The "About" Issue

After we took our test in class last week and reviewed the answers, we got on the subject of Keat's "Ode to a Grecian Urn" (which was one of the answers on the test). We talked about it as it relates to Faulkner, but then Sexson also clued us in on the poem's relevance to Lolita. He suggested going back and reading it again. Because in studying Lolita we get into this "about" issue... what is this novel really about? This is a crucial question in determining the integrity of such a controversial novel, as well as, to quote Sexson "a barometer of your taste in literature: if you like Lolita, there is some hope for you as an aesthete..." What a relevant word to students in a class that values perception of the imagination above all things rational. The goal of this class seems to be to mold us all into astute aesthetes. And the aesthetes are the ones to whom Lolita was written: to those who can see past the surface reading of the book (which can be disturbing) and love it for the work of art that it represents. If anyone should be defending Lolita, it should be a class of students that has spent the whole semester falling in love with the verse of Wallace Stevens for it's celebration of all things imaginative and far-fetched, that praises perception. Where are we on this? It's an "about" issue. We love Wallace Stevens. Past the lewd metaphor (which I think is necessary and beautiful in this book) we have the same thing that was at the core of Wallace Stevens. And after re-reading "Ode to a Grecian Urn" in light of Lolita, I am all the more positive that the novel is ABOUT the exact same thing as Keat's highly alluded to poem, which is the same thing as Wallace Stevens, and really everything else we've read in class this semester and loved (coincidence!?!)
My mouth hung open as I read through "Ode" over and over again, each time seeing more and more conspicuous connections between it and Lolita. In fact, my mind was overwhelmed by the similarities, and how obviously these two highly acclaimed pieces of literature resemble eachother. To begin with, that the urn is to Keat's poem what the nymphet is to Lolita: they are both expressing the exact same message, yet one has been condemned and the other held up high, consistently alluded to in great works of literature throughout history. Simply because one metaphor is far more scandalous than the other.
"For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue"
...Wow. Talk about passion. This is how passion is evoked in words. Hot, imperfect, passion (Since the imperfect is so hot in us.... see "Poems of our Climate") Woah. And I am so overwhelmed, again, by the similarities I don't even know where to go first. So those first two lines, the "for ever's", seem to perfectly describe what Lolita is to H.H. Warm, he is hot with desire for her, wants to enjoy her: but only the Lolita he has created, the for ever young, the one who will not grow out of this image. She is enticing as "for ever warm" and "panting", and the last 3 lines are exactly how H.H. feels about his nymphet that is grossing people out because they are in reference to a 12 year old girl. But in the context of "Ode", they are heavenly. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, burning forehead ... parching tongue. It's all connects so beautifully. Just as transient beauty in life is preserved upon the art of the urn, so does Lolita "live in the minds of future generations" because Humbert's story is one of "aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art..."

"And this is the only immortality you and I may share"