Nabokov's perfect play: The screenplay Lolita from the perspective of the author's views on playwriting

Abstract

The article researches the last and the least studied dramatic work by Vladimir Nabokov -the screenplay of the novel Lolita -from the perspective of the writer on what constitutes an aesthetically satisfying play. Using Nabokov's methodology and assessing compliance of the screenplay with Nabokov's content-and-form-related criteria of the perfect play, the author concludes that the screenplay contains the full range of his idiosyncratic concepts and artistic devices. The article scrutinizes each of them. Consequently, the research claims that Lolita stands not only as a remarkable play, but also as the culmination of the dramaturgic principles Nabokov employed as a writer and advocated as a theorist of drama.