Sansone, Claudio. "Lolita, Light of My Life. My Sin, My Soul" and Psalm 38. 2014

Claudio Sansone’s (University of Chicago) brief note examines a possible connection between Psalm 38 of the King James Bible, and the ‘opening’ sentence Lolita, suggesting that the echo is meant to function as a subtle recasting of the hint towards Lolita’s fate in the 'Foreword'. Side by side comparison of the King James and the English Lolita, as well as the Hebrew Bible and the Russian Lolita has underscored the lexical and thematic resonances that suggest Nabokov intended to imply that, from the very first moment, but also in certain later manifest statements and latent attitudes, Humbert’s narrative might be read as an elegy to a lost child.