Subject
THOUGHTS: Lolita & the Arthurian Legends
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Date
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B. Bowman writes:
In his recent essays on Melampus & Cavall, Brian Boyd comes so close to
linking the Greek myth of Actaeon to King Arthur's court and uncovering
the apparent medieval subtext of "Lolita," that I could not help but
wonder whether the pubescent enchantress Viviane, her association with
the
virginal goddess Diana, and her revival as "Vivian McCrystal" of the
Ramsdale Class List had escaped the notice of Nabokovians -- or whether
this line of inquiry had been too frequently explored to merit further
discussion.
For the Viviane of medieval legend and its echoes in Victorian poetry is
not a "woman" as Boyd describes her in his Cycnos essay; she is a child.
Thus, in the Old French Vulgate cycle Nabokov surely studied at
Cambridge
when he first assumed his signature pseudonym, she appears as "a maiden
of
very great beauty who lived in a beautiful and rich castle" by the
Forest
of Briosque under the guardianship of her father, Dyonas.
And "that maiden grew in body and mind until she reached the age of
twelve."
Merlin, the great Enchanter of the Arthurian court, spies Lolita's true
predecessor sporting by a pond and metamorphoses into an irresistible
youth in preparation for the seduction. Though Merlin curses the folly
of
his seemingly destructive lust and mortifies himself with the thought of
letting himself "fall asleep in sin and lose his mind and his knowledge
just to know the delights of a young lady," fearing that he will "shame
her" and "lose God," he proves the perfect suitor for Viviane. As the
heiress to the prophetic legacy of her father's godmother, Diana, the
goddess of the hunt who guides Brutus to the British Isles in Geoffrey
of
Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae," Viviane seems predestined to
pair
with King Arthur's visionary counselor.
Indeed, before Dyonas' marriage and Viviane's birth, Diana had foretold
the match (and perhaps, as the language of the prophecy suggests,
arranged
the match) as a "gift" for her godson:
"May the God of the moon and stars grant that, after my death, when
Vortigern of Great Britain begins to reign, your first girl-child be
sought after by the wisest, most learned man on earth, that he may show
her the greatest part of his learning, and that he may teach her
everything she asks--all through the power of necromancy, so that he
might
be so much under her sway from the moment he sees her that he lacks the
power to do anything against her will."
Though Diana renders the daughter immune to any unwelcome overtures, by
promising Viviane to Merlin when she is still a "girl-child," Diana
licenses his otherwise questionable desire, which only he recognizes as
anomalous. For upon witnessing the enchantments Merlin conjures for her
amusement, the curious, literate, and "well-bred" Viviane surprises him,
just as Lolita astounds Humbert at the Enchanted Hunters, by proposing
that he teach her magic in exchange for her favors: "If you don't mind,
I'd like to find out about your tricks, and I would swear to be your
lady
love and your friend forever, without any wrongdoing or baseness, for as
long as I live." Viviane’s receptiveness answers Merlin’s respect for
her
chastity, so that even while the two lay in bed together in later
scenes,
the narrative insists upon the enchanter’s restraint: "This is not said
to
make the story relate that Merlin ever knew a woman carnally; but there
was no woman in the world he loved as much as [Viviane]."
In contrast to subsequent incarnations of the seer, such as the
"deceptive
and disloyal" Merlin of the Lancelot Prose-Cycle who "possess[es] all
the
false and perverse knowledge that an individual could have" and craves
for
the maidenhead of his young apprentice, the far gentler Merlin of this
version of the episode submits to Viviane’s demands as readily as she
accepts him as her companion. The maiden devises her plot to imprison
Merlin not to protect herself from his advances, but rather to prevent
him
from ever absenting himself again to traveultimately confining the enchanter in a tower of air in the Forest of
Broceliande, alluded to elsewhere as a crystal palace.
In nearly every other account, Vivian loathes Merlin and sets the
enchanter's own spells against him when she realizes he might enchant
her
in order to force himself upon her. Though Vivian's temperament ranges
in
the Arthurian narratives from docile to diabolical, Nabokov's pen-name
aligns him with the maiden and, by analogy, with Lo--one of the clearest
gestures of sympathy he extends to her in the novel.
I will write to the list in the upcoming days about the damoiselle
cacheresse of the “Suite de Merlin” as well as the influence of these
episodes on the place-names of “Lolita.”
B. Bowman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
In his recent essays on Melampus & Cavall, Brian Boyd comes so close to
linking the Greek myth of Actaeon to King Arthur's court and uncovering
the apparent medieval subtext of "Lolita," that I could not help but
wonder whether the pubescent enchantress Viviane, her association with
the
virginal goddess Diana, and her revival as "Vivian McCrystal" of the
Ramsdale Class List had escaped the notice of Nabokovians -- or whether
this line of inquiry had been too frequently explored to merit further
discussion.
For the Viviane of medieval legend and its echoes in Victorian poetry is
not a "woman" as Boyd describes her in his Cycnos essay; she is a child.
Thus, in the Old French Vulgate cycle Nabokov surely studied at
Cambridge
when he first assumed his signature pseudonym, she appears as "a maiden
of
very great beauty who lived in a beautiful and rich castle" by the
Forest
of Briosque under the guardianship of her father, Dyonas.
And "that maiden grew in body and mind until she reached the age of
twelve."
Merlin, the great Enchanter of the Arthurian court, spies Lolita's true
predecessor sporting by a pond and metamorphoses into an irresistible
youth in preparation for the seduction. Though Merlin curses the folly
of
his seemingly destructive lust and mortifies himself with the thought of
letting himself "fall asleep in sin and lose his mind and his knowledge
just to know the delights of a young lady," fearing that he will "shame
her" and "lose God," he proves the perfect suitor for Viviane. As the
heiress to the prophetic legacy of her father's godmother, Diana, the
goddess of the hunt who guides Brutus to the British Isles in Geoffrey
of
Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae," Viviane seems predestined to
pair
with King Arthur's visionary counselor.
Indeed, before Dyonas' marriage and Viviane's birth, Diana had foretold
the match (and perhaps, as the language of the prophecy suggests,
arranged
the match) as a "gift" for her godson:
"May the God of the moon and stars grant that, after my death, when
Vortigern of Great Britain begins to reign, your first girl-child be
sought after by the wisest, most learned man on earth, that he may show
her the greatest part of his learning, and that he may teach her
everything she asks--all through the power of necromancy, so that he
might
be so much under her sway from the moment he sees her that he lacks the
power to do anything against her will."
Though Diana renders the daughter immune to any unwelcome overtures, by
promising Viviane to Merlin when she is still a "girl-child," Diana
licenses his otherwise questionable desire, which only he recognizes as
anomalous. For upon witnessing the enchantments Merlin conjures for her
amusement, the curious, literate, and "well-bred" Viviane surprises him,
just as Lolita astounds Humbert at the Enchanted Hunters, by proposing
that he teach her magic in exchange for her favors: "If you don't mind,
I'd like to find out about your tricks, and I would swear to be your
lady
love and your friend forever, without any wrongdoing or baseness, for as
long as I live." Viviane’s receptiveness answers Merlin’s respect for
her
chastity, so that even while the two lay in bed together in later
scenes,
the narrative insists upon the enchanter’s restraint: "This is not said
to
make the story relate that Merlin ever knew a woman carnally; but there
was no woman in the world he loved as much as [Viviane]."
In contrast to subsequent incarnations of the seer, such as the
"deceptive
and disloyal" Merlin of the Lancelot Prose-Cycle who "possess[es] all
the
false and perverse knowledge that an individual could have" and craves
for
the maidenhead of his young apprentice, the far gentler Merlin of this
version of the episode submits to Viviane’s demands as readily as she
accepts him as her companion. The maiden devises her plot to imprison
Merlin not to protect herself from his advances, but rather to prevent
him
from ever absenting himself again to traveultimately confining the enchanter in a tower of air in the Forest of
Broceliande, alluded to elsewhere as a crystal palace.
In nearly every other account, Vivian loathes Merlin and sets the
enchanter's own spells against him when she realizes he might enchant
her
in order to force himself upon her. Though Vivian's temperament ranges
in
the Arthurian narratives from docile to diabolical, Nabokov's pen-name
aligns him with the maiden and, by analogy, with Lo--one of the clearest
gestures of sympathy he extends to her in the novel.
I will write to the list in the upcoming days about the damoiselle
cacheresse of the “Suite de Merlin” as well as the influence of these
episodes on the place-names of “Lolita.”
B. Bowman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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