This summary contains everything you need to know about Lolita and The Satanic Verses. It contains a short summary, analysis, notes about the most important characters, themes and the articles we had to read.
Content
Week 5 .......................................................................................................................................................... 2
Nabokov .................................................................................................................................................... 2
About..................................................................................................................................................... 2
Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 3
Themes .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Why should it be banned? .................................................................................................................... 4
Why should it not be banned? .............................................................................................................. 4
Butler......................................................................................................................................................... 4
Devereaux ................................................................................................................................................. 5
Moore ....................................................................................................................................................... 5
Mill ............................................................................................................................................................ 6
Phelan ....................................................................................................................................................... 6
Week 6 .......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Rushdie...................................................................................................................................................... 7
About..................................................................................................................................................... 7
Themes .................................................................................................................................................. 7
Characters ............................................................................................................................................. 8
The legend............................................................................................................................................. 8
The controversy .................................................................................................................................... 8
Rushdie’s counterarguments ................................................................................................................ 9
Perspective............................................................................................................................................ 9
Why should it be banned? .................................................................................................................... 9
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Week 5
INTRODUCTION OF THE THEME BANNED BOOKS
Literature:
• Nabokov – Lolita
• Butler – Lolita and the Modern Experience of Beauty
• Devereaux – Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will
• Moore – How Unreliable is Humbert in Lolita?
• Mill – On Liberty, chapter 2
• Phelan – Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita
• Warburton – Free Speech, chapter 4
Nabokov
LOLITA
About
Lolita is a book written by Vladimir Nabokov between 1949 and 1954. Because of its controversy
Nabokov even considered burning the book. Lolita is considered controversial because of its obscenity,
meaning: something being controversial that is a result of a sexual description of something:
paedophilia, rape, incest. This book is often referred to as pornography and erotica.
- Pornography = arousing the reader sexually and entails a violent component.
- Erotica = not only a sexual, but also an aesthetic experience. It tries to offer an artistic value.
Nabokov tried to approach different publishing houses. All turned him down because they didn’t want a
lawsuit. This kind of censorship can be referred to as economical censorship. Eventually he published it
in Paris with Olympia in 1955. The book was made legal in 1957 because Girodias won a lawsuit. Though,
with a new French government in 1958, the book got banned again. In England the book became legal in
1959 because of two reasons:
1. A lot of people weren’t aware of its obscenity.
2. The material needs to be available for common good.
Lolita is a postmodern work because:
- The storytelling is not objective anymore (unreliability of Humbert Humbert: meaning that you
can’t trust what he is saying).
- There is a complex use of language.
- There is no absolute truth. This is reflected in the work in Humbert Humbert reliability.
Lolita has not only one genre. It is a drama, rape story, comedy, romantic story and a love story.
Nabokov is a formalist. He wanted his work to be seen as a work of art. He chose paedophilia because
this crime is the hardest to write about and to accept. Also, it talks about the “grey area” of paedophiles,
the non-stereotypic paedophiles like Humbert Humbert.
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