The use of Nabokov
specs may lead one onto new realms of inquiry. While reading "La cité perverse:
liberalisme et pornographie" by Dany-Robert Dufour (2009, translated to
Portuguese in 2013), I came across a loose quotation from Henri
Bergson: Irony is when the ideal is presented as a
reality.
I was
already familiar with Nabokov's use of Bergsonian concepts of time (la durée),*
but the introduction of the term "irony," in relation to "artistic
creation" by the French philosopher, immediately transported me to
Nabokov's "worlds" - and there I was stranded! (I even lost sight
of the Bergsonian "ideal and reality" in VN's writings).
Nabokov's
distinction between parody and satire is famous, but I cannot recollect any
reference of his to "irony"** and it seems to me that Nabokov's novels
might be profitably examined under the light of the modern critical
acception of "irony. "
I found
two interesting works online ( "The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination," by
Morton Gurewitch; Richard Rorty's "Contingency,Irony, and Solidarity"(from
which I'm only acquainted with "the barber of Kasbeam: Nabokov
on cruelty" which, as I now see, has to be read in connection to his other
articles and not independently).
I would
be thankful to learn about other articles and authors focusing on Nabokov
and irony.
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Neutral Evolution and Aesthetics: Vladimir Nabokov and Insect Mimicry by
Victoria N Alexander