Artistic harmonious balance between the reader’s mind and the author’s mind

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

15 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

09/25/2009

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Literature

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Summary :

Introduction
Aspects of the artistic life
Concept of interwoven literary relationships
Nabokov's game-play
The main focus of Nabokov's fiction
Nabokov's own instructions
The act of mirroring reality
Nabokov's vehement resentment
Similarities between the role of the reader to Nabokov and the role of the patient to Freud
Psychoanalysis
Example of the game-play
Notion of the uncanny
The Gift
Freud's examination
Nabokov's penchant for trickery
Conclusion
Works cited

Abstract

Vladimir Nabokov boasts an impressive resume. As a writer, critic and scholar, he perfected both his own craft, and his ability to analyze the work of others. Similarly, within his texts, he focused a great deal of energy on the manipulation of his readers own reactions, earning him a reputation as a jokester and a game-player who actively sought to enhance the experience of the reader. He held famously high standards for his "ideal reader," lecturing his students on the qualities such a reader should, preferably, possess (see quote above); while any lover of literature can certainly access meaning in his texts, it is this ideal reader who is able to best consume his novels, able to read between the lines to identify hidden meanings. This reader can identify the games Nabokov plays with them, and understands why he is reaching out to them in that way. This reader recognizes glimpses of their own society in his writing, and - more importantly - their perception is changed by virtue of his unique presentation of reality. They recognize, in the artificial worlds of his novels, an uncanny similarity to their own world.

Many of Nabokov's novels focus on specific aspects of the artistic life - they are about writers, readers, critics and other assorted literati. In The Gift, for example, we meet an entire community of expatriate writers, from the young boy who dreams of poetic greatness to the celebrated but jaded novelist.