English 333 - SEM: NABOKOV

: Focusing primarily on Nabokov’s writing in English and the development of his work since coming to America in 1940, the seminar investigates the fiction (novels and stories) along with some of the poetry, criticism, translation and autobiography of this unique Russian writer who studied at Cambridge in England, lived in Berlin for 15 years, escaped to Paris in 1938 (where he started writing in French), then metamorphosed into an American college professor (Stanford, Wellesley, Cornell) and began writing entirely in English. How his European eyes saw America (“Mais j’aime l’Amerique, c’est mon pays”) and how the loss of his Russian landscape and language affected the new worlds he came to invent in English will be major themes of the course. By permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 12.

Topic: Nabokov. Instructor Permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores