Metzger, Sabine. “The Mysteries of Mimicry” and Nature as Supreme Art: Nabokov’s Intangible Nature. 2015

In her article, “‘The Mysteries of Mimicry’ and Nature as Supreme Art: Nabokov’s Intangible Nature,” Dr. Sabine Metzger (Universität Stuttgart) focuses on Nabokov’s statement: “The mysteries of mimicry had a special attraction to me.” It has been noted by several critics that for Nabokov, mimicry establishes a link between nature and art, between the natural and the artificial. However, the interchangeability of these terms does not only prove to be a “key of Nabokov’s art”; above all it informs, as this paper will argue, his understanding of nature. Nabokov’s elaborations on mimicry characterize nature as supreme artist. Although understood as essentially artistic, Nabokov’s notion of nature cannot be identified as Romantic. Aesthetic and thus intangible, nature as supreme art keeps its “mysteries” and therefore maintains nature’s essential inaccessibility, as Heraclitus’ aphorism suggests: “nature likes to conceal herself.”