Article

Name: Optical aberrations in the lyrics of V. Nabokov’s French period

Authors: Natalia A. Rogacheva, Anastasiia O. Drozdova

University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

The paper considers the poems of Vladimir Nabokov from the late 1930s. The lyrics reflect the writer’s experiments with the possibilities of language to convey the subjective experience of the artist. These texts referred to the French period are characterized by objectively “clear” optics. The poems “Oko” (“Oculus”) and “Chto za noch’ s pamyat’yu sluchilos’” (“What happened overnight”) utilize apophatic definitions and interrogative sentences to indicate the possibility of verbalizing the supersensual experience without linguistic constraints. The endeavor to express transcendental sensations through language invokes linguistic creativity and references to other literary works. The aesthetic framework established by Nabokov necessitates a state of reflective silence when perceiving his brilliant poetry, which is distinguished by the verbalization of unrecognized shades, sounds, and odors. Nabokov actualizes the meta-linguistics ability of the artistic word to convey the specific sensorial characteristics of poetic inspiration and to possess its own referential memory. The study reveals how Nabokov employs references to his and other works to emphasize the artistic quality of optical aberrations. During the late 1930s, prior to transitioning to English, Nabokov focuses on the sensorial, mnemonic, and language mistakes and neutralizes the boundaries between the discourses, genres, epic, and lyrics. The wide literary context highlights the transgressive and conflict nature of V. Nabokov’s works of the French period. This background encompasses the early poems by Nabokov, works of contemporary émigré poets such as V. Hodasevich, G. Ivanov,

G. Adamovich, and classical Russian poetry by A. Pushkin and V. Zhukovsky.

Keywords: V. Nabokov, poem, sensorics, image, language transition, perceptive aberration

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