Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014086, Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:33:53 -0800

Subject
automatism, diagnosing a character; drugs, lycanthropy & versipel
Date
Body

I wish it were as easy as that to reach a correct diagnosis for any kind of
mental illness.

Jansy,

Of course I'm not making a diagnosis - - nor is Shade a clinical case
history, just a character in a fiction by - - well, Mr U-no-hu. The literary
use of multiple personality (or not) has nothing to do with the actual
practice of psychiatry.

Which reminds me - - checking on versipel in the archives I came across a
reference to the Latin word versipellis which sent me to the Encyclopedia
Britannica article on Lycanthropy. I was interested to learn that there are
references in the literature to the use of drugs ... And all this time I
thought this was an invention of RLS!

The appearance of versipellis in the EB article of course was a possible
source for VN's knowledge of the word. But that would suggest he was
interested in lycanthropy ...

Carolyn





Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm






Attachment