nymph: the entomological overtones of the word ‘nymphet’
as used by Nabokov have not always been appreciated correctly.
The word is classical Greek and
literally means ‘maiden’ or ‘bride.’ A nymph in Greek mythology, according to Webster III, was a minor divinity of
nature – that is, a demon – represented as a beautiful maiden. For instance,
there were thought to be wood nymphs (dryads) inhabiting the forests and naiads
inhabiting sources and brooks. The American members of the genus Cercyonis Scudder, 1875 [Nymphalidae, Satyrinae]
are called ‘wood-nymphs.’ The generic name of the North American
àringlets, Coenonympha Hübner, 1819, means ‘common nymph.’
To understand why Lolita’s “nature is
not human but nymphic,” it is necessary to briefly review the life cycle of
insects.
They all pass through up to four
distinct successive stages called instars. These are egg, caterpillar (or
larva), pupa and imago (or adult). Some, including Lepidoptera, undergo complete
metamorphosis, passing through all four instars. They are called
holometabolic.
The female deposits fertilized eggs –
the insect’s embryos. After a few days, in some species after the winter is
over, there emerges a larva which in the case of butterflies and moths is a
caterpillar. Its main raison d’être
is to acquire biomass, that is, to eat and grow. The larval or caterpillar stage
lasts from two weeks to nine months, in some cases up to seven years. As their
skins get too tight, they shed it and grow a bigger one; there usually are
around four or five molts.
When the larva has acquired enough
biomass, it turns into a pupa which in diurnal butterflies is also called a
chrysalis because of the metallic golden sheen on many of them. Chrysales are
more or less immobile and somewhat protected by a hard shell. In their interior,
the insect breaks down or transforms many of its caterpillar features and
develops into the adult form that will fly. This pupal stage lasts from ten days
to several years.
The main purpose in the life of the
adult which finally emerges from the pupal cocoon is to find a mate and to
reproduce. The life of the imago lasts from a few hours up to ten months in the
species that hibernate in this instar. The reason for these transformations,
generally speaking, is to give the insect the form that best suits the tasks and
the season ahead of it. Only rarely do they spend the cold season in the
imaginal form – most winter either as eggs, caterpillars or
pupae.
Once Nabokov remarked that one of the
layman’s foolish questions about butterflies was whether they grow (N/WLet 69=58old). The answer of course
is, no. They do all their growing as caterpillars. The imago doesn’t grow, it
just unfolds as soon as it has broken its cocoon.
Other insects – called hemimetabolic
for that reason – undergo one stage less. They skip the pupal stage, turning
from larvae directly into adults.
Now the word ‘nymph’ is used somewhat
loosely in entomology, with subtle shades of meaning between different
languages. The misunderstanding has arisen from the fact that Webster III has the following –
incomplete and therefore misleading – definition: “any of various hemimetabolic
insects in an immature stage… broadly: any insect larva that differs
chiefly in size and differentiation from the imago.” Thus it would seem that the
word in the narrower sense does not apply to butterflies and moths at all and
that in a broader sense it refers mainly to a caterpillar. This must be the
reason why Karges (1985) argued (p. 45) that “as a metaphor of youth, it
[the word nymph] has no reference to Lepidoptera” and was used by Nabokov out of
“disingenuousness.” Likewise, Lionel Trilling’s assumption that a nymph is the
“young of an insect without complete metamorphosis” may be traced to this
source.
Diana Butler (1960) is still further
off the mark when she argues that “Humbert’s distinctions between nymphets and
non-nymphets echo the distinctions between moths and butterflies… moths are
big-bodied and butterflies are slender-bodied…” The distinction between
butterflies and moths is not a too clear-cut one, but certainly body size is not
a useful criterion at all, there being plenty of slim moths and plump
butterflies. And of course, in entomology there are no nymphets alongside the
nymphs.
However, it must be noted that the
word ‘nymph’ is also used for holometabolic insects like Lepidoptera. The
complete edition of the OED explains
what Webster does not: “nymph 3.a.:
An insect in that stage of development which intervenes between the larva and
the imago; a pupa.” In French, nymphe
is the regular word for ‘pupa’; se
nymphoser means ‘to pupate.’ Hence, in butterflies and moths ‘nymph’ is just
another word for ‘pupa’ or ‘chrysalis.’
In Russian, ‘nimfa’ seems to be
restricted to hemimetabolic insects. This is how the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
defines it: “The n. resembles the adult form [in hemimetabolic arthropods] but
has underdeveloped sexual apparatus and, in winged insects, underdeveloped
wings. After molting many times the nymph becomes an imago, a fully mature
individual.” Thus the Russian use of the word stresses the fact that nymphs are
sexually immature hemimetabolic insects. (In Russian nimfa is also the common name for all
àNymphalidae.)
In German entomology, ‘Nymphe’ is used
for both hemimetabolic and holometabolic insects. The word designates the last
pre-imaginal state (whether of the larva or the pupa) which already shows the
outlines of the wings the adult will possess. Of this very stage, Nabokov said:
“… in certain species, the wings of the pupated butterfly begin to show in
exquisite miniature through the wing-cases of the chrysalis a few days before
emergence. It is the pathetic sight of an iridiscent future transpiring through
the shell of the past, something of the kind I experience when dipping into my
books written in the twenties.” (Int18 123)
With all of these meanings, if Lolita
is a little nymph, she is a young individual on the very verge of turning into
an adult, already showing the adult’s wings, but not yet sexually mature.
Calling Lolita a nymphet was not being disingenuous at all. It is a very apt
metaphor.
By the way, Latin pupa means ‘girl,’ ‘doll.’ Dolly is a
nymph, and the nymphet is a doll.
*Gift 335; Lol 16; Ada 13
Dieter E. Zimmer, Berlin