Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Nabokov's Amphiphorical Gestures , S. E. Sweeney
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 …
Inverted Reality In Nabokov's Look At The Harlequins!, D. Barton Johnson
Inverted Reality In Nabokov's Look At The Harlequins!, D. Barton Johnson
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Look at the Harlequins! presents itself as the autobiography of a famed Anglo-Russian writer who suffers from bouts of insanity that are connected with his feeling that he is the inferior copy of another, much better writer. The autobiography is devoted mainly to his four great loves and to his books. Close analysis suggests that the narrator's account is false and is essentially a record of his delusive life during periods of insanity. LATH is seen as an example of those of Nabokov's novels that have schizoid narrators, such as The Eye, Despair, and Pale Fire, and …