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Abstract: In Nabokovʼs texts among polygenetic motifs hidden mythological allusions play an important role. The less poetic attribute of Demeter, the image of the pig, is an ambivalent and archetypical complex code of fertility and dirt, divine and devilish. The pig-motif in Greek mythology is closely attached also to Circe, whose story (Odyssey, Song 10) has a system of references in Nabokovʼs Lolita, in “The Enchanted Hunters” chapter. These parallels raise the question of a further intertextual cluster, Joyceʼs Ulysses (Ch. 15), as biographical data prove that Lolita was commenced the same months when Nabokov launched his lectures on Joyce at Cornell. This coincidence gives a firm base to investigate the common poetic strategies in Lolita and Ulysses, among them – the textual metamorphoses and the development and function of the pig, dog and nymph images. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

It will be argued in this paper that Odysseus does not descend into Hades even though he witnesses the punishment of certain sinners and that the latter are envisaged in the sky as constellations. This hypothesis explains the phrase “meadow of asphodels” and the repetitive action of the sinners. It will also be argued that the origin of this cosmology is Egyptian. The Homeric cosmos is divided into a diurnal and nocturnal world: a human habitation and one which lies beyond the sun's orbit and contains the heroes and the dead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the character of Circe in the Odyssey, emphasizing that she has not only an evil but a positive side to her character. The implications of her being a witch, swearing an oath to Odysseus and being a god are explored. She is also briefly compared with other characters in the Odyssey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]