Lolita perceptie door de jaren heen: Een onderzoek naar de publieke perceptie van intergenerationeel verlangen in Lolita en de twee film adaptaties van het werk

Abstract

Nabokov’s novel Lolita has been equally condemned as a depraving work of paedophile pornography and celebrated as one of the greatest novels ever written. Its subject matter, intergenerational desire, is an established social taboo and the novel, as well as its adaptations, are academically framed within that taboo. This thesis investigates how the developing public perception of a work of fiction, particularly of Lolita and its two film adaptations, can be related to developing perceptions of such a social taboo. Building on existing academic interpretations and criticisms of Lolita and academic discourses on intergenerational desire, childhood innocence and moral panics, a discourse analysis on fifteen purposefully sampled media and audience reviews is performed. The perception of the three Lolita works has changed according to the development of the discourses on intergenerational desire and childhood protection, and according to how the work is perceived as either an autonomous work or adaptation.