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Re: Theory
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Charles wrote:
I’d agree that artistic criteria are above nationality. However, the artist is nevertheless necessarily the product of his own personal inheritance and environment, and in VN’s case these are essentially non-American.
My point was simply that in VN there was without a doubt an essential American streak. It is impossible to turn one’s back to VN’s American side, just as it is impossible (and academically irresponsible) to close one’s eyes to his Russian or European side. You seem to isolate the European side as definitive, and I find it objectionable and dangerously exclusive. I wrote a graduate thesis on VN’s national identity and can provide material evidence to prove that the Russian side was as important for him as anything. But to isolate this or any other national/geographical part of identity as one definitive element in his “personal inheritance and environment” is too limiting, and often serves no other purpose but our own nationalistic agendas. Paradoxically, we often profit from the fact that VN’s case is not as clearly defined as we want it to be. Beckett warned that “the danger is in the neatness of identifications.” In short, I don’t think there’s evidence that could warrant such a dismissive attitude towards VN’s American side, either in his art or his life. I heavily recommend you to read Susan Elizabeth Sweeney’s essay “How Nabokov rewrote America” in The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov, ed. by Prof. Julian W. Connolly (2005), p. 65-84 (as well as Alexander Dolinin’s “Nabokov as a Russian writer,” p. 49-64).
Jansy wrote:
Shouldn't we write of "Demagogism' or populism, instead of "Democracy", when bringing up a contrast to "Elitism"? The sentence "VN draws on both European elitism and American populism"' similarly doesn't make sense to me. "European populism" exists, also "American elitism". VN never drew on "populism" except when in jest, but he was always very clear about his embracing democracy "wholeheartedly".
I replied to Charles’s post in which he was speaking about hierarchical European society (essentially elitist) and “flat” American society (essentially anti-elitist). Sure enough, there are such things as European anti-elitism and American elitism, but it’s not what Charles was talking about. Ideally, I’d want this discussion to go along the road of uniting American and European sensibilities (VN is an excellent example), not demarcating them in such a violent way. But, I don’t know, is it the “atmosphere” of the state-approved isolationism and pervasive international and interreligious suspicion that dictates its own rules?
To Charles:
The British critic I mentioned was John Carey (author of The Intellectuals and the Masses, 1992, whereof I read a review some two years ago; I don’t think he works in the US now). Finally, I’d recommend Jonathan Culler’s short and very lucid “Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction” (OUP, 1997, 2000) as a good example of how creative and fascinating literary theory can be. “Theory” in your understanding is morally compromised, exclusive and prescriptive, and can indeed ruin anyone’s appreciation of literature. But there exists in the academia, I want to believe, theory as philosophy, as a free intellectual endeavor, which actually enhances one’s appreciation of literature.
SK
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I’d agree that artistic criteria are above nationality. However, the artist is nevertheless necessarily the product of his own personal inheritance and environment, and in VN’s case these are essentially non-American.
My point was simply that in VN there was without a doubt an essential American streak. It is impossible to turn one’s back to VN’s American side, just as it is impossible (and academically irresponsible) to close one’s eyes to his Russian or European side. You seem to isolate the European side as definitive, and I find it objectionable and dangerously exclusive. I wrote a graduate thesis on VN’s national identity and can provide material evidence to prove that the Russian side was as important for him as anything. But to isolate this or any other national/geographical part of identity as one definitive element in his “personal inheritance and environment” is too limiting, and often serves no other purpose but our own nationalistic agendas. Paradoxically, we often profit from the fact that VN’s case is not as clearly defined as we want it to be. Beckett warned that “the danger is in the neatness of identifications.” In short, I don’t think there’s evidence that could warrant such a dismissive attitude towards VN’s American side, either in his art or his life. I heavily recommend you to read Susan Elizabeth Sweeney’s essay “How Nabokov rewrote America” in The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov, ed. by Prof. Julian W. Connolly (2005), p. 65-84 (as well as Alexander Dolinin’s “Nabokov as a Russian writer,” p. 49-64).
Jansy wrote:
Shouldn't we write of "Demagogism' or populism, instead of "Democracy", when bringing up a contrast to "Elitism"? The sentence "VN draws on both European elitism and American populism"' similarly doesn't make sense to me. "European populism" exists, also "American elitism". VN never drew on "populism" except when in jest, but he was always very clear about his embracing democracy "wholeheartedly".
I replied to Charles’s post in which he was speaking about hierarchical European society (essentially elitist) and “flat” American society (essentially anti-elitist). Sure enough, there are such things as European anti-elitism and American elitism, but it’s not what Charles was talking about. Ideally, I’d want this discussion to go along the road of uniting American and European sensibilities (VN is an excellent example), not demarcating them in such a violent way. But, I don’t know, is it the “atmosphere” of the state-approved isolationism and pervasive international and interreligious suspicion that dictates its own rules?
To Charles:
The British critic I mentioned was John Carey (author of The Intellectuals and the Masses, 1992, whereof I read a review some two years ago; I don’t think he works in the US now). Finally, I’d recommend Jonathan Culler’s short and very lucid “Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction” (OUP, 1997, 2000) as a good example of how creative and fascinating literary theory can be. “Theory” in your understanding is morally compromised, exclusive and prescriptive, and can indeed ruin anyone’s appreciation of literature. But there exists in the academia, I want to believe, theory as philosophy, as a free intellectual endeavor, which actually enhances one’s appreciation of literature.
SK
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm