Certains textes littéraires plongent leur lecteur dans une profonde incompréhension. Plusieurs de ces textes demandent un mode d’emploi afin d’élucider leur complexité. Les romans de Vladimir Nabokov s’inscrivent dans ce genre de texte demandant au lecteur un travail d’interprétation complexe. Nous tâcherons à travers trois perspectives de lecture s’emboîtant l’une dans l’autre de venir à bout des difficultés que posent deux de ses romans, The Eye et The Defense, et nous les interrogerons relativement à leur esthétique romanesque particulière, la métafiction, à leurs personnages, et à la lecture en découlant. Le premier chapitre s’attache plus particulièrement à la conception de la littérature selon Nabokov. Nous soutirons des essais théoriques et des analyses littéraires effectuées par l’auteur des éléments de son esthétique, éclairant par conséquent ses propres choix romanesques. Le deuxième chapitre s’attache à comprendre plus spécialement les modalités d’apparition et d’interprétation des deux personnages principaux des romans étudiés, à partir de notions telles que la focalisation, la polyphonie et le dialogisme, et nous nous y arrêtons plus précisément à la question de leurs dimensions à partir de la théorie du personnage proposée par James Phelan. Cette théorie permet de mettre en lumière les aspects non-réaliste et synthétique des personnages étudiés. La question que nous posons au troisième chapitre concerne cette fois la dimension autoréflexive et métafictionnelle des romans de Nabokov. On y décrit diverses stratégies auctoriales qui insistent sur le caractère synthétique et artificiel de la fiction. Nous y analysons de façon plus importante la parodie de la forme policière et du jeu dans nos deux œuvres.

Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät--Universität zu Köln, 1990.

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Psychological traumas surface in Paula Vogel’s portrayal of Li’l Bit and Uncle Peck in How I Learned to Drive (1997). Theorizing Peck’s fixation on Li’l Bit is necessitated by his drive to recapture his innocence—an innocence he lost as a young man during WWII—this thesis will seek to explain how Drive can be viewed as a love story by revealing the motivations behind Li’l Bit’s sympathy for Uncle Peck. Recognizing war trauma as the fundamental catalyst for both the action and the tone of the play situates Drive in a territory not yet explored. Furthermore, this thesis will explore the dubious relationship between war-traumatized veterans and pedophilic tendencies by examining this theme in other literature, particularly, J.D. Salinger’s “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” (1950) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), thus, placing Drive at the nexus in which American drama and war literature coalesce.

Nabokov is well known for writing numerous indictments of totalitarian tyranny, most notably Invitation to a Beheading (1935) and Bend Sinister (1947). However, my contention in this thesis is that Nabokov�s most sustained and most significant assault on totalitarian tyranny occurred in 1938. The extent of Nabokov�s response to tyranny in 1938 is not immediately obvious. Some of Nabokov�s work of the year engages in an explicit assault on tyranny; however, in other cases the assault is oblique and in one instance cryptically concealed. In my thesis I examine each of the works of 1938, and set these against the political circumstances of the year, the tense atmosphere on the threshold of World War II. I find that all of the works of 1938, in one manner or another, respond to the political climate of the day; that Nabokov in 1938 made an unparalleled artistic response to tyranny in a uniquely ominous year. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains studies of each of the lesser works of 1938: chapter 5 of The Gift, "Tyrants Destroyed," The Waltz Invention, "The Visit to the Museum," and "Lik." These studies are inset into a chronological survey of the personal and political circumstances of Nabokov�s life in 1938. Part 2 constitutes the most significant aspect of my thesis, an in-depth study of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov�s main work of 1938. The novel has been regarded as detached from the pre-war climate of the day; however, in an extensive new reading I find that the bright appearance of the novel is only a facade. My reading reveals a triadic, chess-problem-like structure to the novel, where the innocuous surface (the thesis) gives way to a cryptically concealed level of totalitarian themes (the antithesis), before the novel finally emerges onto a notional third level (the synthesis), the novel�s "solution." The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, I contend, represents the heart of Nabokov�s artistic response to tyranny in 1938. Through the triadic unfolding of the novel and the reader�s creative engagement with the text, Nabokov demonstrates that art itself triumphs over tyranny.

Nabokov is well known for writing numerous indictments of totalitarian tyranny, most notably Invitation to a Beheading (1935) and Bend Sinister (1947). However, my contention in this thesis is that Nabokov�s most sustained and most significant assault on totalitarian tyranny occurred in 1938. The extent of Nabokov�s response to tyranny in 1938 is not immediately obvious. Some of Nabokov�s work of the year engages in an explicit assault on tyranny; however, in other cases the assault is oblique and in one instance cryptically concealed. In my thesis I examine each of the works of 1938, and set these against the political circumstances of the year, the tense atmosphere on the threshold of World War II. I find that all of the works of 1938, in one manner or another, respond to the political climate of the day; that Nabokov in 1938 made an unparalleled artistic response to tyranny in a uniquely ominous year. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains studies of each of the lesser works of 1938: chapter 5 of The Gift, "Tyrants Destroyed," The Waltz Invention, "The Visit to the Museum," and "Lik." These studies are inset into a chronological survey of the personal and political circumstances of Nabokov�s life in 1938. Part 2 constitutes the most significant aspect of my thesis, an in-depth study of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Nabokov�s main work of 1938. The novel has been regarded as detached from the pre-war climate of the day; however, in an extensive new reading I find that the bright appearance of the novel is only a facade. My reading reveals a triadic, chess-problem-like structure to the novel, where the innocuous surface (the thesis) gives way to a cryptically concealed level of totalitarian themes (the antithesis), before the novel finally emerges onto a notional third level (the synthesis), the novel�s "solution." The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, I contend, represents the heart of Nabokov�s artistic response to tyranny in 1938. Through the triadic unfolding of the novel and the reader�s creative engagement with the text, Nabokov demonstrates that art itself triumphs over tyranny.

Qu’y a-t-il de commun entre Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy et James Ellroy ? Ces cinq écrivains contemporains se sont intéressés au personnage du criminel asocial sur le territoire des États-Unis. Son existence repose sur le paradoxe propre à tout individu asocial : bien qu'il n'adhère pas aux conventions établies qu'il perçoit comme des entraves, il ne souhaite pas rompre les ponts avec la collectivité et refuse la vie en autarcie. S'il n'est donc pas antisocial, pourquoi fait-il le choix de l'asocialité ? Parce qu'il ne peut accepter ce qu'il perçoit comme des déviances dans le modèle de vie qui lui est proposé et qu'il va le remettre en question. Mais pourquoi serait-il de plus enclin à la criminalité ? La question est légitime dans la mesure où la relation entre criminalité et asociabilité n'est pas évidente alors que lier antisocial et criminel serait plus aisé car il y alors négation affirmée des lois de la société et volonté de s'en affranchir par l'action. A l'inverse, un asocial n'est pas nécessairement criminel. Cependant, chez les protagonistes des auteurs, ces deux caractéristiques vont de pair : peut-être sont-ils à la fois asociaux et criminels parce qu'ils ont décidé de vivre leur transgression en marge d'une société qui ne les satisfait pas mais qui ne les intéresse pas assez pour qu'il la combatte activement ? Ou peut-être trouvent-ils nécessaire de s'affranchir des lois pour exister dans le cadre qui leur est imposé et qu'ils ne cautionnent plus ? Il en résulte une écriture façonnée par ces questionnements et leurs nombreuses variations. Le corpus fait de biographies, récits fictionnels et non-fictionnels, entraîne une réflexion sur le modèle sociétal américain des années 50 à la fin des années 90 et plus particulièrement sur ses dysfonctionnements à l’origine de l’émergence de ce type de personnage qui devient alors l'instrument à visée démonstrative d'une littérature engagée. / What is the common point between Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy et James Ellroy ? These five authors have been interested in a specific character in the contemporary literature, the asocial criminal in The United States. He appeared in a paradoxical way : while he is fighting against the established social conventions, he does not wish to live away from this society. So if this character is not antisocial, why does he make the choice to be asocial ? Because he cannot accept what he considers as a deviance inside the American way of life and he is going to fight against it in order to achieve his personal goals. But why should he also be a criminal ? This is a legitimate question since the link between crime and lack of sociability is not necessarily an obvious fact. On the contrary, it is pretty easier to tie crime and antisocial behaviors because there is a desire to live like an outcast, to infringe laws with violence. So, an asocial cannot be a criminal. However, concerning the authors' protagonists, both of these features work well together. Maybe they are asocial and criminal because they decided to live according to their wishes inside their society with its restrictive rules but as they refuse to lose their freedom, they know perfectly well they must not go too far ? Or maybe they also simply think they do not have to follow rules that they cannot accept and support ? Anyway, all these questions lead to a various corpus composed by biographies, fictions and non fiction stories. It entires the reader to think about the American consumer society and more particularly about the dysfunctions which gave birth to the asocial criminal character. So that the latter becomes a thought-provoking within the socially-engaged literature.

Écrite d’abord en russe puis en anglo-américain, l’œuvre romanesque de Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), écrivain américain d’origine russe, fascine ses lecteurs, mais leur participation à l’achèvement de cette œuvre artistique a été singulièrement restreinte par sa réception. La publication de Lolita (1955) le transforme en précurseur du postmodernisme américain. Aboutissement de la quête moderne de l’autonomie de l’art et triomphe de l’autotélisme artistique, sa création se trouve alors interprétée en poétique « tyrannique » sur laquelle règne l’auteur en « dictateur absolu ». Vladimir Nabokov, pourtant, n’a cessé d’identifier dans l’Histoire et de combattre dans son œuvre deux questions politiques du vingtième siècle : celle de la soumission de l’art à l’idéologie (quelle qu’en soit le nom) et celle de la tyrannie (actualisée par les régimes politiques nazi et soviétique). Dès l’origine, sa création de langue russe, puis anglo-américaine, est synchronisée avec les conséquences, tant en Russie qu’en Occident, de la Révolution bolchevique, l’événement historique qui change le « partage du sensible » (Jacques Rancière) vingtiémiste. La nature autotélique de sa création, dont les caractéristiques sont à redéfinir en opposition aux formes artistiques prônant l’engagement de l’art, indique en réalité que Nabokov propose une nouvelle « politique de la littérature » (Jacques Rancière) de l’émancipation qu’il a lui-même appelée du nom de « démocratie magique » et fait d’elle un « art critique » dont l’effet politique passe par sa distance esthétique, incluant « dans la forme de l’œuvre la confrontation de ce que le monde est avec ce que le monde pourrait être » (Jacques Rancière). / Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), American writer of Russian origin, was the author of fiction written first in Russian and then in American English. His work has been a constant source of fascination for his readers, but their interpretation has been limited by its reception. Upon the publication of Lolita (1955), Nabokov is seen as a precursor of American postmodernism. His writings are interpreted as the climax of the modernist quest for artistic autonomy and a triumph of autotelic creation, and a poetic of “tyranny” is identified in his work, with the author reigning supreme as an “absolute dictator.”However, Nabokov had never ceased to be preoccupied with two political issues in 20th century History, which he continuously denounced in his writings: the issue of the submission of art to any kind of ideology and that of tyranny illustrated by the Nazi and Soviet political regimes. From the very beginning of his career, in his Russian texts and later in his American texts, Nabokov’s work examines the consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution, seen as the historical event that changes the “distribution of the sensible” (J. Rancière) in the 20th century. The autotelic nature of his work, whose features should be defined in opposition to aesthetic forms that celebrate the commitment of art, actually indicates that Nabokov defines a new “politics of literature” (J. Rancière) based on emancipation, which Nabokov calls “a magic democracy” and considers to be a “critical art” whose aesthetic effect is predicated on its distance, thus including “in the form of the work the confrontation between what the world is and what the world may become” (J. Rancière).

Title: Vladimir Nabokov’s Russian short stories (1921-1942): The game between real and supernatural in short fiction. (Italian title: I racconti in lingua russa di Vladimir Nabokov (1921-1942): il gioco tra reale e soprannaturale nella forma breve). In this Ph.D. research project, I examined several short stories written by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). I focused my attention on the relationship between the real and the supernatural and examined how such a relationship evolved over the years. My research aims to highlight how Nabokov introduced innovations in the European literary tradition with his supernatural short fiction. The core of Nabokov’s first short stories is a binary opposition between something that can be described as real (or realistic), and something that belongs to the realm of the fantastic. The dynamic tension between the real and the supernatural allows Nabokov to renew the European and Russian tradition of “novellas” and supernatural tales. Gradually, Nabokov phased out the fantastic elements and focused on the inner life of the characters that he unveiled through a series of epiphanic moments. The evolution of Nabokov’s short fiction reflects the crisis of the artistic representation experienced by the European intellectuals at the beginning of the 20th century. Nabokov experimented with different kinds of narratives forms to examine the condition of the Russian immigrants and how they relied on imagination and memory to deal with the pain of exile. In this regard, he underscores that only the act of remembering can give new life to the lost past thus conferring dignity to the troublesome present life. The first chapter starts with an overview of numerous studies on short fiction to determine what a “short story” actually is. I then examine the definition of “real” and “supernatural” as well as the most significant scholars’ interpretations of Nabokov’s short stories. Subsequently, I investigate the social, cultural, and historical background of Nabokov’s stories. Finally, I present a chronological list of the stories examined in the thesis. In the second chapter, I carry out the analysis of the short stories I selected for my research. Most of the stories are characterized by the presence of fantastic and supernatural elements. I divided the stories into five different sections, each dedicated to a specific type of supernatural. In this chapter, I examine the different interpretations that have been offered by Nabokov scholars and I provide a new understanding of the evolution of Nabokov’s narrative. In the third chapter, I analyze the relationship among the different short stories to draw a hermeneutic map of the transformations of the narrative core and the themes of the stories. In the conclusion, I outline the main insights of my research.

In Queering Nabokov: Postmoderne Zeitlichkeiten und Erotik in Ada, oder Ardor nähert sich Nathalia Saliba Dias dem Spätwerk Vladimir Nabokovs aus der Perspektive der Queer-Theorie und der Queer-Zeitlichkeiten, um eine bestimmte Kombination von Themen zu untersuchen: die Überschneidung von postmodernen Zeitlichkeiten, Verspieltheit und Erotik. Nabokovs Umgang mit der Zeit wurde oft mit der Suche der Moderne nach Transzendenz und Zeitlosigkeit in Verbindung gebracht und im Lichte von Marcel Proust und Henri Bergson interpretiert. In Ada, oder Ardor (1969) jedoch stellt Nabokov alternative Formen der Zeitlichkeit, die historisch als weiblich und seltsam identifiziert werden (wie Rhythmus und Textur), im Gegensatz zu Linearität, Uhr und Kalenderzeit, die oft mit männlicher Zeit assoziiert werden. Darüber hinaus beschreibt Nabokov die Erinnerungen der Figur als ein sexuelles Ereignis und manipuliert historisches Material (Fotos, Dias, Bücher usw.) als sexuelle Objekte. Er sexualisiert auch seine Beziehung zu anderen Autoren in der Komposition des Romans und verwandelt die Literaturgeschichte in eine homoerotische und frauenfeindliche Beziehung. Schließlich sexualisiert Nabokov seine literarische Familie und seine literarischen Mittel, insbesondere die Parodie, indem er das Material anderer in seinen eigenen Schriften auf abartige Weise "einfügt", "durchdringt" und "manipuliert". Das zentrale Argument dieser Arbeit ist, dass Nabokov in Ada, oder Ardor schließlich einen spielerischen Umgang mit der Zeit (reflektierende Nostalgie) als verkörperte und sexuelle Erfahrung in den Mittelpunkt stellt, anstatt die Zeit als Wunsch zu erforschen, seine Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart wiederherzustellen (reparative Nostalgie). / In Queering Nabokov: Postmodernist Temporalities and Eroticism in Ada, or Ardor, Nathalia Saliba Dias approaches Vladimir Nabokov’s late work from the perspective of Queer theory and Queer temporalities to investigate one particular combination of themes: the intersection of postmodernist temporalities, playfulness, and eroticism. Nabokov’s approach to time has been often associated with the modernist search for transcendence and timelessness, being interpreted in the light of Marcel Proust and Henri Bergosn. In Ada, or Ardor (1969), however, Nabokov embraces alternative forms of temporality, which are historically identified as feminine and queer (like rhythms and texture) in opposition to linearity, clock and calendar time, which are often associated with masculine time. Furthermore, Nabokov describes the character’s memories as a sexual event and manipulates historical materials (photos, slides, books, etc.) as sexual objects. He also sexualizes his relationship with other authors in the composition of the novel, transforming literary history into a homoerotic and misogynistic relationship. Finally, Nabokov sexualizes his literary family and devices, especially parody, “inserting,” “penetrating,” and “manipulating” the material of others in his own writings in deviant ways. The central argument of this thesis is that in Ada, or Ardor Nabokov finally focuses on a playful treatment of time (reflective nostalgia), as an embodied and sexual experience, rather than exploring time as a wish to reinstate his past in the presente (reparative nostalgia).