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Nabokov's Amphiphorical Gestures , S. E. Sweeney

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In addition to using two primary kinds of metaphors (those that clarify descriptions, and those that develop into leitmotifs), Nabokov's fiction demonstrates a third kind that is characterized by extended analogies, baroque, seemingly uncontrolled imagery and rhetoric, and, most importantly, fundamental ambiguity. Although this inherent ambiguity is developed throughout the comparison, it is never resolved. Because of this distinguishing characteristic, I have named such metaphors "amphiphors," after one of Nabokov's own neologisms. Nabokov's comments in Nikolai Gogol and Lectures on Russian Literature, as well as direct allusions to Gogol embedded in a few amphiphors, suggest that this device evolved …