----- Original Message -----
From: Akiko Nakata
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?

Yes, Charlotte Corday is referred to in Lolita too.
 
. . . a shoe-shaped bath tub, within which I felt like Marat but with no white-necked maiden to stab me. (Part I, Ch. 8)
 
Akiko Nakata
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 4:42 AM
Subject: Fw: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?

Dear Don,

Yes, I just came across Cora Day (again) in Ada -- next to Tolstoy's Hadji Murat. And she was in Pale Fire, perhaps not by name, but by inference when Shade, in his bath, "like Marat bled." I think she may be in Lolita too (along with Agnes Day and Gloria Mundy?) -- or was that Pnin? I suspect she may turn up in every novel, if one looks for her.

It may just be a sort of recurring joke. It reminds me of a technique in silent films -- Jacques Tati used it in M. Hulot  (for example the taffy left hanging on a hook in the sun). If there is a "punchline" it may be in something written after Ada.

Carolyn
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?

EDNOTE. I suppose that "Cora Day" refers to Charlotte Corday who stabbed the  French revolutionary Marat to death in his bath (1793). It is the subject of a famous painting. For detail, see the URL
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:NayYJFYmXzEJ:www.asis.com/sfhs/women/charlotte.html+Marat+Corday&hl=en&lr=lang_en|lang_ru&ie=UTF-8 <http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:NayYJFYmXzEJ:www.asis.com/sfhs/women/charlotte.html+Marat+Corday&amp;hl=en&amp;lr=lang_en|lang_ru&amp;ie=UTF-8>
VN refers to Corday elsewhere. ADA? Someone should look into the contexts and find out why.