Vladimir Nabokov's "La Veneziana": The Origin of the Plot

This article examines the origin of the plot of Vladimir Nabokov's short story "La Veneziana" (1924). The plot is considered as result of the interaction of various discourses which shaped Nabokov's thought and style in the early 1920s. Rethinking of Russian literature history of the 19th century was one of the main challenges for the culture or Russian emigration. For Nabokov, the utilitarianism of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century was the aesthetics he tried to overcome. A major feature of Russian art in this period was the combination of the idea about the objective truth of art and the requirement of a true representation of reality. In the Russian art at the turn of the century, the Moscow Art Theatre consistently implemented the principles of the realistic truth of art. New language of the plot in Nabokov's short story was the result of overcoming the idea about the objective truth of art and preferring imagination as a free language of meaning creation. The painting of an Italian Renaissance artist in the story is a forgery. Nabokov also used the motive of a "portrait coming to life", popular in the plots of romanticism. When one of the characters of the story tried to come into the painting to connect with the objective truth of art, he was taken to the brink of death. Therefore, art is not a guide into the world of eternal truth. The primary subject of the painting in historical retrospective was not a Venetian, but Venus. The Venetian from Nabokov's story may be interpreted as a character that captivates her beloved like Venus from Richard Wagner's opera Tannhauser. Venus's "captivity" means liberation from the objective truth of art and discovery of subjective truth. In the extreme, Venus's captivity means liberation from stationary ideas and discovery of freedom of event, which generates new ideas. The popular ballet Le Pavilion d'Armide by Michel Fokine with music by Nikolai Tcherepnin had a similar character. The libretto was written by Alexandre Benois in accordance with the aesthetics and philosophy of the World of Art association. Nabokov's story has a double plot with two centers. One of the centers is the character, who tries to come into the picture and falls in crisis. Another character, the author of the painting, escapes with his beloved model. His escape is an escapade; he deceives his father and the husband of the woman he loves. The detective part of the plot is connected with cinema and theater aesthetics in the period of expressionism and magic realism in Germany in the early 1920s. Nabokov took the idea of the hidden side of reality or its alternative. When working on his "La Veneziana", Nabokov used the idea of tricks or gags which can open new ways for creating events and meanings. This makes him close to the aesthetics of expressionism and magic realism and also to early cinema. However, Nabokov's character is not an adventurer; he is a painter, which gives a more humane meaning to the plot.

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