Conclusion

Abstract

In his essay on poshlost’, Nabokov reeled off some of its English dictionary glosses, among them: ‘cheap, sham, common, smutty, pink-and-blue, high falutin’, in bad taste’. He also added ‘pretension’ to the list. And yet none of these definitions really fit the bill. The problem, Nabokov explained, was that

they tend … to supply an obvious classification of values at a given period of human history; but what Russians call poshlust’ is beautifully timeless and so cleverly painted all over with protective tints that its presence (in a book, in a soul, in an institution, in a thousand other places) often escapes detection.¹

In other words, the presence of poshlost’ could escape detection if it was not named. Nabokov understood very well that naming or classification is a phenomenon that reflects its cultural, social and historical context. Poshlost’ remains timeless only as long as one does not try to define or scrutinise it — otherwise it is subject to that ‘obvious classification of values’. It is precisely because saudade, lítost and hüzün have been defined in such specific contexts that they have invited our scrutiny here.