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Comparative Critical Studies 2, 3, pp. 411â25 © BCLA 2005 CHAPTER TWO âThe beastly and beautiful merged at one point, and it is that borderline I would like to fix, and I fail to do so utterly.â1 Such is Humbert Humbertâs perhaps not altogether genuine bafflement when he is pondering his infatuation with Lolita. The fusion of the beastly and the beautiful â syntactically established in the dropping of the second article in Humbert Humbertâs phrase â is indeed a central issue when it comes to defining the obscenity of a work of art. Does a morally repugnant attraction to pre-pubescent girls lose its obscenity when turned into a work of art, and exchange beastliness for beauty, or will the beastliness survive its beautification? This is Humbertâs concern as he seeks relief in âthe melancholy and very local palliative of articulate artâ (p. 283), but also Nabokovâs as he tries to defend his Lolita against charges of obscenity in his 1956 afterword (âOn A Book Entitled Lolitaâ).2 Nabokov obviously uses âbeastlyâ metaphorically, but I intend to take the word more literally, to refer to beasts or animals of various descriptions that are to be found in Ian McEwanâs
Comparative Critical Studies – Edinburgh University Press
Published: Oct 1, 2005
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