph makes it seem rather suspicious – as if Kinbote is denying something that he knows he is guilty of. It all adds up to the relationship between poet and critic appearing to be not quite right. What exactly is the nature of the association between Kinbote and Shade? Did the critic actually play a larger role in writing the poem than he is letting on? Are John Shade and Charles Kinbote perhaps the same person? Such questions will be considered as I read further in Pale Fire.
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