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A Look at the Spectropoetics of Photography in Nabokov’s Fiction

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Abstract

Focusing on visual arts in Vladimir Nabokov’s fiction, this chapter seeks to examine the intricate relationship of photography and death in Nabokov’s novels. Borrowing from Derrida’s “spectropoetics” in Specters of Marx and relying on Barthes’s reflections on photography in Camera Lucida it aims first to show how photographic references disseminate their lethal function in the text that surrounds them. This preliminary analysis is then used to discuss the stake of the “photogenic” presence of Humbert’s mother in Lolita.

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Bibliography

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Chupin, Y. (2020). A Look at the Spectropoetics of Photography in Nabokov’s Fiction. In: Bouchet, M., Loison-Charles, J., Poulin, I. (eds) The Five Senses in Nabokov's Works. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45406-7_7

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