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Question about Dante & Beatrice in Nabokov's Lolita

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Jul 7, 2002, 3:05:22 AM7/7/02
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I'm about halfway through reading Lolita, but the one thing that
haunts me so far is H.H.'s brief mention of Poe and his young wife and
Dante falling in love with Beatrice when she was nine. I can
understand the Poe reference (through only a high school study of
him), but I've read Dante and a little bio of him as well. Now I'm no
scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but I could've sworn
reading several bios of Dante that he did fall for Beatrice when she
was nine, but wasn't Dante around nine as well? According to the
records, they were born less than a year apart. I've been scouring the
net for the past hour looking at every possible bio of Dante and
Beatrice and each one of them draw the same or at least close to the
same conclusion. I kind of question that particular part in Lolita
because I'm not sure if that's H.H. the character showing his
inaccuracy or perhaps I've been reading and gathering misinformation.
Can someone please help me out?

Not sure if this matters, but this question came about even earlier
(before I started reading Lolita) when I was reading an essay by
Joseph Campbell where he mentions Dante meeting Beatrice for the first
time when they were both nine years old.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. And pardon my ignorance if
I missed something here.

Carl Goss

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Jul 12, 2002, 9:14:36 PM7/12/02
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According to my annoted Lolita, with notes by Alfred Appel, Jr.,
Edgar Allen Poe was married to his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia
Clemm in 1836, when Poe was twenty-seven. She died in 1847 and was
the inspiration for many of Poe's poems. Born in 1265, Dante met
Beatrice in 1274 when she was eight. So they were both about the same
age.

Beatrice is Dante's muse whom he hopes to meet in heaven. Lolita is
performing the same function for HH. But in an earthly context. The
novel is just a restless pursuit by HH of something he lost when he
was a youth; maybe a vision of youth itself.

Anyway, Appel, Jr feels that the novel is more influenced by Poe's
poem "Annabel Lee" than any other work of literature. "Annabell Haze,
alias Delores Lee alias Loleeta."

It's a hard novel to understand, it's filled with hundreds of literary
allusions, puns and metaphors. I had to go over the notes
carefully to really understand it.

I'm still not certain I understand exactly what Nabokov was getting
at. Lolita came out in 1955 when I was 11. I read it and did not
understand much of what was said then; I understand only a little more
now.

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