Alexander Luxemburg, professor of Rostov State University Galina Rakhimkulova, associate professor of Rostov State University Magister Ludi: Word Play in Vladimir Nabokov's Prose in the Light of a Theory of Puns

nd in our Russian version we have published a number of articles by A.Luxemburg, devoted to different aspects of V.Nabokov's art. Today we are proud to offer you a breakthrough article in English, outlining the role of word play in Vladimir Nabokov's prose, its functions, levels & techniques in the light of theory of puns. This article summarizes the results of A.Luxemburg & G.Rakhimkulova's research within the project "The Magician of Word Play: Vladimir Nabo-kov's Language and Style" funded by the Commit-tee for Research Support Scheme of the Central European Uni-versity. As a part of the project, they have published a book "Magister Ludi: Word Play in Vladimir Nabokov's Prose in the Light of a Theory of Puns" (Rostov-on-Don, 1996), where one can find full information about the subject.

          The aim of the present research consists in analyzing the tremendous resources of word-play in both English and Russi-an novels by the unprecedented magician of verbal acrobatics Vladimir Nabokov and in providing on this basis a new compre-hensive theory of word-play that is compatible with the practi-ce of Modernist and Post-Modernist authors.
          Word-play that includes, according to dictionaries of literary terms, verbal fencing, repartee, play on words, puns and paradox-es, is habitually regarded as a way of exercising or exchanging verbal wit while a standard definition of pun describes it as "the use of word in such a manner as to bring out different meanings or applications, or the use of words alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning, often with humorous intent" ("New Web-ster's Dictionary of English Language", College Edition). Altho-ugh 20th century world literature's experience disproves the tra-ditional practice of treating word-play (or puns) as a method of creating a comic effect this view has nevertheless a tendency to prevail. The authors suggest a more complex approach to the prob-lem of word play and intend to find out and describe its numerous functions and unusual properties as well as to give a systematic view on V. Nabokov's exercise of its possibilities.
          The playing principle that had been discovered by Plato and developed by many later philosophers was theoretically enriched byJ.Huizinga in "Homo ludens". It is evident that although this principle has always been art's integral part, it has become especially important by the end of the 19th century. J.Ortega-y-Gasset stated in his "Dehumanisation of Art" the "magic gift" of the new art - its ability of ironic play on it's own properties that became more important than the study of man and society. He singled out seven ele-ments of the "new style" the fourth of which consists in treating art as a kind of play and nothing more. Such approach to art's aims can be found in J. Joyce's "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake", in J. L. Borges' short stories and essays, in J.Cortazar's, G. Garcia Marquez', B. Vian's, S.Beckett's and U.Eco's fiction, as well as in numerous works of the French "nouveau roman" writers and the American novelists of the "black humour" school. These works demonstrate not only their creators' willingness to construct intricate structures for the sake of play, but also their intention to start a play with the potential reader who is to solve riddles, to find out the book's secrets, and who is perma-nently mystified and deceived.
          Such play's strategy has been accurately described and com-mented on by U.Eco in his Notes to "The Name of the Rose" and has been effectively used by Vladimir Nabokov whose both Russian and English masterpieces have highly influenced most experimental schools in 20th century fiction.
          All Nabokovian texts are based on playing principles, and his attitude to this practice is very clearly expressed in the final passage of "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" where the nar-rator V, whose aim has been reconstrucion of this writer's life in art, states: "...I am Sebastian Knight. I feel as if I were im-personating him on a lighted stage, with the people he knew coming and going - the dim figures of the few friends he had, the scholar, and the poet, and the painter - smoothly and noiselessly paying their graceful tribute (...). They moved round Se-bastian -round me who am acting Sebastian - and the old conju-rer waits in the wings with his hidden rabbit (...). And then the masquerade draws to a close. The bald little prompter shuts his book, as the light fades gently. The end, the end. They all go back to their everyday life (...), but the hero remains, for, try as 1 may, I cannot get out of my part: Sebastian's mask clings to my face, the likeness will not be washed off, I am Sebastian or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither one knows".
          This "someone" is naturally V.Nabokov himself, who is al-ways writing for an abnormally sensitive erudite reader. As Humbert states in "Lolita", "...I could visualize him as a blon-de-bearded scholar with rosy lips sucking la pomme de sa canne as he quaffs my manuscript..."
          Some Nabokovian novels are structured according to rules of certain games - such as chess ("The Real Life of Sebastian Knight", "The Defence"). The author uses an intricate play on the repeating patterns that become formal signs of his absolute command of the text: sun-glasses in "Lolita", a recurring pud-dle in "Bend Sinister", the "squirrel theme" in "Pnin".
          The play with the reader is effected on two levels: the one of the text and the one of the language. That is why it seems pos-sible to distiguish between play and game poetics (the system of fictional techniques creating the specific atmosphere of play within the text) and play and game stylistics (the language re-sources used for this purpose).
          Manipulations with words are a significant aspect of the lat-ter. Being a born punster, V.Nabokov has been constantly at-tracted to the possibilities of word-play.
          The analysis of hundreds of examp-les of word-play from Nabokovian novels permits the authors to improve the classifica-tion of pun-building techniques and add certain categories and variants of word play arrangement, which have not yet been registered by previous researchers. 16 types of pun-building techniques have been singled out, some of them being traditional and some specific for play and game stylistics:
          1. The play on similarly sounding words (paronomasia). V. Nabokov does not only excel in the normative use of this oldest pun-building method, but also employs it for rende-ring subconscious associations in J. Joyce's manner (cf. "poor Willy is willy nilly a willow", or "Would 1 arrive in time to find him alive... arrive... alive... arrive"; "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight".)
          A specific modification of paronomasia maybe formally motivated by the character's foreign accent and by his inadequate command of the language of communication. "Pnin" abounds in such puns, and the protagonist's awful distortions of words supply them with diabollically ironic hidden meanings, such as "vicious and sawdust" (instead of "whisky and soda") or "Van-dal College" (instead of "Waindell"). Paronomasia may also be complicated by punning rhymes. Similarly sounding words are often artificially constructed by the author in accordance with the existing word-building models, and Nobokovian texts abo-und in occasional neologisms of that kind.
          The play on similarly sounding words of the same root is used by V. Nabokov for accentuation of the antithesis. Nume-rous cases of play on full homonyms, homophones, homog-raphs and homoforms are complemented by the ones of artifi-cially created homonymy. The borderline between artificially created and occasional homonymy is sometimes rather vague.
          2. Close to paronomastic are graphic (or paronomastlc-graphic) puns such as "soundless and boundless" ("That in Aleppo Once..."), where 8 letters out of 9 coincide, or "Bal-dly she mentioned a flnn, a film" ("Laughter in the Dark").
          3. Play on polysemy, or on the divergence of meanings in words of the same root.
          4. Antonymic puns are characterized in V. Nabokov's fiction by their inobtrusiveness and can be traced by a well-trained eye only.
          5. The transformation of pharaseologisms is present in Nabokovian texts in 4 different forms:
          a) The double interpretation of the idiom, its use in an intentionally dubious context: "Alas, I had no more doubts, though the picture of Sebastian was atrocious - but then, too, I had got it second-hand". In this example from "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" the idiom "second-hand" may also be understood literally;
          b) The idiom's transformations (sometimes combined with their literal interpretation);
          c) The repetition of a cliche's element in its direct meaning. ("To break Charlotte's will, I would have to break her heart. If I broke her heart, her image of me would break too"; "Lolita");
          d) The contamination of phraseologisms: "Good night for mothing" ("Bend Sinister). The play is based on the con-tamination of "good for nothing" with a wish of "good night", but in the first expression the standard "nothing" is replaced by the author's occasional neologism "mot-hing". The author's word-play is additionally complica-ted by the fact that even the native speakers are bound to see a misprint here which is not the case.
          6. The occasional neologisms created for the punning purpo-ses are a favourite means of word-play in a text created in accordance with the laws of play and game stylistics. In most cases they are formed by means of contamination; e.g., "optimistics" in "Sebastian Knight" is a combination of "optimism" and "mystics". Such portmanteau words may be construc-ted out of elements of different languages. A short slim girl's "tripping step" in "Lolita" becomes in its Russian version "tropotok" - the contamination of the French verb "trot-ter" and the Russian noun "topot" ("tramp") V.Nabokov is very fond of using portmanteau words. Another example of such pun which was not present in the English "Lolita" but appeared in its Russian version is "libidobeliberda" (inste-ad of "pseudoliberations of pseudolibidos") which marks the author's aversion to S. Freud and psychoanalysis. The most widespread category of such portmanteau words is for-med by proper names such as "Maurice Vermont" ("Lolita"), a punning contamination of three Symbolist poets - the Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck, the French Paul Verlaine, and the Russian Konstantin Balmont. Such puns reveal the author's aesthetic principles and sympathies. The punning neologisms may be constructed without contamination as well as the "sexophone note" (in "Sebastian Knight").
          7. One of the most specific types of puns in V. Nabokov's prac-tice is word's decomposition and semantization of its both (or several) constituents. (Cf.: "One gentle writer, the aut-hor of a single famous book, rebuked Sebastian (April 4, 1928) for being 'Conradish' and suggested his leaving out the "con" and cultivating the 'radish' in future works..." (Se-bastian Knight".) Some cases of such decomposition are hardly discernable, as, for instantce, Sebastian Knight's pre-ference of books that "left you puzzled and cross", that was not noticed by all Russian translators of the novel who igno-red the writer's fondness of his Russian neologism "krestoslovitsa" (crossword puzzle).
          8. A new type of puns, the in-built puns, is widely used by V. Nabokov too. This is a sophisticated art of pun-building when a shorterword is hidden (or "dissolved") within a lar-ger one in a small section of text, a sentence or a word-combination, such as "smuglaya mgla"(dark haze; "Drugiye Berega"). The in-built pun can also be bilingual: "...sva-rennoye vkrutuyu yaytso opuskalos s ovalnym zvukom" ("Druglye Berega"). The word "yaytso" (egg) is hidden in its Latin form within the word "ovalnym" (oval). An analo-gous pun can be found in "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight": "Her name was Olga Olegovna Orlova - an egg-like alliteration".
          9. Metaphoric puns. Whereas in other Nabokovian texts this type of puns is not very frequently found, it takes a large proportion in all the cases of word-play in "Lolita". A specific Nabokovi-an metaphor serves as a core of this pun which may seem misleading but within a larger context its second, disguised meaning is revealed. It is sometimes in the context of the whole novel only that this disguised meaning becomes noticible. Being a parody of the erotic literature and an attempt of creating an archetypal story of great love, "Lolita" abo-unds in metaphoric puns with erotic colouring. A con-text indeed! A key to the specific function of metaphoric puns can be found in Humbert's dolorous statement: "Oh, my Lo-lita, I have only words to play with", meaning that his sublimative word-play is the only one left to him because no sexual play is more possible due to his beloved's death.
          10. False etymology is used by V. Nabokov not in its traditional comic function, but in order to reveal the character's moti-ves of behaviour ("He confused solitude with altitude and the Latin for sun (...). Something was wrong in his solarium" ("Sebastian Knight"), or as a tactical means of intricate in-tellectual play with the reader: "Isumrudov ("isumrud" = 'emerald')... 'of the Umrads', an Eskimo tribe sometimes seen paddling their umyaks (hide-lined boats) on the eme-rald waters of our Northern Shores" ("Pale Fire").
          11. Anagrams are traditionally treated as figures, but in the context of Modernist and Post-Modernist fiction it seems possible to single out anagrammatic puns. One of numero-us examples is the passage about "short-haired Miss Lester and fadedly feminine Miss Fabian" in "Lolita", characteri-zing their sexual (Lesbian) orientation. The name-character of "Ada" is a fan of a "game of anagrams", and she even manages to construct out of the word "insect" an anagram-matic sentence: "Dr. Entsic was scient in insects". V.Nabo-kov's name is concealed in many anagrammatic puns. Some rare cases of artificial anagrammatization can be found in Nabokovian texts.
          12. Paragrams (spoonerisms) are close to anagrams in the res-pect that they are based on manipulations with letters' arran-gement too. But while anagrams result in ciphering and must be decoded, paragrams do not obscure the meaning and the-ir playing effect is achieved by the anomalous arrangement of consonants and some additional changes in the word's ap-pearances. V. Nabokov follows the tradition of the British poetry of nonsense, espesially that of L.Carroll and E.Lear, but, unlike his predecessors, he uses spoonerisms mostly as a means of psychological characterization. "Bend Sinister" is the best source of Nabokovian spoonerisms. A special case of paragram (spoonerism) is the one of the false misprint. A striking example of this device is Shade's fo-otnote in the "Pale Fire" about the notorious misprints in a Rus-sian paper (crown - crow - cow).
          13. Chiasmus, "a balancing pattern in verse or prose, where the main elements are reversed", can also be treated as a sort of word-play. Its traditional definitions are not adequate because they acknowledge this phenomenon's formal aspect only, but disregard the lexical one. Both the syntactical and the lexical aspects of the chiasmus assure its play role within the text, ma-king it possible to single out chiastic puns, such as "The Pris-matic Bazel' ("s] (...) fun seemed to me obscure and its obscu-rities funny" ("The Real Life of Sebastian Knight"). It is evi-dent that V.Nabokov's chiastic puns allow a possibility of an inaccurate "reflection" of the first part of the statement within the second one due to the use of the same word's other gram-matical forms and of other words with the same root. The usual chiasmus is too simple for such refined punster as V. Nabo-kov, and he prefers combining chiastic puns with polysemy and some other factors. Thus, he characterizes ironically Sebastian Knight's fiction in such a way: "Poor Knight! He really had two periods, the first a dull man writing broken English, the second -a broken man writing dull English".
          14. The analysis of anagrams' and chiasmus' use for the purposes of play and game stylistics has testified to the fact that some figu-res of speech may be regarded as pun's structural variants: The same may be said about zeugmatic puns, such as "...Humbert resting his hand and burning with desire and dyspepsia" ("Lolita") The main function of such puns is predominantly ironic.
          15. A new type of puns' formation may also be singled out - translation puns. They are characterized by an intentional-ly wrong translation into another language within the text. Their more detailed analysis is proposed below. Puns can also be borrowed from other literary sources for playing purposes. These "second-hand" puns may correspond to any 14 models already described.
          Some untraditional functions of word-play have been revealed within the present research. Contrary to the tradition, according to which puns have been treated as a vehicle of achieving a comic effect, the authors insist on their ability to perform numerous other more im-portant functions in Modernist and Post-Modernist texts. Thus, 12 other functions have been singled out:
          1. The structure-forming (or thematic) function is usually effec-ted by large puns' sequences traceable within the whole text of the novel. Its detailed analysis is given below.
          2. The pun's allusive function is often combined by V.Nabokov with the appraising one because allusive word-play gives the writer a chance to demonstrate his definitely negative atti-tude to certain figures of modem culture and trends in contemporaty literature, philosophy and science. A number of allusive-appraising anti-Freudian puns can be traced in "Lolita". Structure-forming (thematic) puns are also allusive. The same can be said about the "borrowed" puns. There exists a special category of allusive puns which may be called autoquotatation puns.
          3. The ironic function, demonstrating the writer's sceptical at-titude towards the events described, may be combined with the allusive one as well as with some other functions.
          4. Word-play's associative function is represented in V.Nabo-kov's fiction by some seemingly casual sequences of simi-larly sounding words that get fixed in the narrator's con-sciousness and are essential for understanding the key fac-tors, determining his fate. This phenomenon can be illustrated by two characteristic examples from the Russian version of "Despair" ("Ne nado, ne khochu, chukhonets, khochu, ne nado, ad", and "Palka - kakiye slova mozhno vyzhat iz pal-ki? Pal, lak, kal, lapa"), and several others from "Lolita".
          5. Some puns' main function (though they may be formally trea-ted as the predominantly ironic ones) may consist in generating the atmosphere of the absurd. The authors disprove the ideas of J.T. Lokrantz who in his book "The Underside of the Weave: Some Stylistic Devices Used by V.Nabokov" treats analogous puns as the ornamental ones. The abundance of such puns in some Nabokovian novels is de-pendent on their mainly absurdist mood. This is particularty valid for "Invitation for the Beheading" and "Bend Sinister".
          6. The function of is one of the specific ones for such fictional works which are based on the laws of play and game stylistics. It is very actively reve-aled in riddle puns. E.g., Herman, the narrator in "Despair" after hearing some sound, reacts by saying "chock" and pro-poses such a riddle to his dozing wife: "My first is that so-und, my second is an exclamation, my third will be prefixed to me when I am no more; and my whole is my ruin". The answer is the contamination of "choch-o(h)-late", i.e, "chocholate". But there is also a second, masked sense in this pun though the English version ren-ders it in a slightly muted form.
          A treasure of riddles can be found in Chapter 23, Part 2 of "Lolita" where Humbert's quest for Quilty is described. The analysis of this episode is aimed at proving that the search for "the fiend's spoor" may be regarded as a kind of intellectual tournament between two erudite authors (or "knights" in the fairy-tale concealed layer of the text).
          7. The Nabokovian puns can serve as a means of the charac-ters' appraisal (in some cases - as a means of his self-cha-racterization) E.g., the negative evaluation of Shchyogolev in "The Gift" is achieved by his persistent use of vulgar puns which is particularly relevant within the context of Nabokov's indefatigable crusade against vulgarity ("pushlost").
          8. There are cases in the author's practice when he himsef uses punning to uppraise his characters. Word-play's function is in such cases predominantly appraising and tendentio-us (or biased). Such are, e.g., the already mentioned anti-Freudian puns (which may be ironic and allusive as well).
          9. The metaphoric puns are as a rule used as means of appraising the characters' psychic and emotional state. There are num-bers of such cases in "Lolita". The narrator being an erudite person, some of such puns are intentionally multilingual.
          10. Another word-play's function consists in marking the aut-hor's concealed presense (or the concealed presence of a character). V.Nabokov uses sometimes the "anagrammatic camouflage", when introducing his alter ego incidental cha-racters: BlavdakVinomori ("King, Queen, Knave", Engl. ver-sion), Vivian Damor-Blok ("Lolita", Russian version), Vivian Darkbloom ("Lolita", Engl. version), Vivian Bloodmark ("Speak, Memory"), or Adam von Ubrikov ("Transparent Things"). The whole text of "Lolita" is run through by the punning introductions of Quilty's theme. This function may be frequently singled out in most Nabokovian masterpieces.
          11. The ornamental function fits naturally to Nabokov'g formalistic inclinations. His intent to make the text more attractive by introducing puns is evident in some cases. Nabokov's sty-le is determined to a certain extent by his "punning manner of thought". But it is impossible to state in most of his puns crystally clear ornamentalism, and some other deeply concealed functions can be found in most of them.
          12. The rhythm and sound instrumentation function of Nabokovian puns consists in supplying the text with specific so-und and rhythmic effects, e.g.: "...Snapshot of a missing girl, age fourteen, wearing brown shoes when last seen, rhymes" ("Lolita"). This function is especially relevant for such ca-ses when the writer playfully reconstructs an artist's stream of consciousness as in "The Gift" or "Invitation to a Behea-ding". This function is close to the ornamental one, but it tends to annihilate the borderline between prose and poetry. It is interesting to point out, that the traditional comic fun-ction of word-play is probably the rarest one in Magister Ludi Vivian Van Bock's practice.
          Structure-forming (thematic) puns may be considered a most specific trait of the Nabokovian play and game stylistics. Puns' sequences which are interlaced with the motives (recurrent themes) and allusi-ons systems form a pattern that can be fully comprehended only by a competent erudite reader. A treatment of structure-forming (thematic) puns' sequences is complicated by the fact that they may be simultaneously considered as a type of pun formation and as a word-play's function.
          Although puns' sequences may be found even in the earliest Nabokovian texts, it is in his fiction of the American and the Swiss' periods, that his art of creating puns' sequences patterns have become especially refined and mature.
          To show how this device actually functions the authors have chosen two Nabokovian novels for a detailed analysis: "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" and "Lolita". The study of the first text is based on Ch.Nicoll's ideas expressed in "The Mir-rors of Sebastian Knight". The critic asserts that Nabokov's works have been written to be re-read, especially "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" which, as it was usual for the writer's prac-tice, has been built as a mirrors' system. Knight's own novels are the keys to the interpretation of this work. Combining in his text the analyses of all the main novels of his artistic protago-nist, V.Nabokov gets a formal opportunity to comment upon their structures: "Sebastian Knight had always liked juggling with themes, making them clash or blending them cunningly, making them express that hidden meaning, which could only be expressed in a succession of waves as the music of a Chinese buoy can be made to sound only by undulation. In "The Doub-tful Asphodel", his method has attained perfection. It is not the parts that matter, it is their combination". The "game comp-lex" of Sebastian Knight, the one of the author actually, is at work when he combines various puns' sequences within the novel's text. 7 of them have been singled out:

1) the chess sequence;
2) Sebastian Knight's favourite books list;
3) the "creative" sequence based on the opposition "art-heart";
4) the Shakespearean sequence;
5) Knight's works' sequence;
6) "Night-day, white-black, light-darkness" sequence (subtly combined with the chess one);
7) the Narcissus sequence;

9 structure-forming (thematic) puns' sequences have been sin-gled out in "Lolita":

1) the Haze sequence;
2) the Humbertian sequence;
3) the Quiltian sequence;
4) the Carmen sequence;
5) the Edgarian sequence (play upon the E.A. Рое theme);
6) the Sleeping Beauty sequence;
7) the Blue Beard sequence;
8) the Tristramian sequence;
9) Lolita's class list sequence.

          Although many details used in this analysis have already been commented upon by C.R. Proffer, A. Appel, J.Th. Lokrantz, A.Dolinin and other critics, this seems to be a first attempt of exami-ning the structure-forming (thematic) puns within this novel.
          Nabokov's bilingual and multilingual puns form a separate cluster. This problem was extremely acute for V. Nabokov who wrote his earlier novels in Russian and his later ones in English but produced later on the English versions of his Russian texts and some Russian versions of his English ones. His use of multi-lingual puns was intentional, and it facilitated his transition from Russian to English and vice versa. The lexical elements of Nabo-kov's two main languages are sometimes combined compulsarily because otherwise he might not have been able to preserve the pun in the other language. The foreign elements within the pun may intensify its erudite specific characters Bilingual and multilingual puns become in some cases formal markers of Nabokovian texts' play structure. J Joyce' influence upon his multilingual punning technique is especially evident in a passage from "Lolita": "Seva ascendes, pulsata, brulans, kitzelans, dementissima. Elevator clatterans, pausa, clatterans, populus in corridoro. Hans nisis mors nibt adimet niemo! Juncea, puelulla, jo pensavo fondissime, nobserva nihil quidquam...", where the punning effect is achieved through the use of 6 languages' lexical elements.
          The play with the reader becomes especially complicated when elements of artificially constructed non-existant langua-ges participate in the pun-forming technique, as in "Bend Sinis-ter", "Pale Fire" or "Ada". There could be found some examples of "translation puns" which are charac-terized by the narrator's intentionally wrong and/or misleading translation of the foreign text. Some cases of punning are also singled out where the word-play is based on elements of two foreign languages whereas the novel is written in the native one. (A pun in the "Russian" "Lolita" is constructed out of English and French elements.)
          Here one should mention the problem of marking and masking puns. These two techniques form a complicated combination in Nabokov's works. He needs marking puns because otherwise they might remain unnoticed. On the other hand, he needs masking them too, so that the reader should be forced to overcome some obstacles to single them out.
          The simpliest method of marking a pun is to mention the fact of its presence: "Humbert Humbert sweating in the fierce white light, and howled at, and trodden upon by sweating policemen, is now ready to make a further statement' (Quel mot!)..." ("Lo-lita"). A more subtle method of pun marking consists in menti-oning some formal characretistic of the text that helps in fin-ding its hidden punning meaning. Some themes and proper names may serve as formal markers, e.g., the name of S.Freud and the school of psychoanalysis. The author may also point out some allusion in order to mark the case of word-play.
          The main method of masking puns is the narrator's tactical stressing of certain word-combinations' unimportance or his certainty that something is silly or not relevant. But his method combines the characteristics of both masking and marking puns. The pun may also be masked by way of using another al-phabet, e.g. Cyrillic instead of Latin, and by an untraditional arrangement of the text ("Yerun Dah" in "Bend Sinister").
          The word-play experiments of "Vivian Darkbloom", a "conceited conspirator and perfi-dious punster", which started as a "Breeze from Wonderland", re-sulted in his fabulous successes with the "magic art of word's vivi-section". Although one might suppose that in the world created with the help of "Douglas d'Artagnan's punning gift" the supreme government is effected by "some elfish chance", the real aut-horities there are the "gods of semantics". It is reasonable to point out that no matter how much the Nabokovian world is dependent upon his art of improvisation, mathematically presise calculations have always been word-play's actual basis.
          The analysis of word-play's modifications in Nabokov's fic-tion can be concluded by a tentative attempt of giving pun's new definition. According to the authors' views, a pun is a term which unites various types of playing manipulations with words (or word-combinations, or idioms) within a sentence, a paragraph, or a larger section of the text, or within the whole text, the aim of which consists within the traditional stylistics in creating a comic, satirical or parodistic effect and within the play and game stylistics is characterized by a combination of functions whose common element is their participation in restructuring the text as an autonomous logical system, based on play and game principles. Puns are formally characterized by the similarity in sound, word's clashing meanings, play on si-milar spelling, polysemy, semantization of word's different parts, false etymology, contamination and some other means. They are the most essential element of the play and game style.

          Some words about the authors of the article:
Alexander Luxemburg is presently a full professor in the Department of Theory and His-tory of World Literature at Rostov State University. His interest in V.Nabokov's fic-tion is constant and infatigable and he has recently published the Russian reconstruction of the second (English) version of Nabokov's novel "Laughter in the Dark" in his translation accompanies by an Afterword containing comments on the differences bet-ween the existing texts, a first attempt of supplying the Russian readership with this intricate Nabokovian text (Rostov-on-Don: ME Kniga, 1994).
Galina Rakhimkulova, associate professor in the Department of Mass Media Language at Rostov State University, has been interested in V.Nabokov's fiction for a long time. Her project "The Magician of Word Play: Vladimir Nabo-kov's Language and Style" has bean selected by the Commit-tee for Research Support Scheme of the Central European Uni-versity in Prague for 1994 grant.