The word poshlost’ denotes the concepts of banality, vulgarity or phlistinism, and has been an intellectual and cultural obsession since the second half of the nineteenth century, lasting well into the twentieth century. Russian author Vladimir Nabokov attempted to familiarize English-speaking readers with the notion of poshlost’ in his book Nikolai Gogol (1944); it is hard to find any English-language exposition of the term that does not cite Nabokov’s vigorous elaboration of it. Moreover, it is arguably a convention in scholarship to acknowledge the relationship between poshlost’ and Nabokov’s uncompromising moral and aesthetic values. Poshlost’ has often been discussed as a theme in Nabokov’s fiction, and its bearing on Nabokov’s role as a cultural critic has often been assessed, but there are few studies that examine how the concept influences the overall composition and interpretation of his fiction. This thesis examines how poshlost’ functions as a literary device in Nabokov’s final Russian-language novel Dar (1938), which tells the story of an émigré Russian writer living in Berlin in the 1920s. I look at poshlost’ from the perspective of the theories of aesthetic innovation advanced by semiotician and cultural theorist Iurii Lotman, and within this framework I link poshlost’ with the formation and re-formation of the protagonist’s, as well as the author’s, consciousness. I consider it a relational construct rather than simply an immanent feature of the text, as it would be considered in Russian Formalist approaches. Among the topics I focus on are individuation, self-modelling and autocommunication as facets of the process of personal and creative maturation. I argue that poshlost’ serves as a means of modelling Nabokov’s aesthetics as a textual feature and is a multisignifying and a multifaceted device whose overall artistic effect depends on the conditions under which it is employed.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 2008. / Bibliogr.: f. 122-127. Publié aussi en version électronique dans la Collection Mémoires et thèses électroniques.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-226). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 44).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept of Comparative Literature, June 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 44). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-123). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 22, 2007). Directed by Christopher Hodgkins and Scott Romine; submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 27-30, p. 59-64).

This thesis focuses on the triadic relationships in works by Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov. I have used two psychoanalytic case studies, Bertha Pappenheim and Elma Pálos, to reflect how James and Nabokov use the analytic method for revealing stifled and fragmented voices in their daughter characters. I theorise that while Henry James prefigured the analytical doctor/patient dynamic in the father/daughter relationships in his novels, he also adds the mother figure, turning this into a triad. The controlling mother fragments the daughter’s speech and the situation of the triadic relationship damages the daughter’s ability to articulate her narrative. The novels, Watch and Ward (1871), Washington Square (1880), and The Awkward Age (1899) show James’s developing recognition of the role the mother plays in the triad, as well as his own role as author and narrator of the daughter’s story. The case studies also contain damaging triadic relationships. There has been limited interest in the triads and this, so far, has not been commented upon as a reason for the daughter’s mental disturbance. I use unpublished letters to try to uncover the ‘real’ voice of Elma. I see that literary and psychological criticism has been guilty of mistakes in research and misrepresentation. This has further fragmented the story of these women. I hope to show that both Henry James and Sigmund Freud inspired Vladimir Nabokov, despite his vehement opinions against them. He presents the same scenario of the triadic relationship, in a fictional but analytical setting, to express his own anxiety about ‘losing’ his native language. His feminised struggle is apparent in Lolita (1955), and even more so in the character of Lucette, in Ada (1969). Nabokov sees that, in analysis, the mother is a 3 threat to the daughter’s self-expression. He develops the mother character in his fiction to represent this discovery.

Magister Educationis - MEd / An important aspect of my thesis is the discussion of the various narrators in the novel; Vladimir Nabokov, John Ray Jnr. and Humbert Humbert. The novel, or Humbert’s memoirs, is only published after Lolita has died in order to preserve her dignity. John Ray Jnr. is the psychologist who is charged with editing Humbert's memoirs to ensure that no lewd details are published. This brings problems of their own, as we find that John Ray Jnr. has clear moral perceptions of Humbert as a person. This effectively creates a fiction within a fiction, which is already set in the fictitious genre of the novel. Vladimir Nabokov arguably informs the novel with his own ethics and ethos. This interrogates the reliability of the narrators and calls into question the truth-value of fiction and the inappropriateness of the law to ban fiction that discusses taboo issues. The main aim of my thesis is to discredit Humbert as a reliable narrator and character by analysing the taboo issues of paedophilia, incest, rape and murder. This will be done in order to show how Nabokov proposes alternative morals by deconstructing traditional morality using taboo topics in fiction