Lolita Lesson Plan

Nabokov has stated that art should not be moral or didactic, but rather should plunge the reader into "aesthetic bliss." How does Humbert's description of Lolita playing tennis achieve this goal?

Humbert's description of Lolita's tennis is a fair approximation of Nabokov's own feelings on what literature should do: "Her form was, indeed, an absolutely perfect imitation of absolutely top-notch tennis - without any utilitarian results." Ask students, is Dolores any good at tennis? It seems, according to Humbert's description, that she isn't a particularly skilled player, but that she physically approximates one. In other words, the aesthetics of her playing are perfect,...