Poe, Nabokov, and Three Big Words:

Pedophilia, Necrophilia, Intertextuality

Elena Martinis and Tamiko Nimura, English

Intertextuality: here, “a conversation between

two literary texts”

Lolita, Nabokov (Pedophilia)

“Annabel Lee”, Poe (Necrophilia?)

Intertextuality

“Annabel Lee”

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea:

But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heavenCoveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchreIn this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,Went envying her and me—

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

“Annabel Lee”

But our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we—Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulcher there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.

•

“Annabel Lee”

Annabel Lee=Annabel Leigh:A few Poe allusions in Nabokov

• Nabokov:• “exhibit number one is what

the seraphs…envied” (9)

• “When I was a child and she was a child…We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives” (16-7)

• “I shall probably have another breakdown if I stay any longer in this house, under the strain of this intolerable temptation, by the side of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride” (47)

Nabokov almost gave Lolita the title The Kingdom by the Sea. The narrator (Humbert)’s first love is a child named Annabel Leigh,

who dies young.Poe: •“The angels, not half so happy in heaven,/Went envying her and me—”

•“I was a child and she was a child/In this kingdom by the sea:/But we loved with a love that was more than love—/I and my Annabel Lee;”

Poe and Necrophilia

• Biographical reading: “Annabel Lee” is thought by some biographers to be dedicated to Poe’s “child bride” (who was 13, and died young)

• Textual reading: The imagery in the final stanza could be interpreted as necrophilic: “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side/Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride…”

Necrophilia:The Poetic

and the Perverse

“a morbid obsession such as necrophilia can be a useful, flexible metaphor for complex psychological

patterns of desire which are not necessarily pathological, or even

perverse.”

–Lucy Maddox, “Necrophilia in Lolita”

Necrophilia in Popular Culture

“Annabel Lee” Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty

www.gutenberg.org allvintagestore.com

History and Studies of Necrophilia Ancient Egyptians

Studies of Necrophilia

• Richard von Kraft-Ebing (1886)

• Johnathan P. Rosman and Phillip J. Resnick (1989)

King Herod

http://www.notablebiographies.com/images/

uewb_05_img0337.jpg

Rosman and ResnickGenuine

Necrophile

Has a persistent attraction to corpses

Necrophilic Homicide

Murder to obtain corpse for sexual purposes

Regular Necrophilia

Use of already dead bodies for sexual pleasure

Necrophilic Fantasy

Fantasizing about Sexual activity with a corpse

Pseudonecrophile:

Has a transient attraction to corpses, but corpses

are not the object of his sexual fantasies

Pedophilia and Necrophilia

Paraphilia:

Deviant sexual behavior

Pedophilia:

The fantasy or act of sexual activity with prepubescent children

Necrophilia:

A sexual attraction to corpses

Necrophilia: Lack of Self-Esteem

• “The passion I had developed for that nymphet- for the first nymphet in my life that could be reached by my awkward, aching, timid claws- would have certainly landed me again in a sanitorium . . .” (Humbert, 56, Italics mine)

• “I had ceased to be Humbert the Hound, the sad-eyed degenerate cur clasping the boot that would presently kick him away. I was above the tribulations of ridicule, beyond the possibilities of retribution.” (Humbert, 60, Italics mine)

Motives for Necrophilia

Motives Cited by Rosman and Resnick:

Reunion with a romantic partner • Attempt to gain comfort / overcome feelings of

isolation • Conscious sexual attraction to corpses

• Attempt to gain self-esteem / total control

• Fusion of aggressive and libidinal drives

• An attempt to deal with loss or the fear of loss

Identification with the mother. Attempt to deal with separation anxieties

Examples of Motives in Lolita:

“I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.” (Humbert, 15)

“My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three” (Humbert, 10)

Humbert: Metaphorical Necrophile

• “I wish this memoir to be published only when Lolita is no longer alive.” (Humbert, 309)

• “What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another, fanciful Lolita- perhaps, more real than Lolita . . . floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness- indeed, no life of her own.” (Humbert, 62)

• “it was always my habit and method to ignore Lolita’s states of mind while comforting my own base self.” (Humbert, 287)

• “she would be dead in his arms.” (Humbert, 116)

• “It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed.” (Humbert, 140)

SourcesBronfen, Elisabeth. Over her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the aesthetic. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Burg, B.R. “The Sick and the Dead: The Development of Psychological Theory on Necrophilia from Kraft-Ebing to the Present.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 18 (1982): 242-254.

Coviello, Peter. “Poe in Love: Pedophilia, Morbidity, and the Logic of Slavery.” ELH 70 (2003): 875-901.

Kennedy, Gerald J. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Maddox, Lucy. “Necrophilia in Lolita.” In Harold Bloom ed., Lolita (New York: Chelsea House, 1993), pp. 79-89.

Nabokov, Vladimir. The Annotated Lolita. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Ed. Alfred Apple.

Proffer, Carl R. Keys to Lolita. London: Indiana University Press, 1968.

Rosman, Johnathan P. and Philip J. Resnick. “Sexual Attraction to Corpses: A Psychiatric Review of Necrophilia.” Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 17 (1989): 153-163.

Intertextuality: what does it mean here?

Lolita, Nabokov (Pedophilia)

“Annabel Lee”, Poe (Necrophilia)

Intertextuality