Conmal is King Charles’s uncle and Queen Blenda’s half-brother. He is a famous Zemblan translator best known for his translation of William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, the play from which Shade gets the title for “Pale Fire.” Late in the novel, readers learn that Conmal’s grasp of the English language was actually pretty limited, making his translations quite poor.
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Conmal Character Timeline in Pale Fire
The timeline below shows where the character Conmal appears in Pale Fire. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Commentary: Lines 1-48
...a bit poorer (which might someday be known as “Kinbote’s Law”). Influenced by his uncle Conmal (a Shakespeare translator), Charles the Beloved developed a passion for literature. At age 40, just...
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Commentary: Lines 101-143
...the lumber room, opening the closet with the key in the lock. There, he found Conmal’s Zemblan translation of Timon of Athens and a few other knickknacks. About to leave, he...
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Commentary: Lines 662-872
...of the lines can be “mimed and rhymed” in a lovely way in Zemblan (which Conmal termed “the tongue of the mirror”).
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Commentary: Lines 873-1000
Conmal was the first to translate English works into Zemblan, but he was self-taught and he...
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