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Re: Lolita: Nymphet? Or Larvalet?
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Simple answer, Robert, matching your jovial year-end spirit. We don¹t sing
³Larvae and Shepherds, Come Away!² Likewise, Hamlet did not say to Ophelia
³Pupa, in thy orisons be all my sins remember¹ed.² The reason might
_possibly_ be that since time immoral, the Greeks and Romans called their
³semi-divine females² NYMPHS, long before the entomologists borrowed the
word! Nabokov¹s lepidottery [sic] don¹t really enter into it. His NYMPHET
happened to be a diminutive semi-divine piece of jail-bait in human form.
Judging from Humbert¹s favourite pleasure, the nearest entomological name
for LO would be Blow-Fly?
PS: Any Nabokovian mathematicians out there? If so, look for LEWIS CARROLL
IN NUMBERLAND, Robin Wilson, W W Norton, 2008. Enough wordplay, perhaps, for
non-mathematicians. E.g., the origin of his pen-name is quite Nabokovian.
Born Charles ENTWIDGE Dodgson. That middle name is a Latin variant for
Louis, and Carol is related to Charles. Whence Lewis Carroll. VN was teasing
when he said Carroll was an H-H prototype. Carroll certainly loved
photographing naked nymphets but NO HANKY-PANKY.
Meum Culpum: the quote I assigned to Tweedle-Dum in a recent post was really
from another Carroll character, Humpty Dumpty:
³When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor
less.² This is one of the KEY in-jokes in Semantics and I can hear VN
chuckling as he translated this into Russian.
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
On 03/01/2009 01:38, "Robert H. Boyle" <KatyaBelousBoyle@AOL.COM> wrote:
>
> No wish to bug Nabokovians, but a question in need of an answer.
>
> Why did Nabokov, a lepidopterist, call Lolita a nymphet? Lepidoptera
> do not have nymphs, they have larvae.
>
> Only ancient insects, primitive insects if you will, such as the
> Plecoptera (stoneflies) and the Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) have
> nymphs.
>
> Should Lolita have been a larvalet instead of a nymphet?
>
> Or was VN thinking of Lolita as a damselfly and thus a nymphet?
> Please, a definitive entomological/etymological answer. Thank you,.
>
> RHB
>
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³Larvae and Shepherds, Come Away!² Likewise, Hamlet did not say to Ophelia
³Pupa, in thy orisons be all my sins remember¹ed.² The reason might
_possibly_ be that since time immoral, the Greeks and Romans called their
³semi-divine females² NYMPHS, long before the entomologists borrowed the
word! Nabokov¹s lepidottery [sic] don¹t really enter into it. His NYMPHET
happened to be a diminutive semi-divine piece of jail-bait in human form.
Judging from Humbert¹s favourite pleasure, the nearest entomological name
for LO would be Blow-Fly?
PS: Any Nabokovian mathematicians out there? If so, look for LEWIS CARROLL
IN NUMBERLAND, Robin Wilson, W W Norton, 2008. Enough wordplay, perhaps, for
non-mathematicians. E.g., the origin of his pen-name is quite Nabokovian.
Born Charles ENTWIDGE Dodgson. That middle name is a Latin variant for
Louis, and Carol is related to Charles. Whence Lewis Carroll. VN was teasing
when he said Carroll was an H-H prototype. Carroll certainly loved
photographing naked nymphets but NO HANKY-PANKY.
Meum Culpum: the quote I assigned to Tweedle-Dum in a recent post was really
from another Carroll character, Humpty Dumpty:
³When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor
less.² This is one of the KEY in-jokes in Semantics and I can hear VN
chuckling as he translated this into Russian.
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
On 03/01/2009 01:38, "Robert H. Boyle" <KatyaBelousBoyle@AOL.COM> wrote:
>
> No wish to bug Nabokovians, but a question in need of an answer.
>
> Why did Nabokov, a lepidopterist, call Lolita a nymphet? Lepidoptera
> do not have nymphs, they have larvae.
>
> Only ancient insects, primitive insects if you will, such as the
> Plecoptera (stoneflies) and the Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) have
> nymphs.
>
> Should Lolita have been a larvalet instead of a nymphet?
>
> Or was VN thinking of Lolita as a damselfly and thus a nymphet?
> Please, a definitive entomological/etymological answer. Thank you,.
>
> RHB
>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/