Replication or Recreation? The Eurydice Motif in Nabokovʼs Russian Oeuvre

Nabokov scholarship has recently paid considerable attention to the Orpheus and Eurydice motifs in Nabokovʼs work. This paper argues that the motifs form an all-pervasive subtext, especially in the Russian period. When examining Eurydiceʼs function in the constellation “Orpheus and Eurydice”, one sees that many female characters in Nabokovʼs fiction have shouldered her task of confronting her beloved with the issue of loss and retrieval, leaving him the choice of either futile replication of the past or creative transformation of it. He must decide whether to become an Orpheus, or not.