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Nabokov and the Question of Morality

Aesthetics, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Fiction

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  • © 2016

Overview

Editors:
  1. Michael Rodgers

    1. English Studies, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom

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  2. Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

    1. English Department, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, USA

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction: Nabokov’s Morality Play

    • Michael Rodgers, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
    Pages 1-18

  4. Good and Evil

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 71-71
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    2. Nabokov’s God; God’s Nabokov

      • Samuel Schuman
      Pages 73-86

    3. By Trial and Terror

      • Gennady Barabtarlo
      Pages 87-108

    4. The Aesthetics of Moral Contradiction in Some Early Nabokov Novels

      • David Rampton
      Pages 109-125

  5. Agency and Altruism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 127-127
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    2. Loving and Giving in Nabokov’s The Gift

      • Jacqueline Hamrit
      Pages 129-142

    3. Kinbote’s Heroism

      • Laurence Piercy
      Pages 143-158

  6. The Ethics of Representation

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 159-159
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    2. Whether Judgments, Sentences, and Executions Satisfy the Moral Sense in Nabokov

      • Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
      Pages 161-181

    3. The Art of Morality, or on Lolita

      • Leland de la Durantaye
      Pages 183-196

    4. “Obnoxious Preoccupation with Sex Organs”: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Representing Sex

      • Elspeth Jajdelska
      Pages 197-212

    5. Modern Mimesis

      • Michael Wood
      Pages 213-224

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 225-241
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Keywords

About this book

The first collection to address the vexing issue of Nabokov’s moral stances, this book argues that he designed his novels and stories as open-ended ethical problems for readers to confront. In a dozen new essays, international Nabokov scholars tackle those problems directly while addressing such questions as whether Nabokov was a bad reader, how he defined evil, if he believed in God, and how he constructed fictional works that led readers to become aware of their own moral positions. In order to elucidate his engagement with aesthetics, metaphysics, and ethics, Nabokov and the Question of Morality explores specific concepts in the volume’s four sections: “Responsible Reading,” “Good and Evil,” “Agency and Altruism,” and “The Ethics of Representation.” By bringing together fresh insights from leading Nabokovians and emerging scholars, this book establishes new interdisciplinary contexts for Nabokov studies and generates lively readings of works from his entire career.

Reviews

“A wide-ranging set of essays that both sharpen the focus and broaden the field, to include issues of ethics, aesthetics and metaphysics, as well as comparative studies that reveal the extent of Nabokov’s engagement with formative developments in Russian and European literature and thought.” (Barbara Wyllie, Slavonic and East European Review SEER, Vol. 97 (2), April, 2019)




“Nabokov and the Question of Morality … assembles some of the best recent thought on it. … The volume should be required reading for any scholar seeking insight into the virtuoso … .” (Thomas Seifrid, Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 61 (3), 2017)

Editors and Affiliations

  • English Studies, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Michael Rodgers

  • English Department, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, USA

    Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

About the editors

Michael Rodgers is a Teaching Assistant at the University of Strathclyde, UK, where he completed his PhD dissertation on the relationship between Vladimir Nabokov’s fiction and Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. He is currently researching the idea of uncomfortable humor in twentieth-century literature.


Susan Elizabeth Sweeney is Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross, USA. The author of over thirty essays on Nabokov, she was twice elected president of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society and currently coedits NABOKV-L, the Vladimir Nabokov Electronic Forum. She also publishes widely on American literature, detective fiction, and narrative theory.



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Nabokov and the Question of Morality

  • Book Subtitle: Aesthetics, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Fiction

  • Editors: Michael Rodgers, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59221-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-59666-6Published: 01 September 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-95555-8Published: 21 April 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-59221-7Published: 31 August 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 241

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Twentieth-Century Literature, Literary Theory, Aesthetics, Fiction

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