Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror：The Artist’s False Double in Despair

WU Tsaiyi

doi:10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20225408

Volume 5 Issue 4

Dec. 2022

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WU Tsaiyi. Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror：The Artist’s False Double in Despair[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2022, 5(4): 126-143. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20225408

Citation:

WU Tsaiyi. Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror：The Artist’s False Double in Despair[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2022, 5(4): 126-143. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20225408

WU Tsaiyi. Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror：The Artist’s False Double in Despair[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2022, 5(4): 126-143. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20225408

Citation:

WU Tsaiyi. Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror：The Artist’s False Double in Despair[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2022, 5(4): 126-143. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20225408

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Nabokov’s Crooked Mirror：The Artist’s False Double in Despair

doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20225408

WU Tsaiyi^,

Shanghai Normal University

Funds:

This work is supported by Shanghai City Philosophy and Social Science Research Project （Grant number 2021EWY007）

Received Date: 2022-07-16
Accepted Date: 2022-11-30

Abstract

Abstract

The article explicates Nabokov's metaphors ofcrooked mirrorsandfalse doublesin his novelDespair, which articulate his aesthetics that art is self-obvious deception. For Nabokov, art is neither superior to nor independent of reality, but is rather its inferior mimic. Thus Nabokov's simulacrum always refers to the revered model:the author himself. Nabokov's aesthetics challenges the readers to have a different attitude toward art:rather than sympathy or appreciation, we should instead cultivate our critical discernment by distinguishing between the simulacrum and the true model. In our age of post-truth, Nabokov's aesthetics provides us an ethical paradigm where reality is concealed but not altogether cancelled, a reality that is rather the prize that the readers are invited to actively seek out
- Vladimir Nabokov,
- Despair,
- simulacrum,
- the false double,
- the mirror metaphor,

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References(17)

References

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