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Re: Nabokov and Darwin
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Victoria N. Alexander: For the record, Nabokov did believe in Darwinian selection, but he also thought there were other evolutionary mechanisms (now understood as self-organizing mechanisms) that were responsible for some phenomena, particularly mimicry. [Cf. 2003 “Nabokov,Teleology, and Insect Mimicry," Nabokov Studies 7 (2003): 177-213. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nabokov_studies/summary/v007/7.alexander.html ; 2010 with Stanley Salthe, “Monstrous Fate: The Problem of Authorship and Evolution by Natural Selection,” Annals of Scholarship 19 (1): 45-66. http://torialexander.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/monstrousfate2010.pdf.]
JM: Thank you for both articles. You focused on "pavonine Lolita" and the pastoral tradition,* but your argumentation enriched my conjectures about Nabokov's PF "links and bobo-links," mainly because until now I'd failed to associate Shade's words to Nabokov's theories about mimicry (a misapprehension derived from my particular bias that leads me to see "nature" as a product of "language").
John Shade: "all at once it dawned on me that this/ Was the real point/... topsy-turvical coincidence,/ ... some kind of/ correlated pattern in the game,/...and something of the same/ Pleasure in it as they who played it found./ It did not matter who they were.../Making ornaments/ Of accidents and possibilities."
Alexander/Salthe: "Since such cases of false mimicry confer no reproductive advantage—they merely amuse—Nabokov notes they "seemed to have been invented by some waggish artists precisely for the intelligent eyes of man"...For Nabokov it was the task of the poet to imitate this tendency in nature, for to do so illustrates so well the author behind agent X..."**
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* "Nabokov's Humbert, who he describes as "pavonine" (Lolita 163), may be seen as a fine example of the kind of peacock ostentatiousness we've been describing here. A monster of the pastoral tradition, Humbert shows little or no restraint and takes bucolic conventions, such as hyperbole, idealized love, incongruous mixing of the urbane and uncouth, and self-consciousness, to further and further extremes...Brian Boyd, arguably heretofore Nabokov's most excellent reader, has recently turned Literary Darwinist, and now insists that Humbert's intensely literary and artful pose and our appreciation of them "are biological adaptations..."...Boyd is here ignoring Nabokov's self-proclaimed preference for the "non-utilitarian delights" of art...he claims that we take pleasure in Nabokov because we are being controlled by our programmed genetic drives which favor new and interesting reproductive fitness narratives, but Nabokov needs no such help..."
** "Nabokov, outspoken on evolutionary theory, provides us with examples of self-organized butterfly wing patterns... Since such cases of false mimicry confer no reproductive advantage—they merely amuse—Nabokov notes they "seemed to have been invented by some waggish artists precisely for the intelligent eyes of man" (Boyd Nabokov Butterflies 178). For Nabokov it was the task of the poet to imitate this tendency in nature, for to do so illustrates so well the author behind agent X..." (since, as Nabokov states) "Three forces make and mold a human being: heredity, environment, and the unknown agent X. Of these the second, environment, is by far the least important, while the last, agent X, is by far the most influential. In the case of characters living in books, it is of course the author who controls, directs, and applies the three forces." (Lectures 126)... Original, purposeful authorship, in nature and in literature, cannot be explained (away) by the theory of evolution by natural selection. Indeed, a new theory of authorship availing itself of 21st century neuroscience and complexity science can be used to help describe evolutionary processes..."
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JM: Thank you for both articles. You focused on "pavonine Lolita" and the pastoral tradition,* but your argumentation enriched my conjectures about Nabokov's PF "links and bobo-links," mainly because until now I'd failed to associate Shade's words to Nabokov's theories about mimicry (a misapprehension derived from my particular bias that leads me to see "nature" as a product of "language").
John Shade: "all at once it dawned on me that this/ Was the real point/... topsy-turvical coincidence,/ ... some kind of/ correlated pattern in the game,/...and something of the same/ Pleasure in it as they who played it found./ It did not matter who they were.../Making ornaments/ Of accidents and possibilities."
Alexander/Salthe: "Since such cases of false mimicry confer no reproductive advantage—they merely amuse—Nabokov notes they "seemed to have been invented by some waggish artists precisely for the intelligent eyes of man"...For Nabokov it was the task of the poet to imitate this tendency in nature, for to do so illustrates so well the author behind agent X..."**
......................................................................................................
* "Nabokov's Humbert, who he describes as "pavonine" (Lolita 163), may be seen as a fine example of the kind of peacock ostentatiousness we've been describing here. A monster of the pastoral tradition, Humbert shows little or no restraint and takes bucolic conventions, such as hyperbole, idealized love, incongruous mixing of the urbane and uncouth, and self-consciousness, to further and further extremes...Brian Boyd, arguably heretofore Nabokov's most excellent reader, has recently turned Literary Darwinist, and now insists that Humbert's intensely literary and artful pose and our appreciation of them "are biological adaptations..."...Boyd is here ignoring Nabokov's self-proclaimed preference for the "non-utilitarian delights" of art...he claims that we take pleasure in Nabokov because we are being controlled by our programmed genetic drives which favor new and interesting reproductive fitness narratives, but Nabokov needs no such help..."
** "Nabokov, outspoken on evolutionary theory, provides us with examples of self-organized butterfly wing patterns... Since such cases of false mimicry confer no reproductive advantage—they merely amuse—Nabokov notes they "seemed to have been invented by some waggish artists precisely for the intelligent eyes of man" (Boyd Nabokov Butterflies 178). For Nabokov it was the task of the poet to imitate this tendency in nature, for to do so illustrates so well the author behind agent X..." (since, as Nabokov states) "Three forces make and mold a human being: heredity, environment, and the unknown agent X. Of these the second, environment, is by far the least important, while the last, agent X, is by far the most influential. In the case of characters living in books, it is of course the author who controls, directs, and applies the three forces." (Lectures 126)... Original, purposeful authorship, in nature and in literature, cannot be explained (away) by the theory of evolution by natural selection. Indeed, a new theory of authorship availing itself of 21st century neuroscience and complexity science can be used to help describe evolutionary processes..."
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/