Between Metafiction and Metaphysics, or How Not to Read Pale Fire

Abstract

This essay aims to investigate the problem of metafictional self-consciousness in the works of Vladimir Nabokov through the character John Shade, the fictitious author of “Pale Fire”, a poem which is part of a peculiar novel bearing the same title. Shade’s metaphysical meditation, when separated from the novel that contains it – a possibility realized by Gingko Press, which published the poem  as a freestanding work in 2011 –, serves as a means of considering the relationship between the poet created by Nabokov and the writer himself. This leads, in turn, to Nabokov’s peculiar conception of nature, based on the idea of a benevolent creator that seems to serve as model for both his characters and his own art.