Nabokov's Theatrical Imagination

The first detailed study of Nabokov's plays and of the function of theatrical performance in his fiction.

Siggy Frank (Author)

9781107015456, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 January 2012

228 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

'Nabokov's Theatrical Imagination is an admirably concise yet wide-ranging study which is a very welcome addition to the Nabokovian scholarly corpus.' Udith Dematagoda, Slavonic and East European Review

Drawing on a wealth of unpublished archival material, this study offers a comprehensive assessment of the importance of theatrical performance in Vladimir Nabokov's thinking and writing. Siggy Frank provides fresh insights into Nabokov's wider aesthetics and arrives at new readings of his narrative fiction. As well as emphasising the importance of theatrical performance to our understanding of Nabokov's texts, she demonstrates that the theme of theatricality runs through the central concerns of Nabokov's art and life: the nature of fiction, the relationship between the author and his fictional world, textual origin and derivation, authorial control and textual property, literary appropriations and adaptations, and finally the transformation of the writer himself from the Russian émigré writer Sirin to the American novelist Nabokov.

Introduction
1. Trying theatre: Nabokov's playwriting
2. Theatre on trial: Nabokov's dramaturgy
3. Thresholds and transgressions: The Man from the USSR, The Event and Invitation to a Beheading
4. Theatre dreams: The Tragedy of Mr Morn, The Waltz Invention and Invitation to a Beheading
5. Puppets and masks: King, Queen, Knave and Despair
6. Shakespeare's Ghost: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, 'That in Aleppo Once…' and Bend Sinister
Conclusion: performing identity
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Theatre studies [AN]