Abstract

MORAES, Eliane Robert. The ingenuity of a perverse: language and eroticism in Nabokov. Ide (São Paulo) [online]. 2007, vol.30, n.45, pp. 115-119. ISSN 0101-3106.

Although the novel Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, owes its reputation to the nymphet, the way it presents the pervert’s profile is also remarkable. Humbert Humbert is a character built up on paradoxes. If, on one hand, he is briefly defined as a pervert, on the other, he never corresponds to the caricatures of a sex maniac; in fact, these steriotypes are deeply discussed along the whole narrative. First, by the identification of the pervert to a child, which gains a special meaning when we remember that the novel was written while the author was composing an autobiography, with emphasis on his childhood. In fact, both books play with past and present in particular ways that allow child and adult to interchange their roles. To accomplish this approach, Nabokov’s witty plays on words end to create a peculiar language for perversion.

Keywords : Speak, memory; Literary eroticism; Lolita; Nabokov; Nymphet; Pervertion; Speak memory.

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