Stylistic Structuring of Nabokov’s Metaprose in the Context of Modernism and Postmodernism Poetics

Abstract

The article considers the actual problem of determining the creative method of V. Nabokov in the aspect of artistic principles of modernism and postmodernism. Using the method of historical and discursive analysis, the features of the metanovel as the main genre of the writer's prose are characterized. It is shown that the narcissism of Nabokov's texts appears in the individual rhetoric of the writer, refuting the stereotypes of artistic perception formed in the classical tradition, signaling the aesthetic superiority of the writer. Stylistic codes forming a narcissistic novel are revealed: mythologism, deconstruction, double coding, intertextuality. The ways of their realization in the novels are described: individualization of linguistic techniques, metaphorization, allegorism, rhizomacy of structure of the text, play on cultural codes. It is established that as a means of author's self-expression, the language of Nabokov's works has value in itself, the writer develops his own way of aesthetic attitude to the word. It is concluded, that the identified stylistic codes determine Nabokov's works as belonging to both modernism and postmodernism. These codes form a metatext, or supertext, a special type of non-classical prose, in which the language becomes a specific coding formation, allowing the author to present aesthetic and intellectual information, thus starting creative relations with the reader.