[fantasyfan]

I thought the references to Poe intriguing. Humbert’s first sexual experience is with a young girl his own age named Annabel Leigh. One immediately is reminded of the poem “Annabel Lee” by Poe. Annabel Lee of the poem is based on Poe’s own child-wife and first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm who was 13 at the time they were married--around the same age as Humbert and his Annabel when they were having their affair. Further, Lolita is 12 when Humbert seduces her and at the motel he signs himself in under the name of “Edgar”. Poe’s subject is a “maiden” who died young--as did Humbert’s Annabel. The love has an implied taboo quality:

“But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.”

and

“But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we --
Of many far wiser than we --“

Humbert and Annabel hide their relationship from their parents--it is a secret love affair.

The love goes beyond death but is described in a way that has a very weird quality that is quite abnormal:

“And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling --my darling --my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea --
In her tomb by the sounding sea.”

The intensely passionate lines gloss over what seems close to necrophilia. The speaker does not “lie down” by the sepulchre but beside the corpse.

The love affair of Humbert and Annabel also takes place near the sea and there are unmistakable verbal allusions; Nabokov echoes the poem when he says:

“When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel . . . .”

Poe writes:

"I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:"


Now it is important to realize that the situations of Poe and Humbert have quite significant differences:

1. There is fairly good reason to believe that Poe and Virginia had a relationship which was not consummated and was more akin to that of a brother and sister--he referred to her as “Sissy” for instance.

2. There is no doubt but that Poe and Virginia had a very deep affection for each other.

3. Virginia lived until she was twenty-three and died of Tuberculosis in 1847.

4. Her death caused Poe to go into a very deep depression from which he never fully recovered and was dead himself within two years.


So why does Nabokov {who did have a great regard for Poe’s work} make the allusions?

It could be that, perhaps, he is underlining the dark, unnatural nature of Humbert’s obsession with nymphettes in general and Lolita in particular through the use of this inter-textuality--much as Joyce does with Homer {though with a different purpose} in Ulysses.

Anyone have any ideas on the subject?