Nabokov and the Question of Morality

Aesthetics, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Fiction
Softcover Nachdruck of the original 1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-349-95555-8
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

Buch, Englisch, 241 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 336 g

The first collection to address the vexing issue of Nabokov’s moral stances, this book argues that he designed his novels and stories as open-ended ethical problems for readers to confront. In a dozen new essays, international Nabokov scholars tackle those problems directly while addressing such questions as whether Nabokov was a bad reader, how he defined evil, if he believed in God, and how he constructed fictional works that led readers to become aware of their own moral positions. In order to elucidate his engagement with aesthetics, metaphysics, and ethics, Nabokov and the Question of Morality explores specific concepts in the volume’s four sections: “Responsible Reading,” “Good and Evil,” “Agency and Altruism,” and “The Ethics of Representation.” By bringing together fresh insights from leading Nabokovians and emerging scholars, this book establishes new interdisciplinary contexts for Nabokov studies and generates lively readings of works from his entire career.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sweeney, Susan Elizabeth

Rodgers, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturkritik: Hermeneutik und Interpretation
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Slawische Literaturen Ostslawische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Table of Contents



Abbreviations for Titles of Nabokov’s Works and Biography

Introduction

Nabokov’s Morality Play

Michael Rodgers and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney



Responsible Reading

1

“And So the Password Is—?”: Nabokov and the Ethics of Rereading

Tom Whalen



2

Nabokov and Dostoevsky: Good Writer, Bad Reader?

Julian Connolly



3

The Will to Disempower? Nabokov and His Readers

Michael Rodgers



Good and Evil

4

Nabokov’s God; God’s Nabokov

Samuel Schuman



5

By Trial and Terror

Gennady Barabtarlo



6

The Aesthetics of Moral Contradiction in Some Early Nabokov Novels

David Rampton



Agency and Altruism

7

Loving and Giving in Nabokov’s The Gift

Jacqueline Hamrit



8

Kinbote’s Heroism

Laurence Piercy



The Ethics of Representation

9

Whether Judgments, Sentences, and Executions Satisfy the Moral Sense in Nabokov

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney



10

The Art of Morality, or on Lolita

Leland de la Durantaye



11

“Obnoxious Preoccupation with Sex Organs”: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Representing Sex

Elspeth Jajdelska



12

Modern Mimesis

Michael Wood



Notes on Contributors



Index

Über Autor(innen)

Michael Rodgers is a Teaching Assistant at the University of Strathclyde, UK, where he completed his PhD dissertation on the relationship between Vladimir Nabokov’s fiction and Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. He is currently researching the idea of uncomfortable humor in twentieth-century literature.
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney is Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross, USA. The author of over thirty essays on Nabokov, she was twice elected president of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society and currently coedits NABOKV-L, the Vladimir Nabokov Electronic Forum. She also publishes widely on American literature, detective fiction, and narrative theory.