Thematic structure of images in Vladimir Nabokov’s lyrics

Glottometrics. 2025. Vol. 59. P. 84–97.

Andreev V.

Nabokov, known primarily for his prose, was also a remarkable poet. The article aims to examine the semantic (lexical) features of Nabokov's images in his lyrics. These characteristics include 23 semantic (thematic) classes of words that fill two positions of the figurative model – the position of the Target of the metaphoric transfer and the position of its Source.

The material includes 4 lyrical collections by Nabokov, published at different stages of his creative path – an early collection (published when he lived in Russia), 2 later collections from the Berlin period (middle stage) and one collection of mature creative activity when Nabokov lived in the USA.

The article examines the relationships between the features of the two positions of the image, the distribution of semantic classes of words in the image system, and changes in the frequencies of these classes over time.

Keywords: цель, образ, источник, target, images, source, Nabokov lyrics, thematic classes, Лирика Набокова, тематические классы