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Vladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (April 22, 1899 - July 2, 1977), author, lepidopterist.The eldest son of Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, he was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He isn'ted for his complex plots and clever word play. He gained both fame and notoriety with his novel Lolita (1955) which tells of an grown man's consummated passion for a 12-year-old girl. This and his other novels, particularly Pale Fire (1962) place him in the top rank of novelists of the 20th century. In 2001, Lolita and Pale Fire would both be on the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century as selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library. Nabokov's stature as a literary critic is founded on his four volume translation of and commentary on Aleksandr Pushkin's Russian soul epic Eugene Onegin. That commentary ended with an appendix called Notes on Prosody which has developed a reputation of its own. This essay stemmed from his observation that while Pushkin's iambic tetrameters had been a part of Russian literature for a fairly short two centuries, they were clearly understood by the Russian prosodists. On the other hand, he viewed the much older English iambic tetrameters as muddled and poorly documented. In his own words:
His career as a lepidopterist was equally distinguished. Throughout an extensive career of collecting he never learned to drive a car, and he depended on his wife Vera to bring him to collecting sites. During the 1940s he was responsible for organizing the butterfly collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. His writings in this area were highly technical. This combined with his specialty in the relatively unspectacular tribe Polyommatini[?] of the family Lycaenidae[?] has left this facet of his life unknown to the broad range of his literary fans. For more on this see Dieter Zimmer's "A Guide to Nabokov's Butterflies and Moths", Berlin, 2001. His first writings were in the Russian language, but he came to his greatest distinction in the English language. For this achievement, he has been compared with Joseph Conrad. Nabokov translated many of his early works into English, sometimes in cooperation with his son Dmitri Nabokov. His trilingual upbringing (English, Russian and French) had a profound influence on his artistry. His writings include (some of the English translations of the early Russian novels are heavily revised or even rewritten): Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux, Switzerland.
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annexation.html">annexation of Texas," and that we ought "for numerous and powerful
Slavery already existed under the guarantees of the Constitution and
States, is beyond the power of Congress. It is a concern of the States
subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties
at liberty to accept or to reject;" and he added, "In my opinion the
new, vastly extensive and Slaveholding country, large enough for a half
it."
Farther on, in the same speech--after alluding to the strong feeling in
question of politics, but of conscience and religious conviction as
kind is to be trifled with or despised." Said he: "It will assuredly
willing--I believe it is entirely willing--to fulfill all existing
Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some
silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to
endeavors would inevitably render it,--should this be attempted, I know
not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."
In 1840, General Harrison, the Whig candidate, was elected to the
and was succeeded by John Tyler. The latter favored the Slave Power;
concluded with Texas a treaty of annexation--which was, however,
over the annexation and other, questions.
[In the London Index, a journal established there by Jefferson
communication appeared during the early part of the war, Dec. 4,
which he said: "To tell the Norths, the Butes, the Wedderburns of
States of the South had unalterably resolved on the specific.
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