The Narrative Style and Writing Characteristics In Lolita

1、论洛丽塔的叙事风格与写作特点the narrative style and writing characteristics in lolitacontentsabstract.1keywords.1i. introduction.21. nabokov and his literary achievements2 2. lolita2iithe artistic techniques of lolita.31. language style (free use, rich and varied).32. poetic prose style.6iii. the involuted design

2、 of lolita.81. parody.82. allusion93. coincidence.94. the work-within-the-work10iv. conclusion.11references.13the narrative style and writing characteristics in lolitaabstract: lolita is a work of art that shows the charm and force of the english language. its language is rich and varied, which is r

3、eflected in the baroque feature, broad playful use of words, accurate and lively description. lolita has a poetic prose style, which shows the beauty of its language. lolitas involuted design refers to its structural involution, which is achieved by parody, allusion, coincidence, and the work-within

4、-the-work. based on the analysis above, the paper points out that nabokovs use of consummate artistic techniques in these aspects presents the uniqueness and highly artistic value of lolita as a great work, and simultaneously it shows nabokovs great genius and originality in the creation of literary

5、 work.“art is the only norm of his literary creations”.key words: lolita; language; design; narrative artistic; techniques摘 要：洛丽塔 是一部表现英语语言魅力和魄力的作品。它的语言十分丰富多彩，主要表现在它的巴罗克特征，博杂而富有游戏性的文字，以及精确而生动的描写；它具有散文诗的风格，这反映了小说语言的美。复杂的结构指其结构上的相互指涉性，主要通过戏仿、暗指、巧合和戏中有戏等手段来实现。基于以上分析，本文认为纳博科夫精湛的艺术技巧表现了洛丽塔作为一部名著的独特性以及其极高

6、的文学价值，同时也表现了纳博科夫极高的文学创作天赋和独创性，那就是艺术性是他文学创作的唯一标准。关键词：洛丽塔；语言；结构；叙事；艺术技巧i. introduction1. nabokov and his literary achievements vladimir nabokov (1899-1977) was born in st. petersburg, russia, of an aristocratic family with rich and cultured parents. his father was a liberal judge. in 1919, nabokov fle

7、d with his family into western europe. he studied french and russian literature at cambridge university in england and took b.a. in modern languages there in 1922. then he went to berlin where his family lived. his father was assassinated in berlin in 1922. nabokov spent years in berlin and paris, s

8、upporting himself by coaching tennis and making up chess problems. meanwhile he wrote fiction in russian, german, french, and english. he moved to paris in 1937. in 1940, just before france was over-taken by the nazis, he escaped with his family to the united states where he became a citizen and tau

9、ght russian literature in colleges such as cornell university.nabokov is recognized as one of the greatest literary stylists of the twentieth century and as exerting the founding influence on american postmodern literature, “heralding the rise of postmodernism as an epoch-making new departure in lit

10、erature.” nabokov is a prolific contributor to many literary fields, producing works in both russian and english and distinguishing himself as a novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, playwright, critic, translator, biographer, and autobiographer. nabokovs greatest achievement is his novels.

11、he published his first novel in 1926. before 1940, he wrote in russian; since then he has employed only english for his creative work. his complete works in all languages would run to thirty or forty volumes. he wrote nine novels in english, among which lolita, pnin, pale fire, ada are the best know

12、n and most read, and are generally considered the finest of his american novels. it is lolita that established nabokov as “one of the major postmodernist writers.”2. lolitalolita is the masterpiece of nabokov. it tells a confessional story of a man whose life is the desire for a twelve-year old nymp

13、het. the protagonist as well as the narrator, humbert humbert, who is a european professor of 37, marries the mother of dolores haze (lolita) to be near the girl. then on a trip across america, stopping at many hotels, he achieves his desires. after some time, he loses lolita to quilty, another man

14、of the same tastes who is indeed his rival, whom he later tracks down and kills.refused by four american publishing houses because of its subject matter, lolita was first published in france in 1955 as a two-volume edition in the english language travelers companion series of olympia press. followin

15、g protracted and heated controversy in the british and french media over whether the work was or was not pornographic and should or should not be banned, the first american edition appeared in 1958 and lolita quickly moved to the top of the best-seller lists. within five weeks, lolita was the most c

16、elebrated novel in the nation, and remained on the new york times best-seller list for over a year. while the broad american reading public was belatedly discovering nabokov, nabokov was finally gaining the financial rewards from both the novel and the film of lolita, which would allow him to resign

17、 his teaching position at cornell in order to write full-time, not only new works but english translations of nearly all his previous russian fiction.iithe artistic techniques of lolitaalthough lolita caused controversial views among critics after its publication in france, with the passage of time

18、and with its spreading among the worldwide readers, more and more people came to realize the literary value of lolita. in fact, lolita is a most serious work, the most representative of nabokovs art. it is a “crystal land” that the author elaborately constructed like a sculptor. the novel is endowed

19、 with great obscurity and high abstraction, which leads to its thematic variety. nabokov himself thought of the creation of lolita as “the composition of a beautiful puzzle its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look.” the

20、re is no doubt that nabokov transplants the form and technique of expression in the work of art into the composition of a literary work, which brings lolita great vitality. already at the outset of lolita, nabokov alerts his readers to the novels status as art. “it is not as a psychiatric case histo

21、ry but as a work of art that lolita must be read and appraised.” so reading and understanding the novel is just like appreciating a highly abstract work of art. different angles of view will lead to different understandings. but anyway, lolita as a novel is the art of language, the art of design, an

22、d the art of narrative. and the consummate techniques of lolita are reflected mainly in three aspects of the novel: its charming language, its involuted design and its sophisticated narrative strategy.1. language style (free use, rich and varied)literature is the art of language, especially so is lo

23、lita as a novel. nabokov is a great master of the english language and a brilliant stylist. “his great achievement is a mastery of the english language which perhaps no other writer in this century except joyce has matched.” his english is beautiful and immensely suggestive, espousing with the great

24、est ease the mood of men, the color of landscapes, the ambiance of motels, girls schools, and small towns. tomas moloar describes nabokovs free use of language:“it is an ocean of a language, now calm, limpid, transparent, then turning into a roar, with waves upon waves of scintillating metaphors, im

25、ages, innovations, and allusions. the author swims in this ocean like a smooth-bodied fish, leaving the pursuer-reader amidst a thousand delights.” in his english novels, especially in lolita, nabokov fully reveals his exceptional power of expression, of the broad lexical range of his texts, the wid

26、e varieties of idiomatic usage, and the variety of stylistic devices. lolita is a work of art that shows the charm and force of the english language. it is characterized by its rich and varied language, its poetic prose style. as far as the use of language is concerned, the language of lolita is ver

27、y rich and varied, which shows nabokovs verbal art. “baroque” is one of the major features of lolitas rich and varied language in the sense that it is lavishly ornate in style. lolitas rich and varied language is reflected in the broad playful use of words. lolita is also rich in puns, which makes t

28、he language witty and humorous.first, “baroque” is one of the major features of lolitas rich and varied language in the sense that it is lavishly ornate in style. nabokov adores ornate language much more than any other native american writer. “lolita, baroque and subtle, is a book written to be rere

29、ad.” humbert in the novel is keen on the archaic, for example. he says “okay”, but also “anent”, “forsooth”, “in thrall”, “noon was nigh” and “i would fain”. the effect is that of a parade of vaguely poetic fossils, as if humbert were trying out on us the old-world charms we thought he had reserved

30、for charlotte haze. and it is as if humbert presumably expects us to laugh with him at this dusty literary manner. at other times his language is not archaic but extraordinarily refined and recondite, inclined to words like “favonian”, “pavonine”, “palpate”, “oculate”, “leporine”. further, humberts

31、dandyish taste for alliteration is so thoroughly indulged that he becomes almost unreadable at times. he is a prodigious stylist, capable of wonders, but he is also a fussy aesthete, driving us crazy and capable of strengthening sense of beauty and sense of music, and both of his performances are im

32、portant. some of the alliteration is briskly comic, sardonically overwrought: “garrulous, garlicky”, “tuberculosis in the tundra”, “hideous hieroglyphics”, “maroon morons”, “maudlin murals,” “bridge and bourbon”, “burning with desire and dyspepsia”, “a pinkish cozy, coyly covering the toilet lid,” a

33、nd the spectacular “connubial catch-as-catch-can.”secondly, lolitas rich and varied language is reflected in the broad playful use of words. there are many coined words, for example, “my west-door neighbor”, or “at first wince”, or “set all paradise loose”. “crippling” is his word for the way a woun

34、ded spider creeps; “mauvemail” is a mild form of blackmail. we know what a “sleep-talker” is. “nymphet”,“libidream”, “pederosis”, “nymphage”, “pin” and “puppy-bodies” are all his coinages. of course, these words are well chosen and are used to give a terse and accurate expression of meaning. in loli

35、ta, there are also endless word puzzles, ranging from the more obvious cryptograms that humbert deciphers in his cross-country pursuit of the chimerical quilty, to the more subtle plays like quiltys name. “quil ty what a tongue-twister”, mona puns, and we wonder who indeed is quilty? “quine the swin

36、e, guilty of killing quilty. oh, my lolita, i have only words to play with.” humbert suggests three times, once explicitly that the difference between the rapist and therapist is a matter of conventions of spacing: “the rapist was charlie holmes; i am the therapist a matter of nice spacing in the wa

37、y of distinction.” its not only a word-game. deep truths in the alphabet, the much psychologically treated humbert would claim; but then he is, as he also says, “naive as only a pervert can be.” the point that should be made here is that these words are by no means gratuitous. in fact, such verbal p

38、layfulness for its own sake is an important feature of nabokovs art. “words are among our best routes to what is beyond words, and nature has been known to imitate art.” all the fun is integrally related to an “idea” that nabokov continually examines; an idea about illusion and reality, or more accu

39、rately, the illusion of reality.humberts other fussy habit is his constant dropping into fragments of french, and when nabokov in an interview briefly borrows the habit from his creature, he reminds us how fussy it is: “i am extremely distrait (as humbert would put it in his affected manner) ” “do y

40、ou mind very much cutting out the french?” lolita says towards the end of their affair. “it annoys everybody.”(216) lolitas first publisher thought the same, and nabokov agreed to amend the text a bit. it can have been only a bit, since there is still scarcely a page without a slither into french: “

41、eh bien, pas du tout ”, “pas tout a fait”, “enfin seuls”, “que sais-je!” “donc”, “entre nous soit dit”, “grand dieu!” “le grand moment”, “comme on dit”, “cest tout”, “les yeux perdus”, “mais je divague”, “a titre documentaire”, “dans la force de lage”, etcetera. the french words are in fact very muc

42、h like the “forsooths” and “anents”. it is not a real retreat into a foreign language none of these phrases expresses anything that humbert could not say in english, and indeed what is there that humbert could not say in english? in fact, the use of french is a signaling of strangeness, the equivale

43、nt of a carefully cultivated alien accent. humbert is not to be confused with the natives. and the french cluttered up in the text makes the reader from time to time call to mind humberts past life experience and european background (humbert was brought up on the french rivera, pronounced with a fre

44、nch accent), and makes his homesickness as an immigrant reveal unintentionally in the narrative. in addition, some latin and german words are used to show humbert has a wide range of knowledge. the application of multi-language technique is aimed at better portraying the protagonist humbert, and it

45、draws the readers attention to the author himself. no wonder some critics think humbert is the impersonation of nabokov.2. poetic prose stylepoetic prose refers to “the prose approximate to verse in the use of rhythm, perhaps even a kind of meter, in the elaborate and ornate use of language, and esp

46、ecially in the use of figurative devices like onomatopoeia, assonance and metaphor.” as far as language style is concerned, lolita has such a quality. humbert uses this style to achieve a special effect and to show a strong emotion. the very first page of the novel just displays such a style, and no

47、 other novel begins so memorably with the opening passage of lolita:“lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. my sin, my soul. lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth, lo. lee. ta.”“she was lo, plain lo, in the morning, standing

48、 four feet ten in one sock. she was lola in slacks. she was dolly at school. she was dolores on the dotted line. but in my arms she was always lolita.”“did she have a precursor? she did, indeed she did. in point of fact, there might have been no lolita at all had i not loved, one summer, a certain i

49、nitial girl-child. in a princedom by the sea. oh when? about as many years before lolita was born as my age was that summer. you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”“ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged se

50、raphs, envied. look at this tangle of thorns.”there is plenty of repetition in this page, but it is not merely lexical repetition. it is a matter of parallel syntactical structures and similar sounds just the kind of repetition we, in fact, expect to find in poetry. here humbert invokes lolita with

51、a passion more appropriate to a lyric poem than to a noveland sustains that intensity throughout. and there is a veritable firework display of alliteration, for instance, in the first paragraph, “ls” and “ts” exploding,“brilliantly in rapturous celebration of the beloveds name: light, life, tip, ton

52、gue, trip, lo, lee, ta.”in the following account, the prose style of the murderer is unapologetically poetic. it is a sustained, lyrical, sensuous, and erotically detailed description:“one night, she managed to deceive the vicious vigilance of her family. in a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove

53、 at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall. through the darkness and tender trees we could see the arabesques of lighted windows which, toughed up by the colored inks of sensitive memory, appear to me now like playing cards, presumably because a bridge game was kee

54、ping the enemy busy a cluster of stars palely glowed above us, between the silhouettes of long thin leaves; that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. i saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own her quivering mouth, distorted by

55、 the acridity of some mysterious potion, with a sibilant intake of breath came near to my face my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my t

56、hroat, my entrails, i gave her to hold in her hand awkward fist the scepter of my passion.”“i recall the scent of some kind of toilet power a sweetish, lowly, musky perfume. it mingled with her own biscuity odor, and my senses were suddenly filled to the brim; a sudden commotion in a nearby bush pre

57、vented them from overflowing but that mimosa grove the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me ever since until at last, twenty-four years later, i broke her spell by incarnating her in another.” this is a description of the first erotic scene that takes pl

58、ace between humbert humbert, still an adolescent, and annabel leigh, a girl who is about the same age and who is the model for lolita. this scene contains no sign of trepidation or self-censorship. the sentiments are self-indulgent, and the language is emotionally charged. it is highly poetic from beginning to end. annabel leighs name is of course borrowed from poes poem “annabel lee”, a