Introduction to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita/Patterns of sound

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Patterns of sound are the most subtle devices employed by Nabokov and usually they are difficult to analyse. Notwithstanding, there are many of them in Lolita. From patterns of sound used by Nabokov to produce rhytmical language we can distinguish:

  • alliteration
  • assonance
  • consonance

This device, "when used in prose, is not based on a repetition or recurrence of similar patterns, but a varied use of many patterns."[1]

Lokrantz [2] divides Nabokov's sound patterns into:

  1. Simple sound patterns - when two words that have the same sound are repeated ("brown body")
  2. Complex sound patterns - when three or more words have a repetitive sound ("a dead woman, the top of her head a porridge of bone, brains, bronze hair and blood.")
  3. Doublets - alliterative pairs combined by words such as "and" or "or" ("torrents of tears")

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Lokrantz, Jessie Thomas. The Underside of the Weave: Some Stylistic Devices Used by Vladimir Nabokov. Uppsala. Doctoral dissertation at Uppsala University, 1973. Print. p. 95
  2. ↑ Lokrantz, Jessie Thomas. The Underside of the Weave: Some Stylistic Devices Used by Vladimir Nabokov. Uppsala. Doctoral dissertation at Uppsala University, 1973. Print. p. 97
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