Dialogue And Carnival:A Study Of Nabokov's Creation From The Perspective Of Bakhtin's Cultural Semiotics

Russian-American writer Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov((?))is one of the most influential bilingual writers of the 20th century.From the perspective of semiotics,regardless of perspective of interpretation,it is impossible to explore the full meaning of Nabokov's works as with any other classics.Semiotics assists literature studies.It changes the way of research on literary works which focuses solely on the induction of themes and the refinement of artistic features.In this respect,a literary text is regarded as an unlimited interpretable artistic space.The task of literary criticism and research is to continuously explore new spaces for interpretation.To a great extent,it dispels the "obscurity" of literary texts'interpretation and expands the interpretation of literary texts as a typical cultural symbol system.Like Nabokov,the famous literary theorist and semiotician Mikhail Mikhilovich Bakhtin((?))worked intensively on text analysis,artistic perception and aesthetic feeling.Focusing on dialogism and camivalism,with an open,conversational and extensive historical and cultural angle of analysis and strategy of research,Bakhtin's cultural semiotic theory exerts a profound influence on semiotics,contemporary literary criticism and the development of modern humanities.Bakhtin's cultural semiotic theory provides the theoretical basis and methodological support for the interpretation of literary classics,especially the creation of intercultural bilingual writers such as Nabokov.This thesis mainly selects Nabokov's The Defense,The Original of Laura,Invitation to a Beheading,Lectures on Literature and etc.to explore the extensive and profound intersubjectivity,dialogism and carnivalism in Nabokov's literary creation from the perspective of Bakhtin's cultural semiotics.Nabokov's novels contain not only two kinds of disputing double-voicedness of the protagonists themselves,but also a dialogue between the protagonists,the author and the readers.At the same time,in pursuit of "aesthetic ecstasy",Nabokov makes use of all kinds of carnival literary expressions in the text,displays the duality of carnival thought and world understanding,and constructs an open,dialogic and multidimensional aesthetic space:the strong aesthetic pleasure of the writer during the creation,the overwhelm of aesthetic impact of the reader,as well as the physical and emotional "aesthetic happiness" formed by the multidimensional aesthetic feeling and communication.The thesis is divided into eight parts:In the introduction,the author summarizes the interaction between Bakhtin's cultural semiotics theory,Nabokov's creative text and literary thoughts in the aspects of dialogue and carnival thinking,points out the significance of this research.The first chapter is the literature review,which makes a detailed analysis on the multivariate development trend of Nabokov's research at home and abroad.The second chapter aims to clarify the value of literary research from the view of semiotics and the current research on cultural semiotics in Nabokov study.At the same time,it briefly combs the development and evolution of Bakhtin's cultural semiotics theory with intersubjectivity,dialogism and carnivalism as the core.The third chapter analyzes the game relationship between the author and the protagonist in The Defense from the angle of intersubjectivity.Then explains Bakhtin's dynamic and multielement dialogue mode between aesthetic subjects.The fourth chapter analyzes the open dialogue space among the protagonists,the author and the readers inside and around The Original of Laura from the perspective of dialogue.The fifth chapter analyzes the duality of Invitation to a Beheading from the perspective of carnival thinking.It explains Nabokov's pursuit of breaking the vulgar world,his carnival poetic quality and his dream for the Other world.The sixth chapter expounds Nabokov's literary and artistic ideas throughout his creation which agree with Bakhtin's cultural semiotics theory about the text,the author,the reader and literary criticism.The conclusion of this thesis reviews the verbal and mental confrontation between Nabokov and Bakhtin.It summarizes the whole thesis and points out the field for further study.To sum up,this thesis aims to use Bakhtin's cultural semiotics theory and research method to guide Nabokov study,to make a through reference and comparison of moral expectation,aesthetic standpoint and artistic appeal of Nabokov and Bakhtin.This thesis reveals their shared values in artistic claims,aesthetic strategies and explores the similarities in their metaphysical pursuit,in order to integrate Bakhtin's theory construction with Nabokov's literary practice.This will not only deepen the comprehensive understanding of Bakhtin's cultural semiotics theory,but also expand the diverse interpretation of Nabokov's texts and artistic ideas.This thesis,with all its effort,tries to explore a cultural semiotics interpretation of literary classics for the future development of literary criticism in China.