Synesthetic metaphor semantics in the context of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Pale Fire”

Based on the novel “Pale Fire”, synesthesia is defined in this publication as Vladimir Nabokov and his characters’ metaphorical way of thinking, in which the linguistic form and its meaning, as signs of a stimulus, inevitably lead to a conscious perception of the form’s additional meaning. We have established that the associations, described by Vladimir Nabokov in the text of this novel, are interpreted as “nomination-color” synesthesia, where nomination is a stimulus for the surrounding world metaphorical reproduction, coloring the accompanying experience of the reader’s perception of this world. The article analyzes the problems associated with the excessive use of metaphorical color categories, the importance of memory for the characters in interpreting synesthetic vision of reality, and the definition of identity from the point of view of synesthesia and irrationality of perception of the objective phenomena. In this regard, the use of synesthetic metaphors in the text of the novel is interpreted as a symptom of Vladimir Nabokov’s creative inclination to think at the junction of simultaneous activation of various sensory modules, since the author’s metaphor implies the ability to think in one modality, at the same time projecting another modality. The article concludes that in the novel “Pale Fire”, color plays a constructive role in determining the identity of the synesthetic poet J. Shade’s image. The character’s synesthetic consciousness functions in a highly poetic manner, and his language in describing the perception of the world around him corresponds to the poetic use of metaphors. The predisposition of a character with a synesthetic gift to metaphorical nominations is explained by his instinctive substratum, which, in turn, sheds light on the cognitive foundations of imagery in the language system as a whole. Art with a synesthetic dimension (due to the fact that a creative person is a natural synesthete, has the ability to stimulate feelings to intersect when perceiving the world around them) expands ideas about the metaphorical predestination of fictional discourse.

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