Vladimir Nabokov Research Paper

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Vladimir Nabokov is a Russian-born American novelist and critic (Field). As Nabokov became more famous during his career, his works of literature also became more famous (Field). With this Vladimir Nabokov became one of the renowned writers of Russia. Vladimir Vladimirovirch Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899 in St Petersburg, Russia to an aristocratic family (Field). His father Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov was a prominent liberal politician; his mother Elena Ivanovna was a wealthy and noble Russian with an artistic heritage (“The International Vladimir Nabokov Society”). Nabokov inherited his father’s hard work ethic and his mother’s creative sensibility and innate spirituality (“The International Vladimir Nabokov Society”). He was …show more content…

While embarking on these trips in the early 1950s, he composed the novel that would engrave his name in American popular culture: Lolita (“The International Vladimir Nabokov Society”). It took Nabokov six years to write Lolita (“Vladimir Nabokov”). It was first published in France by Olympia Press in 1955 (“The International Vladimir Nabokov Society”). The English writer Graham Greene cited it among one of the best books in 1955 (“Vladimir Nabokov”). With his book being so amusing and abstract, it posed to put Nabokov in the Postmodernism era. The book generated a storm of moral outrage, as well as staunch and significant support for its artistic merit. It was eventually published in America in 1958 and in England the following year; it spent six months as number one as a bestseller in America (“The International Vladimir Nabokov Society”). With Lolita, Nabokov gained great success, although it was banned in Paris in 1956-58 (“Vladimir Nabokov”). With the profits of the book, combined with the sale of the movie rights and screenplay deal, Nabokov resigned from Cornell (“The International Vladimir Nabokov Society”) abandoning teaching and devoting his time to writing entirely (“Vladimir Nabokov”). In 1957, he published Pnin followed by Pale Fire in 1962. Pale Fire was an ambitious mixture of literary forms, partly from a one thousand line poem by John Shade, partly a commentary on them by a mad exile king, Kinbote (“Vladimir Nabokov”). Before publishing Pale Fire, he and his wife moved to Montreux, Switzerland. Since Nabokov’s magisterial linguistic finesse had enabled him to create literature and scholarly translations in Russian, English, and French (“The International Vladimir Nabokov