Nabokov's Shakespeare

Book excerpt: "Nabokov's Shakespeare is a comprehensive study of an important and interesting literary relationship. It explores the many and deep ways in which the works of Shakespeare, the greatest writer of the English language, penetrate the novels of Vladimir Nabokov, the finest English prose stylist of the twentieth century. As a Russian youth, Nabokov had read all of Shakespeare, in English. He claimed a shared birthday with the Bard, and some of his most highly regarded novels (Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada) are infused with Shakespeare and Shakespeareanisms. Across a gulf of over three centuries and half the globe, Shakespeare was an enormous influence on the twentieth-century Russian/American author. Nabokov uses Shakespeare and Shakespeare's works in a surprisingly wide variety of ways, from the most casual references to deep thematic links (e.g., Humbert Humbert, the narrator and protagonist of Lolita sees himself as The Tempest's Caliban). Schuman provides a taxonomy of Nabokov's Shakespeareanisms; a quantitative analysis of Shakespeare in Nabokov; an examination of Nabokov's Russian works, his early English novels, the non-Novelistic writings (poetry, criticism, stories), Nabokov's major works, and his final novels; and a discussion of the nature of literaryrelationships and influence. With a Foreword by Brian Boyd"--