Subject
Paris-Julian Connolly (fwd)
Date
Body
Julian Connolly, University of Virgina
"The Tremor of Fantasy"
The paper analyses the evolution of folkloric images and
Mythological fgures in Nabokov's early stories. The reader of these
stories meets a series of supernatural beings ranging from the tired
wood sprite of "Nezhit'" (The Sprite) to the vengeful angel of "Udar
kryla" (Wingstroke).
The appearance of these figures is of complex and many-sided
meaning. Behind the fantastic figures in Nabokov's work one can see
serious metaphysical reflection. Nabokov uses these images of mythological
figures in personal attempt to depict the themes of loss, death, and so
on.
One notes that with the passage of time such mythological images
become ever rarer in Nabokov's work but the author's striving for
metaphysical reflections do not disappear along with the these images. On
the contrary, the reader can find traces of this phenomenon even in
Nabokov's vey last works. My paper examines several stories of the
Twenties in which the initial stage of this thematic appears.
"The Tremor of Fantasy"
The paper analyses the evolution of folkloric images and
Mythological fgures in Nabokov's early stories. The reader of these
stories meets a series of supernatural beings ranging from the tired
wood sprite of "Nezhit'" (The Sprite) to the vengeful angel of "Udar
kryla" (Wingstroke).
The appearance of these figures is of complex and many-sided
meaning. Behind the fantastic figures in Nabokov's work one can see
serious metaphysical reflection. Nabokov uses these images of mythological
figures in personal attempt to depict the themes of loss, death, and so
on.
One notes that with the passage of time such mythological images
become ever rarer in Nabokov's work but the author's striving for
metaphysical reflections do not disappear along with the these images. On
the contrary, the reader can find traces of this phenomenon even in
Nabokov's vey last works. My paper examines several stories of the
Twenties in which the initial stage of this thematic appears.