Nabokov's Secret Trees

Stephen H. Blackwell (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

302 Seiten

2024
University of Toronto Press (Verlag)
978-1-4875-5442-2 (ISBN)

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This book explores how Vladimir Nabokov wove his deep love of trees throughout all his works, granting them a powerful role in the development of his most significant themes.

In nearly all his literary works, Vladimir Nabokov inscribed networks of trees to create meaningful patterns of significance around one or more of his passionate interests – in consciousness, memory, creativity, epistemology, ethics, and love, with a deep connection to nature serving as a constant undercurrent. Nabokov’s Secret Trees explores this neglected area of his art, one that positions nature as a hidden but vital core of his work.

The book presents an entirely new, previously unsuspected Nabokov, one who crafts intricate patterns of arboreal imagery lurking behind his often-baroque psychological narratives. It reveals how Nabokov activates arboreal potentials by exploring the hidden ubiquity of trees, their essence as complex natural phenomena, and their role as quiet presences that have accompanied and fostered human civilization and art since their beginnings. The book uncovers how trees offer a rich and intricate field for structural, semantic, allusive, and metaphorical exploration.

Based on the published corpus as well as archival materials, Nabokov’s Secret Trees demonstrates that trees not only populate Nabokov’s art in stunning, yet furtive, abundance, but also as mysterious natural entities, directly animating his works’ worlds and his readers’ experience of them.

Stephen H. Blackwell is a professor of Russian at the University of Tennessee.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Nabokov’s Origins in the Poetry of Trees
2. Trees on the Mind: Consciousness and Memory
3. Twigs, Shadows, and the Ramifications of Art
4. “Knowledge-Amplified Love”: Trees and Epistemology in Nabokov’s Worlds
5. Trees in the Frame: Art about Art about Trees
6. Ada’s Trees

Epilogue: In and Out of the Pines

Appendices

Nabokov’s Invented Trees
All of Nabokov’s Trees, in Images
Lists of Trees in Nabokov’s Works
Poems, by Year
Novels and Stories
List of Trees and Shrubs Mentioned in the Works of Shakespeare
Notes
Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	16.02.2024
Zusatzinfo	20 b&w illustrations, 2 b&w tables
Verlagsort	Toronto
Sprache	englisch
Maße	159 x 235 mm
Gewicht	540 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-4875-5442-7 / 1487554427
ISBN-13	978-1-4875-5442-2 / 9781487554422
Zustand	Neuware