Vladimir Nabokov

Boyd, Brian. Enchanted Hunting: Lolita and Lolita, Diana and diana. 2016

Author(s)
Bibliographic title
Enchanted Hunting: Lolita and Lolita, Diana and diana
Periodical or collection
Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov’s Scientific Art
Page(s)
277-284
Publication year
Abstract
Follows a complicated trail of clues surrounding Coalmont in Lolita and the real Coalburg, West Virginia, behind it, the home of the famous lepidopterist W.H. Edwards (whose Butterflies of North America Nabokov revered) and the "legendary" (to lepidopterists) locus of Edwards's discovery that two distinct morphs were the male and female of the butterfly Speyeria diana. The clues enrich and clinch the enchanted hunting and hunter-hunted motifs in the novel, and the roles of Diana in Quilty's Enchanted Hunters play and Humbert's Enchanted Hunters poem, Elphinstone and Lepingville, and the sexually ambivalent names "Clare" and "Vivian."