ABSTRACT
V l a d i m i r Nabokov 's aesthetic is usually associated with literature or painting, not dance; he did not care for music and once remarked that he "was never much interested in the ballet" (SO 171). He came from a musical family, however-complete with a brother, Sergey, who was a balletomane, and a cousin, Nico las Nabokov, who was "a musician with a deep knowledge of ballet" (Balanchine and Mason 120). M o r e important, Nabokov himself was quite familiar with this form of theatrical storytelling. H e cites the history of Russian dance in his commentary on Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (2: 84-92), often includes dancers and acrobats as figures in his own fiction, beginning with Mary (1926; trans. 1970), frequently refers to Serge Diaghi lev ' s Ballets Russes and premier danseur Vas lav Ni j insky , and alludes to dance, dancers and dance steps throughout his most famous novel , Lolita (1955). In this essay I argue that the most celebrated classical Russian ba l le t-Marius Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty (1890)— inf luenced Nabokov 's art in general, and provided an important subtext for Lo l i t a in particular.
