Brian Boyd

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Brian David Boyd (born July 30, 1952 in Belfast ) is a New Zealand literary scholar, known for his work on Vladimir Nabokov . He is a professor at the University of Auckland .

Life

Boyd moved to New Zealand with his family in 1957. He studied English and American studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch with a BA and MA degree. In 1979 he received his doctorate from the University of Toronto with a dissertation on the novel Ada or Nabokov's Desire . In 1980 he became a lecturer at the University of Auckland. From 1979 to 1981 he cataloged Nabokov's estate at the invitation of Nabokov's widow Véra . His two-volume Nabokov biography was published in 1990/91. He edited editions of Nabokov's works (for the Library of America 1996), his letters to his wife Véra (Penguin Classics, for which he received the Guardian Book of the Year Award in 2014) and his entomological writings on butterflies (with the entomologist Robert Michael Pyle ). With his book On the origin of stories , he is considered a representative of evolutionary literary criticism, which he also applied to Shakespeare's sonnets (as well as to Jane Austen , Dr. Seuss , Homer, Nabokov, Art Spiegelman ). According to Boyd, art and especially storytelling emerges from the game and is a specific method of evolutionary adaptation.

He received the Einhard Prize for his Nabokov biography . In addition to Nabokov's perhaps most complex novel Ada, he also published a monograph on his novel Pale Fire .

He is working on a biography of Karl Popper .

Fonts

  • Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness, Ann Arbor: Ardis 1985, 2nd edition 2011 (Russian translation 2013)
  • Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, Princeton University Press and London: Chatto and Windus 1990
    • German translation: Vladimir Nabokov; The Russian Years: 1899–1940, Rowohlt 1999
  • Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, Princeton University Press and London: Chatto and Windus 1991
    • German translation: Vladimir Nabokov, The American Years: 1940–1977, Rowohlt 2005
  • Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery, Princeton University Press 1999
  • with Robert Michael Pyle: Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings, Beacon Press 2000
  • Editor with Stanislav Shvabrin: Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry Selected and Translated by Vladimir Nabokov, 2008
  • On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction, Belknap Press 2009
  • Associate Editor: Evolution, Literature and Film. A Reader, 2010
  • Why Lyrics Last: Evolution, Cognition and Shakespeare's Sonnets, Harvard University Press 2012
  • Stalking Nabokov: Selected Essays, Columbia University Press 2011

Web links

Individual evidence


personal data
SURNAME Boyd, Brian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boyd, Brian David (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand literary scholar and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Belfast