“Vladimir Nabokov” by Vladimir Nabokov

In this Readers’ Guide, Christine Clegg examines the critical history of “Lolita” through a broad range of interpretations. Although early criticism of the text polarized around ‘that’ question – is it literature or pornography? – the influence of American critics such as Lionel Trilling quickly secured canonical status for the novel. A compelling aspect of “Lolita” criticism is the way in which that question continues to return in different forms. In the 1980s and 1990s, “Lolita” has been the subject of diverse critical attention, beyond ‘Nabokov Studies’: from Richard Rorty’s philosophical inquiry into the ethics of cruelty, to Rachel Bowlby’s feminist analysis of the rhetoric of consumer culture in the novel. All of the main critical approaches to the novel are covered by this indispensable sourcebook.