Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000586, Thu, 11 May 1995 15:05:44 -0700

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EDITOR'S NOTE: NABOKV-L will be sending out abstracts of the 21 papers
delivered at the Nabokov Conference at Texas Tech April 6-8, 1995. If you
have not yet submitted your abstract to NABOKV-L, please do so. Copies
should also go to Steve Parker, Editor THE NABOKOVIAN, Slavic Languages
and Literatures, U. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.
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"Humbert Humbert: Lolita's Enchanted Hunter"
Corinne Scheiner

In "The Magic of Words" (1909), Andrey Bely develops his theory of
poetic creation. As a Symbolist and especially as one influenced by Steiner's
theories of anthroposophy, Bely believes in the possiblity of a synthesis
between the material world and the spiritual world. The "word" provides the
locus of htis synthesis, for every "word" has both material and spiritual
properties, that is sound and meaning, and therefore functions as a quasi-
symbol. In addition, poetic speech has the ability to represent the flux and
causality of life, for it is a temporal art as opposed to a spatial one. Bely
posits that language is an instrument of creation and thus, the "word," which is
sound, creates a new world. Bely distinguishes the "word" from terminological
and abstracts concepts, for only the "word" possesses this creative ability.
The poet must, according to Bely, employ poetic and imaginal speech in order to
relieve languages and the world from the weight of dead and dying words.
In this paper, I attempt to establish the Belyian influence on Nabokov
both in his writings on literature and in his literature itself. First, I
examine Nabokov's remarks in _Lectures on Literature_ about poetic creation as
the creation of a new world and the relationship between the created world of
the poet and other worlds. I also discuss Nabokov's view on the roles of the
writer, specifically that of enchanter. Second, I examine the process of
writing and the figure of the writer as presented in Nabokov's own fiction,
with the example of the narrator of _Lolita_, Humbert Humbert. In analyzing
the process of Humbert's poetic creation and the creations themselves, it is
possible to establish whether or not Nabokov employs Bely's theories. Humbert
recognizes himself first and foremost as a creator of words. I claim that
"Lolita," here in quotations indicating its status as a "word," functions in
the text as Humbert's ultimate creation. The rest of the paper is devoted to
an analysis of the transformations which "Lolita" undergoes in keeping with
Bely's theory of the cyclical progression of eras of degeneration and re-
creation in an effort to justify the reading of "Lolita" as the product of
Humbert's poetic creation following Bely's specifications. This paper shows
that Nabokov's _Lolita_ clearly illustrates Bely's ideas of poetic creation
and of the role of the poet for Humbert follows the process of bringing to
life imaginal speech and expresing in language the inexpressible.

Corinne Scheiner
University of Chicago
clschein@midway.uchicago.edu