Memory and Intuition: Vladimir Nabokov’s Reading of Don Quixote

SUZUKI Akira

Though Vladimir Nabokov had no knowledge of Spanish, while preparing lectures at Harvard University he meticulously studied Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1609, 1615) (relying on an English translation, of course). Always a perfectionist, Nabokov never abandons individual details and consistently focuses on what is actually written in the text. Discrimination seems not to be needed according to the subject. In discussing Don Quixote he does not simply try to challenge a work he is not well-acquainted with. By pointing out that what scholars and critics have discussed about Don Quixote were based on stereotypes and assumptions, Nabokov tries to reveal the real picture of the work, “one of the most bitter and barbarous books ever penned.” In terms of the history of evolution of the novel, it is necessary to bear in mind that in the seventeenth century, the novel “had not yet developed. . . conscious memory permenating the whole work, when we feel that the characters remember and know events that we remember and know about them.” Nabokov asserts that it is “the intuition of genius” Cervantes had that plays an important role in saving the author and giving his work unity.