''The Tragedy of Mister Morn'' is a

verse drama Verse drama is any drama written significantly in verse (that is: with line endings) to be performed by an actor before an audience. Although verse drama does not need to be ''primarily'' in verse to be considered verse drama, significant portio ...

by Russian novelist

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

. The play is one of his first major works. The drama was written between 1923 and 1924, completed while Nabokov was living in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

with his mother and sister as

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followin ...

s, having fled Russia because of the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

in 1917. Nabokov had experienced a personal tragedy the previous year, when his father had been killed in Berlin while shielding fellow expatriate Pavel Milyukov from an assassination attempt. The play was posthumously published in the Russian literary magazine '' Zvezda'', and was first published in English by

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the West ...

in 2012. The ''Zvezda'' version of the play, compared with the manuscript given to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

by Nabokov in the 1950s, is known to be rife with errors. The story is set in the future, in an unnamed European country. The protagonist of the drama is Morn, a masked king, whose ascent to the throne has brought peace and stability to the country. He falls in love with Midia, the wife of the revolutionary Ganus. Ganus returns to the capital city after escaping from a labour camp. Learning of his wife's affair with Morn, he challenges Morn to a duel. Morn loses the duel, settled with

playing cards A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...

, and is obliged to kill himself. He refuses, and runs off with Midia, while the revolutionaries overthrow the government in his absence, replacing the benign monarchy with a dictatorship. Brian Boyd, in his biography ''Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years'', writes that, unlike Nabokov's prior four plays, which were influenced by

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

, the style and atmosphere of ''Morn'' "unmistakably aims at Shakespeare." In the tragedy, Siggy Frank, author of ''Nabokov's Theatrical Imagination'', suggests that the king's role as ruler of a kingdom is a symbol of the poet's role as an artistic creator.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tragedy of Mister Morn Plays by Vladimir Nabokov 1924 plays