History of creation
Pushkin began to write the novel "Eugene Onegin" in 1823 year in Chisinau, during the period of southern exile. Work on the work was mostly completed in 1830 in Boldino. V 1831 year, the novel included a letter from Onegin to Tatiana. In subsequent years, some changes and additions were made to the text of "Eugene Onegin".
Initially, Pushkin did not have a clear plan for the novel. In 1830, preparing the publication of the full text of the work, Pushkin sketched a general plan for the publication. Nine chapters were supposed to be published. However, the eighth chapter, which told about Onegin's wanderings, was significantly shortened and was not included in the final text of the novel (excerpts from it were published separately, in the author's notes to the novel). As a result, the ninth chapter was in place of the eighth. In this way, the final text of the novel has eight chapters.
In addition, there is hypothesis what Pushkin wrote tenth chapter, where he spoke about the secret societies of the Decembrists. The poet burned the manuscript of the tenth chapter in 1830 in Boldino. Some of its fragments have come down to us. Until now, scholars argue about whether the tenth chapter existed as such. It is possible that we are dealing with scattered fragments of the draft text of a work that did not constitute a separate chapter.
Time of action
Pushkin wrote: "In our novel, the time is calculated according to the calendar." According to the assumption of Yu.M. Lotman, start of events(Onegin goes to the village to see his sick uncle) falls on summer 1820. The first chapter describes the St. Petersburg winter 1819-1820. Many researchers believe that the novel ends in the spring of 1825. However, there is a hypothesis that the last chapter tells about the post-December era.
Subject
The main theme of Eugene Onegin is life of the Russian nobility in the early 1820s.
In addition, Pushkin recreated in his work the most diverse aspects of the life of Russia at that time. So, he reflected a life not only the nobility, but also other estates, primarily the peasantry.
The novel is widely represented Russian and Western European literature and culture.
In addition, in his work, Pushkin showed nature Russia, pictures of Russian life... That's why V.G.Belinsky named "Eugene Onegin" "The encyclopedia of Russian life."
Problematic
The novel's central problem is time hero problem... This problem is raised mainly in connection with the image of Onegin, but also in connection with the images of Lensky and the author himself.
The problem of the hero of time correlates with another problem of the work - with the problem personality and society. What is the reason for Onegin's loneliness in society? What is the reason for the spiritual emptiness of Pushkin's hero: in the imperfection of the surrounding society or in itself?
As the most important in the novel we will call the problem of the Russian national character. This problem is comprehended by the author primarily in connection with the image of Tatyana (a vivid example of the Russian national character), but also in connection with the images of Onegin and Lensky (heroes cut off from national roots).
The novel puts a number of moral and philosophical problems. This meaning of life, freedom and happiness, honor and duty. The most important philosophical problem of the work is human and nature.
In addition, the poet puts in his work and aesthetic problems: life and poetry, author and hero, creative freedom and literary traditions.
Ideological orientation
Eugene Onegin reflects spiritual evolution of Pushkin: a crisis educational ideas(period of southern exile); awareness of the values of folk life (the period of exile in Mikhailovskoe); doubts and mental anguish, the struggle between faith and unbelief (the period of wanderings).
Wherein humanistic ideals- personal freedom, "the inner beauty of a person" (Belinsky), rejection of cruelty and selfishness - remain the main for the poet in all periods of the creation of the novel.
At the same time, the poet asserts spiritual values associated with national roots. This closeness of man to nature, adherence to folk traditions as well as such Christian virtues as dedication, fidelity to marital duty. These values are revealed primarily in the character of Tatiana.
Pushkin the poet states in his novel creative attitude to life.
At the same time, Pushkin's novel was noted and satirical pathos: the poet denounces the conservative noble society, the feudal foundations reigning in it, vulgarity, spiritual emptiness.
"Eugene Onegin" as a realistic work
"Eugene Onegin" - the first realistic novel in Russian literature.
Pushkin's work distinguishes historicism: here we find a reflection of the era of the first half of the 1820s, the most important trends in the life of the Russian nobility of that time.
In his work, Pushkin showed bright typical characters. In the image of Onegin, Pushkin recreated the type of an educated nobleman, who later received the name “ extra person". In the image of Lensky, the poet captured the type of romantic dreamer, also characteristic of that era.
In the person of Tatiana we see the type of a Russian woman-noblewoman. Olga is a type of an ordinary provincial young lady. In the images of secondary and episodic characters (Tatyana's mother, guests of the Larins, Zaretsky, Tatyana's nanny, Moscow relatives of the Larins, Tatyana's husband and others), Pushkin also presented the reader with vivid types of Russian life.
Unlike romantic poems, in Eugene Onegin the author is separated from the heroes, he portrays them objectively, from the side. At the same time, the image of the author, for all its importance in the novel, does not have a self-contained meaning.
In Eugene Onegin we find realistic paintings of nature, numerous details of Russian life, which also testifies to the realism of the novel.
Exactly real life(and not abstract romantic ideals) becomes for Pushkin a source of creative inspiration and a subject of poetic reflection. Belinsky wrote: "What was low for the former poets, was noble for Pushkin, that for them there was prose, then for him it was poetry."
The novel is written lively spoken language. Pushkin often uses words and expressions of the "low" style in his work, thereby bringing the verbal fabric of the novel closer to the everyday language of his time.
Genre originality
As known, novel- it an epic work in which the narrative focuses on the fate of an individual in the process of its formation and development. (In the epic, in contrast to the novel, the fate of an entire people is in the foreground.)
The peculiarity of the genre "Eugene Onegin" is that it is not just a novel, but a novel in verse. The genre definition of the work was given by Pushkin himself in a letter to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky dated November 4, 1823: "I am not writing a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference."
Belinsky was one of the first to characterize the peculiarities of the genre of Pushkin's novel. First, the critic noted the creation of a novel in verse as the greatest achievement of Pushkin at a time when there were still no significant novels in prose in Russian literature.
Secondly, Belinsky compares Pushkin's novel with Byron's poems, revealing both the related features of the works of the two authors and the fundamental innovation of Pushkin.
Belinsky names some Byron's traditions in "Eugene Onegin". This poetic form, casual manner of storytelling, "a mixture of prose and poetry", that is, a combination of everyday, prosaic phenomena and lofty objects, digressions, "the presence of the poet's face in the work he created."
At the same time, Belinsky notes innovation Pushkin, which the critic sees in the following. First, it is national identity Pushkin's work. Byron, according to Belinsky, "wrote about Europe for Europe ... Pushkin wrote about Russia for Russia." Secondly, it is "Fidelity to reality" Pushkin, a realist poet, as opposed to the "subjective spirit" of Byron, a romantic poet.
Finally, Pushkin's novel features free form... About this feature of his work, Pushkin speaks in a dedication to PA Pletnev: “Accept the collection of colorful chapters ...” At the end of Eugene Onegin, the poet mentions “the distance of a free novel”. This form is given to the novel by the unique voice of the author, whose inner world finds free, direct expression in the work. The author's digressions, written in a light, relaxed manner, are combined with strict symmetry in the arrangement of the central characters and the "mirroring" of the plot structure.
Composition: general construction of the piece
As already noted, the final text of the novel consists of eight chapters.
The plot of "Eugene Onegin" is distinguished by " specularity", The character system - symmetry.
The first and second chapters can be considered as exposition to the main action of the work. In the first chapter, Pushkin acquaints the reader with the main character Eugene Onegin, talks about his upbringing, about his life In Petersburg. In the second chapter, the narrative is transferred to the village... Here comes the reader's acquaintance with Lensky, Olga and Tatiana.
The third chapter contains love affair: Tatiana falls in love with Onegin and writes him a letter. Tatiana's letter to Onegin - compositional center of the third chapter. Fourth chapter, starting rebuff Onegin, contains a story about Tatyana's suffering from unrequited love and about Lensky's idyllic relationship with Olga. The fifth chapter tells about Christmas divination, O Tatiana's dream, about her name days, O quarrel Onegin with Lensky.
The sixth chapter contains climax in the development of the plot - a story about duels Onegin and Lensky. Among the most important events seventh chapter note Tatiana's arrival in Moscow. The eighth chapter contains plot denouement... Here the heroes, in accordance with the principle “ specularity"," Change places ": now Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, writes to her letter and also receives rebuff, after which the author leaves his hero "in a minute that is evil for him."
An important compositional role in Eugene Onegin is played by landscape... Descriptions of nature help the author organize the artistic time of the novel, "calculate" it according to the calendar.
In the composition "Eugene Onegin" a special place is occupied by copyright deviations... Thanks to them, in the reader's perception, a holistic the image of the author.
Pushkin's novel is written Onegin stanza, which also gives the work harmony, completeness, integrity.
Characters. general review
The main characters the novel should be called Onegin and Tatiana.
Lensky and Olga are not among the main characters, but this is also central persons in the work. The fact is that these characters, along with Onegin and Tatiana, perform plot-forming function.
An important role in "Eugene Onegin" is played by himself author speaking sometimes as a character own work.
TO minor characters let us include those persons who, while not plot-forming, nevertheless play any significant role in the development of the action. This Tatiana's mother, Tatiana's nanny, Zaretsky, Tatiana's husband.
We will also call episodic characters, which appear in separate scenes, episodes, or are only mentioned (these are, for example, guests at the Larins 'birthday, Onegin's servant Guillot, the Frenchman, Olga's ulan, the Larins' fiancé, Moscow relatives of the Larins, representatives of the St. Petersburg world).
It is difficult to draw a clear line between minor, episodic characters and the persons mentioned.
Onegin
Eugene Onegin–main character Pushkin's novel. In his image, Pushkin strove to recreate character and spiritual image of his contemporary- a representative of the educated part of the nobility.
Onegin is a young aristocrat who was born and raised in St. Petersburg, a secular dandy.
He is a liberal man, as evidenced by some of the details noted by the author. So, he did not serve anywhere, which was at that time a sign of freethinking; was fond of the theory of Adam Smith; read Byron and other contemporary authors. He made life easier for the peasants on his estate, replacing the "yarom ... old corvée" with an easy quitrent. Onegin is the face of Pushkin's circle: he dines with Pushkin's acquaintance Kaverin, compares with Chaadaev, becomes a "good friend" of the author himself, although he does not share his poetic view of the world.
Talking about his hero, Pushkin focuses the reader's attention on some significant contradictions in his worldview and life principles.
Onegin - educated person, well-read, essay knowledgeable ancient and contemporary authors. However, its Onegin's education is divorced from national origins, spiritual traditions. Hence - skepticism hero, his indifference to questions of faith, ultimately - the deepest pessimism, loss of the meaning of life.
Pushkin's hero - subtle nature, outstanding... He is distinguished, according to the poet, "inimitable strangeness", "sharp, chilled mind, the ability to understand people. However, the hero drained my soul in secular hobbies and was unable to respond to Tatiana's deep and sincere feeling.
Onegin, in the words of Pushkin, “ good guy ": an honest, decent, noble person. Meanwhile, it is distinguished by extreme selfishness, self-centeredness, which manifested itself most clearly in the collision with Lensky.
Hero indifferent to secular society, is burdened by being in a secular crowd. However, the hero turns out a slave to public opinion which prevents him from avoiding a duel and killing a friend.
All these contradictions in the character and worldview of the hero are revealed during the course of the novel. Onegin passes tests of love and friendship. He can't stand any of them. Lensky dies tragically. In the novel's finale, Tatyana rejects Onegin. She kept in her heart a feeling for the hero, but refused to share his passion.
Consider some artisticmeans of creating the image of Onegin.
Appearance description Onegin does not play any significant role in creating the image of the hero; it only emphasizes his belonging to the fashionable secular youth:
Cut in the latest fashion
Like a dandy of London, dressed ...
A more important role in revealing Onegin's character is played by interior, in particular descriptions of the hero's cabinets in the first and seventh chapters. First description characterizes Onegin as secular dandy. Let's note here some substantive details:
Amber on the tubes of Constantinople,
Porcelain and bronze on the table
And, feelings of pampered joy,
Perfume in faceted crystal ...
Looks different Onegin's country office described in the seventh chapter:
And Lord Byron's portrait,
And a column with a cast-iron doll,
Under a hat, with a cloudy brow,
With hands clenched in a cross.
The details of the second description characterize intellectual and spiritual life of the hero:"A pile of books", "a portrait of Lord Byron", "a column with a cast-iron doll" - a statuette depicting Napoleon. This last detail is extremely important; she recalls such a personality trait of Onegin as individualism.
Descriptions of nature, unlike the interior, are not so important for revealing the character of the hero. Onegin is surrounded by books, things. He is far from nature, does not feel its beauty.
Only in the eighth chapter, the one in love with Tatyana Onegin is able to feel the awakening power of spring, but this is only a moment in the hero's mental life:
Spring lives him: for the first time
Their chambers are locked
Where he hibernated like a marmot,
Double windows, camel
He leaves on a clear morning
Rushing along the Neva in a sleigh.
On blue crushed ice
The sun is playing; melts dirty
The streets are covered with snow.
So, in Onegin, the typical features of a secular person and an uncommon nature are combined.
Onegin is a hero who failed to find the meaning of life and happiness, doomed to an aimless existence. He opens gallery of "extra people" in Russian literature: this is a hero,
Lensky
Vladimir Lensky - one of the central characters novel. It is young a poet-freethinker of a romantic nature. Note that among the opposition-minded noble youth of the first half of the 1820s, there were both cold skeptics, like Onegin, and passionate romantics, like Lensky.
On the one hand, the image of Lensky sets off the image of the main character of the work. On the other hand, it has an independent meaning in the novel.
We learn that Lensky studied at the University of Göttingen, one of the most liberal universities in Europe. The young poet was fond of the ideas of Kant, who was perceived in Russia as a philosopher-freethinker. Lensky's "freedom-loving dreams" are evidenced by his and his love for Schiller's work. The hero received a good education for those times, but it, like Onegin's education, was divorced from national origins.
Lensky is an honest, sincere, noble person, full of good intentions, but extremely emotional and completely incapable of living in the real world.
RomanticLensky opposed skepticOnegin... The protagonist of the novel really looks at things, judges them soberly. Lensky is in the clouds. Onegin, according to Belinsky, is "a real character," Lensky is divorced from reality.
It is interesting to compare the characters of Lensky and Tatiana... Heroes are brought together poetry natures. At the same time, the personality of Tatiana is nourished, according to Pushkin's plan, deep national, folk roots. Lensky, on the other hand, with his German idealism, is alien to Russian reality; his romanticism is not connected with national soil.
Lensky's choice of Olga as an object of worship is not accidental. Outwardly attractive, in reality Olga turns out to be quite ordinary. The romantic Lensky idealizes his bride, ascribing to her spiritual qualities that are absent in reality.
Lensky's fate- important a link not only in a love affair, but also in the plot of the work as a whole. Lensky's love story for Olga, which ended in a tragic denouement, testifies to the hero's inability to behave soberly and calmly in critical situations. A very insignificant reason pushes Lensky to a duel, to a tragic death. The death of Lensky in the sixth chapter has symbolic meaning. Pushkin shows here the inconsistency of romantic illusions, the non-life of ideas divorced from reality. At the same time, Pushkin cherishes the poet's lofty ideals, his service to "glory and freedom."
Creating the image of Lensky, Pushkin uses and portrait details("Black curls up to the shoulders"), and images of nature, moreover romantic:
He fell in love with thick groves,
Solitude, silence,
And the night, and the stars, and the moon ...
An important means of creating the image of Lensky are becoming poems of the hero, deliberately stylized "under romanticism":
Where, where have you gone,
Are my golden days of spring?
So, Pushkin recreated in the image of Lensky the type of an educated nobleman, no less characteristic of the Pushkin era than the type of Onegin's "superfluous person". This is a romantic poet.
Tatyana
Tatiana Larina - main character novel.
In her image, the poet realistically recreated a wonderful type of noble woman. The author endowed the heroine with bright features of the Russian national character, showed her in the broad context of the life of Russia in the 1820s. Belinsky saw the "feat of the poet" in the fact that "he was the first to poetically reproduce a Russian woman in the person of Tatiana."
Tatiana combines the typical features characteristic of noble women of the Pushkin era with the features of an outstanding personality. Pushkin notes in Tatiana the features of a gifted nature that distinguish the main heroine of the novel from her environment. Tatiana is characterized by a lively mind, depth of feelings, poetry of nature. As noted by the author, Tatiana
... gifted from heaven
Rebellious imagination,
Alive with mind and will,
And a wayward head
And with a fiery and tender heart.
Like many noble girls, Tatiana was brought up, apparently, by French governesses, hence the knowledge of the French language, passion for novels by Western European authors, which the heroine read in French.
At the same time, life in the countryside, in the bosom of nature, communication with ordinary peasants, especially with a nanny, introduced Tatyana to Russian folk culture. Unlike Onegin, the heroine was not divorced from national origins.
Hence the moral values that were characteristic of Tatiana. This living faith in god(Tatiana "she delighted with prayer / The longing of a worried soul"), mercy("Helped the poor"), sincerity,chastity, no doubt about the sanctity of marriage. Moreover, it is love for Russian nature, live connection with the people,knowledge of folk customs("Tatiana believed the legends / of the common people of antiquity"); indifference to social life:"The hateful life of tinsel" does not attract the heroine.
Consider Tatiana's place in the character system of the novel.
ContrastedTatiana Olga the principle of symmetry in the arrangement of the central characters of the work is clearly outlined. Olga's outer beauty hides her ordinary and superficial nature and at the same time sets off Tatiana's inner, spiritual beauty.
Tatyana opposed not only sister Olga, but also mother - Praskovya Larina, an ordinary landowner.
It is also interesting to compare the characters Tatiana and Lensky... The heroes are brought together by the poetry of natures. At the same time, the personality of Tatiana is nourished, according to Pushkin's plan, deep national, folk roots. Lensky, on the other hand, with his German idealism, is alien to Russian reality; his romanticism is not connected with national soil.
It is important for Pushkin to emphasize such a personality trait of Tatyana as national identity. In this regard, a special significance in the character system acquires nanny Tatiana, shading the image the main character.
The personality of Tatiana is most clearly revealed in her correlation with Onegin's personality. The protagonist and the main heroine of Pushkin's novel are in some ways close to each other, in some ways completely opposite.
Tatiana, like Onegin, is an outstanding personality. The heroes are brought together by the mind, depth and subtlety of the worldview. At the same time, Onegin is cold to the world around him, does not feel its beauty. Tatiana, unlike Onegin, is characterized by a love of nature, the ability to feel the beauty of the world around her.
The main thing that distinguishes Tatyana from Onegin is the national roots of her personality, dedication, deep faith in God. Christian spiritual values are alien to Onegin. He does not understand Tatyana's views on marriage, family, marital fidelity.
Love story of Tatiana and Onegin is the main storyline of the novel. The final of the work - rebuke to Tatiana Onegin- allows the reader to clearly understand the spiritual foundations of the heroine's personality. Tatyana retains in her soul a feeling for Onegin, but loyalty to marital duty is above all for her.
A special role in creating the image of Tatiana is played by pictures of nature: they accompany her throughout the entire action of the work.
Minor and episodic characters. Mentioned persons
As already noted, "Eugene Onegin", according to Belinsky, is "Encyclopedia of Russian life"... Hence the importance of not only the main, but also secondary, as well as episodic characters. They allow the author of "Eugene Onegin" to reflect the most diverse aspects of Russian reality, to show the variety of characters and types of Russian life. In addition, these characters set off the main characters of the novel, allow deeper and more versatile reveal of their characters.
Some minor characters in Eugene Onegin are covered in detail. They are striking types of Russian life.
For example, Tatiana's mother Praskovya Larina- a typical serf lady. In her youth, she was a sentimental young lady, read novels, was in love with a "glorious dandy." However, after getting married and retiring to the village, she became an ordinary landowner:
She went to work
Salted mushrooms for the winter,
I spent expenses, shaved my foreheads,
I went to the bathhouse on Saturdays,
I beat the maids angry -
All this without asking her husband ...
With images of Praskovya Larina and her late husband Dmitry, only mentioned in the work, is associated with the image of the patriarchal foundations of the provincial nobility:
They kept a peaceful life
The habits of cute old times;
They have fatty carnival
There were Russian pancakes ...
In addition, the images of Tatiana's parents make it possible to better understand the character of the main character. Tatiana, against the background of her parents, Olga's sister, and the entire provincial nobility, looks like an extraordinary person.
Tatiana's nanny is a type of simple Russian peasant woman. Her image is inspired by the poet's memories of his own nanny Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva, a wonderful Russian woman, a talented storyteller.
In the mouth of the nanny, the poet puts a story about the plight of a peasant woman: about early marriage, about a hard life in a strange family:
“And that's enough, Tanya! These summers
We haven't heard of love
Otherwise I would have driven it out of the light
My deceased mother-in-law. " -
"But how did you get married, nanny?" -
“So, apparently, God ordered. My Vanya
I was younger, my light,
And I was thirteen years old.
The matchmaker went for two weeks
To my family, and finally
My father blessed me.
I cried bitterly with fear;
They unraveled my braid with a cry
Yes, they took me to church with a song ... "
“Tatiana's conversation with the nanny is a miracle of artistic perfection,” wrote Belinsky.
The image of the nanny sets off the image of Tatiana, emphasizes the national identity of the main character, her connection with the life of the people.
Plays an important plot role in the work Zaretsky... The surname of this character also evokes a quite definite literary association: the reader recalls Griboyedovsky Zagoretsky.
Pushkin characterizes his hero sharply negatively, in sarcastic tones:
Zaretsky, once a brawler,
Ataman of the card gang,
The head of the rake, the tavern tribune,
Now kind and simple
The father of the family is single,
Reliable friend, peaceful landowner
And even an honest man:
This is how our century is being corrected!
From Pushkin's description of Zaretsky, it becomes clear to the reader that this character is the embodiment of dishonesty and meanness. However, it is people like Zaretsky who rule public opinion. Onegin is most afraid of his gossip. Zaretsky in this case personifies those false ideas about honor, which Onegin ultimately turns out to be hostage to.
At the end of the seventh chapter, for the first time, "some important general" is mentioned - the future Tatiana's husband... In the eighth chapter, he is named by the author as Prince N. Pushkin does not give any detailed description of the heroine's husband. However, it is clear from her words that this is a deserved person; he is probably even a hero of the war of 1812. It is no coincidence that Tatyana informs Onegin that her husband was "mutilated in battles," that is, he was seriously wounded in battle.
The antithesis "Tatiana's husband - Onegin" is present in the novel primarily in order to emphasize Tatiana's fidelity to conjugal duty, the ideals of Christian marriage.
Some persons are mentioned only once in the novel. For example, Pushkin gives the reader some information about teachers of Onegin:
Evgeny's fate kept:
At first Madame followed him,
Then Monsieur replaced her ...
The mention of "Madame" and of "Monsieur l'Abbé" testifies to the fact that young aristocratic men were educated in the French manner; their education was cut off from the national soil.
In the first chapter, the poet describes the morning of laboring Petersburg:
What is my Onegin? Half asleep,
He goes to bed from the ball,
And Petersburg is restless
Already awakened by the drum.
A merchant gets up, a peddler walks,
A cabman stretches to the exchange,
Okhtinka is in a hurry with a jug,
Under it the morning snow crunches.
A pleasant noise woke up in the morning,
Shutters open, chimney smoke
It rises like a blue pillar,
And the baker, neat German,
In a paper cap, more than once
I already opened my vasisdas.
The persons named here ( merchant, peddler, cabman, okhtinka, German bread-maker) are opposed to idle aristocrats who spend their lives in secular entertainment.
In his work, Pushkin describes the pictures of life peasantry... On the pages of the novel, images of the representatives of the people, details of the people's way of life flicker:
On the logs it updates the path;
His horse, smelling the snow,
Weaving at a trot somehow;
Exploding fluffy reins,
The daring wagon flies;
The coachman sits on the beam
In a sheepskin coat, in a red sash.
Here is a courtyard boy running,
Putting a bug in the sled,
Transforming yourself into a horse;
The mischievous finger has already frozen;
It hurts and it's funny
And his mother threatens him through the window ...
Describing guests at Tatyana's birthday, Pushkin creates, according to Yu.M. Lotman, a special type literary background. It includes well-known heroes of Russian literature:
With his burly wife
Fat Pidyakov has arrived;
Gvozdin, excellent master,
Owner of beggar men;
Skotinins, a gray-haired couple,
With children of all ages, counting
Thirty to two years old;
County frantik Petushkov,
My cousin brother, Buyanov,
In fluff, in a cap with a visor
(As you, of course, know him),
And a retired adviser Flyanov,
Heavy gossip, old rogue
Glutton, bribe-taker and jester.
Really, Gvozdin, "The owner of beggar men," reminds us of Captain Gvozdilov from "Brigadier" Fonvizin. Skotinins recall the characters of another comedy by Fonvizin - "The Minor". Buyanov- the hero of the poem "Dangerous Neighbor" by V.L. Pushkin.
One of the characters in the fifth chapter - Monsieur Triquet. The surname "Triquet" means "beaten with a stick" in French, that is, a swindler or a small sharper.
The introduction of such a literary background helps Pushkin create a vivid satirical picture of the life of the Russian province.
In the sixth chapter, along with Zaretsky, Onegin's hired servant is mentioned - a Frenchman Monsieur Guillot.
In the seventh chapter of the novel, Pushkin paints vivid satirical images of representatives Moscow nobility... Here are obvious traditions of A.S. Griboyedov. So, the poet tells about the life of relatives and friends of the Larins:
But there is no change in them,
Everything in them is on the old sample:
Aunt Princess Helena
The same tulle cap
Everything is whitewashed Lukerya Lvovna,
All the same, Lyubov Petrovna lies,
Ivan Petrovich is just as stupid
Semyon Petrovich is also stingy,
At Pelageya Nikolavna
Still the same friend Monsieur Finmush,
And the same spitz, and the same husband,
And he, all of the club is a member of service,
Still humble, just deaf
And he also eats and drinks for two.
In the eighth chapter of the novel, Pushkin draws a satirical picture of the life of high society. So, he shows a social event:
There was, however, the color of the capital,
And know, and fashion samples,
Faces you meet everywhere
Necessary fools ...
Here's another example:
There was Prolasov, who deserved
Famous for the baseness of the soul,
Blunt in all albums,
St.-Priest, your pencils ...
On the pages of the novel, many are named real faces. These are Pushkin's friends Kaverin and Chaadaev... Their mention introduces Onegin into the social circle of Pushkin himself.
On the pages of "Eugene Onegin" we meet the names of the authors the most different eras - from antiquity to the 1820s.
We are especially interested in references to figures of Russian culture. In the first chapter, in one of the author's digressions, Pushkin tells about the history of Russian theater:
Magic land! There in the old years
Satyrs brave lord
Shone Fonvizin, friend of freedom,
And the perceptive Prince;
There Ozerov unwitting tributes
People's tears, applause
I shared with young Semyonova;
There our Katenin resurrected
Corneille is a stately genius;
There he brought out the prickly Shakhovskoy
A noisy swarm of comedies,
There, Didlo was crowned with glory,
There, there, under the curtain of the wings,
My youthful days rushed by.
As you can see, the playwrights are named here D.I.Fonvizin, Ya.B. Knyazhnin, V.A.Ozerov, P.A.Katenin, A.A. Shakhovskoy, tragic actress Ekaterina Semyonova, choreographer S. Didlo; a little later the ballerina mentions Avdotya Istomina.
On the pages of "Eugene Onegin" there are names of famous Russian poets. Pushkin recalls G.R. Derzhavin:
Old man Derzhavin noticed us
And, going down into the coffin, he blessed.
The fifth chapter, which tells about Tatyana's dream, is preceded by an epigraph from V.A. Zhukovsky:
Oh, do not know these terrible dreams
You, my Svetlana!
Repeatedly mentioned E.A. Boratynsky- "Singer of feasts and languid sadness", "Singer of a young Finnish woman." Pushkin addresses the author of wonderful elegies N.M. Yazykov: "So you, Inspired Yazykov ..."
A friend of Pushkin's prince P.A. Vyazemsky He appears in the novel both as the author of the epigraph to the first chapter ("He is in a hurry to live, and in a hurry to feel"), and as a character who met Tatiana in the seventh chapter.
The novel also mentions antique authors(For example, Homer, Theocritus, Juvenal, Ovid). Pushkin calls Western European writers and poets, politicians... So, Schiller and Goethe are mentioned in connection with the characteristics of Lensky, his "German" education. Richardson and Russo named as the authors of novels that Tatyana was fond of. Byron and Napoleon reflect Onegin's predilections (in his country office there was a portrait of Byron and a statuette of Napoleon).
The pages of the novel are called and fictional persons, among them literary heroes and mythological characters... Many literary heroes are mentioned in Eugene Onegin. This Ludmila and Ruslan, the characters of Pushkin himself. These are the heroes of other authors ( Child Harold, Gyaur, Juan- heroes of Byron, Grandison- the hero of Richardson, Julia- Russo's heroine, Griboyedovsky Chatsky,Svetlana Zhukovsky).
Pushkin also names mythological characters. This Venus, Apollo, Terpsichore, Melpomene.
In Tatiana's wonderful dream appear characters of Russian folklore, confirming the fact that "Tatiana believed the legends / Common folk antiquity ..."
All these characters and real and fictional persons mentioned on the pages of the novel push the spatial and temporal boundaries of the work.
Analysis of individual chapters, episodes and other elements of the composition of the work
First chapter contains exposition of Onegin's image; here the reader also gets acquainted with by the author novel, all of which takes place in the background paintings of the life of St. Petersburg.
Epigraph the first chapter is a quote from the poem by P.A. Vyazemsky "The First Snow": "And in a hurry to live, and in a hurry to feel." The epigraph sets the narrative with a cheerful, life-affirming tone.
In the first chapter, Pushkin tells about upbringing, education, reading circle of the protagonist, his interests, way of life. Using the example of Onegin's teaching, Pushkin shows the peculiarities of the upbringing of secular youth. Education young noblemen were at that time mostly home... It was carried out by the governors-French and it was divorced from the values of Russian national culture. Pushkin writes about Onegin:
Evgeny's fate kept:
At first Madame followed him,
Then Monsieur replaced her.
The superficial nature of Onegin's education can be judged by those qualities that he needed in secular life... Pushkin ironically writes about his hero:
He is in French perfectly
I could express myself and wrote,
Easily danced the mazurka
And bowed at ease.
What is more to you? The light decided
That he is smart and very nice.
In the first chapter, Pushkin also describes day of the secular young man. First, the author talks about late awakening Onegin:
He used to be still in bed
They carry notes to him.
What? Invitations? Indeed,
While in the morning dress,
Wearing a wide bolivar
Onegin goes to the boulevard
And there he walks in the open,
While the awake Breget
Dinner won't ring him.
After the walk Onegin dines at Talon's, the owner of a trendy restaurant:
To Talon rushed: he is sure
That there is already waiting for him Kaverin.
After lunch follows theater visit... Pushkin here also remarks with irony:
The theater is an evil legislator
Fickle adorer
Charming actresses
Honorary Citizen of the wings,
Onegin flew to the theater.
Onegin ends his day at the ball:
Has entered. The hall is full of people;
The music is tired of thundering;
The crowd is busy with the mazurka;
All around and noise, and tightness ...
Onegin returns home in the morning when laborious Petersburg is already getting up to get to work:
What is my Onegin? Half asleep,
He goes to bed from the ball,
And Petersburg is restless
Already awakened by the drum ...
Talking about Onegin, the poet emphasizes emptiness and monotony of high life... Pushkin writes about his hero:
Wakes up at noon, and again
Until the morning his life is ready,
Monotonous and variegated.
And tomorrow is the same as yesterday.
Last topic narratives in the first chapter–acquaintance and friendship of Onegin with the author. The poet gives a wonderful psychological characterization of the hero, comparing the features of his personality and peculiarities of his world outlook with his own view of the world:
The conditions of light overthrowing the burden,
How he, lagging behind the hustle and bustle,
I made friends with him at that time.
I liked his features
Unwitting devotion to dreams
Inimitable oddity
And a sharp, chilled mind.
I was embittered, he is gloomy;
We both knew the passion of the game:
Weighed down the life of both of us;
In both hearts, the heat was extinguished;
Malice awaited both of them
Blind Fortune and People
In the very morning of our days.
In this psychological portrait of Onegin one can see features of Pushkin himself, who was going through a severe mental crisis at the time of writing the first chapter (end of 1823). Meanwhile, the author does not forget to emphasize and “ difference”Between himself and the hero: despite his disillusionment with previous ideals, the author did not lose his poetic view of the world, did not change his love for nature, did not abandon his dear poetic creativity. The crisis of 1823-1824 was only a stage in Pushkin's spiritual evolution, and unlike skeptic Onegin, the author of the novel, in the deep foundations of his own personality, remains optimist.
In the second chapter the narration is carried over to the village.Double epigraph - "O rus!" ("O village!") from Horace and "O Rus!" - links the topic village life with theme national identity of Russia, reveals the problem of the Russian national character as one of the leading in the work.
The second chapter introduces the reader to Lensky, Olga and Tatiana.
The sixth stanza gives exposition of the image of Lensky:
To my village at the same time
The new landowner galloped
And an equally strict analysis
In the neighborhood he gave a reason,
Named Vladimir Lensky,
With a soul straight from Göttingen,
Handsome, in full bloom of years,
Kant's admirer and poet.
He's from foggy Germany
Brought fruits of scholarship:
Freedom dreams
The spirit is fiery and rather strange
Always a rave speech
And black curls up to the shoulders.
Lensky, like Onegin, evoked a feeling of mistrust among the landlord neighbors with his liberal sentiments... The hero's "freedom-loving dreams" were clearly alien to them.
Here, in the second chapter, it is outlined Lensky - Olga line, the artistic role of which is to reveal the characters of these heroes and, most importantly, to set off the love story of Tatyana and Onegin.
Finally, the second chapter gives image exposureTatiana... The author draws attention to name« Tatyana", Which at the time of Pushkin, many considered common people. The poet deliberately calls his heroine this:
For the first time with such a name
The tender pages of the novel
We willfully sanctify.
Talking about Tatyana, Pushkin compares his heroine with her sister Olga:
Not her sister's beauty,
Nor the freshness of her ruddy
She would not have attracted the eyes.
In contrast to Tatyana Olga, one can clearly see symmetry principle in the arrangement of the central characters of the work. Olga's outer beauty hides her ordinary and superficial nature and at the same time sets off Tatiana's inner, spiritual beauty.
Here, in the second chapter, Pushkin outlines such character traits of the heroine as dreaminess,love of nature,a penchant for reading novels.
So, Pushkin talks about his heroine:
Thoughtfulness, her friend
From the most lullaby days
Rural leisure flow
Decorated her with dreams.
The poet emphasizes Tatiana's closeness to nature:
She loved on the balcony
She liked novels early;
They replaced everything for her.
She fell in love with deceptions
And Richardson and Russo.
As already noted, the plot of the work is built on the principle "Specularity".Tatiana falls in love with Onegin, writes to him letter and as a result gets rebuff... At the end of the work, the characters "change places": now Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, writes to her letter and also receives rebuke.
Chapter Three the novel contains the beginning of a love story. Not by chance epigraph to the third chapter taken from a French author ("Elle était fille, elle était amoureuse" 1, Malfilâtre). Pushkin reminds the reader about the upbringing of the heroine in the French manner, about her reading novels, about the fact that Tatyana's very thoughts about Onegin are inspired by her romantic ideas about literary heroes.
Onegin in the imagination of Tatiana in love appears the hero of the books she read:
Lover of Julia Volmar,
Malek-Adel and de Linard,
And Werther, rebellious martyr,
And the incomparable Grandison
Which brings us to sleep -
Everything for the gentle dreamer
We put on a single image,
In one Onegin merged.
Tatiana also thinks about herself the heroine of the novel:
Imagining a heroine
Your beloved creators,
Clarice, Julia, Dolphin,
Tatiana in the silence of the woods
One with a dangerous book wanders ...
Tatiana's letter–compositional center of the third chapter... According to researchers, for example Yu.M. Lotman, the letter of the heroine is distinguished by a genuine sincerity,sincerity... It is from this letter that we learn about the innermost secrets of Tatyana's soul - O her sincere faith in God, about the joy of prayer, about compassion for the poor, about loneliness among the people around her.
However, the letter contains verbal phrases gleaned by Pushkin's heroine from read her books... Tatiana, like many of her noble women of the same age, had little command of written speech in her native language, and chose French to declare her love.
As already noted, Tatiana's national identity highlighted by its nannies... From this point of view, for understanding the character of the main character, such an element of the composition as Tatiana's conversation with the nanny, performed, according to Belinsky, a true nationality.
An important episode fourth chapter–Onegin's rebuke.Ironic the author's attitude to this monologue of the hero is already set epigraph: "Lamoraleestdanslanaturedeschoses" 1 (Necker). The meaning of rebuke much deeper than Onegin's formal explanation of the reasons for refusing to respond to Tatiana's feelings. As we know, Onegin announced to the heroine that he was not worthy of her love, and most importantly, that he was “not created for bliss,” that is, not ready for family life. In part, Onegin was sincere: in fact, his soul was shallow, withered in secular intrigues, and an excellent mastery of the "science of tender passion" turned into spiritual emptiness for him. There was, however, another, main reason, which Onegin will recall later, in his own letter to Tatyana: “I didn’t want to lose my hateful freedom.” Selfishness, thinking only about his own freedom kept the hero from taking a decisive step.
Against the background of the spiritual sorrows of the rejected Tatyana, they draw idyllic paintings Lensky's courtship of his bride. It seems that nothing portends trouble.
The fifth chapter tells about Christmas fortune-telling, O Tatiana's dream, about her name days, O Onegin's quarrel with Lensky.
Epigraph from VA Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" ("Oh, do not know these terrible dreams / You, my Svetlana!") immerses the reader in the element of popular beliefs. Svetlana is mentioned more than once in Pushkin's novel, and this is no coincidence. The heroine of Zhukovsky was already perceived by Pushkin's contemporaries as Tatyana's literary predecessor, and her dream as a prototype of Tatyana's dream. Romantic image of Svetlana, created by the literary mentor of Pushkin, his older brother in writing, was associated with deep national roots, marked the invasion of the folk-poetic element in Russian poetry. The traditions of Zhukovsky were generously multiplied by Pushkin - in realistic image of Tatiana, associated not only with popular beliefs and legends, but also with the specific historical realities of Russian life in the twenties of the 19th century.
Tatiana's dream occupies a special place in the composition of the work. On the one hand, the dream reveals deep folk foundations of Tatyana's character, connection of the heroine's worldview with folk culture.
On the other hand, Tatyana's dream has prophetic meaning: it predicts the tragic events of the sixth chapter.
Scenes of Tatiana's name day represent a wonderful a picture of the mores of the provincial nobility, once again emphasizing such a property of Pushkin's work as encyclopedic.
The fifth chapter contains an important plot twist: it tells about Onegin's courtship of Olga, about Lensky's anger and his decision to challenge Onegin to a duel.
Chapter Six contains the climax of the plot... It tells about the duel of Onegin and Lensky.Epigraph to the sixth chapter were the words of Petrarch: "La, sottoigiorninubilosiebrevi, / Nasceunagenteacuil'morirnondole" 1.
V duel situations is clearly revealed the contradictory nature of Onegin's soul.
On the one hand, Onegin is a “good fellow”, sincerely attached to his young comrade. Onegin appreciates education in Lenskoye, the lofty impulses of youth, and is condescending to his poems.
However, “loving the young man with all my heart”, Onegin cannot suppress the desire to take revenge on Lensky for an invitation to a boring holiday to the Larins and courting Olga, which causes the anger of an ardent and impressionable young man. Onegin is also unable to challenge secular prejudices, impressionable; he afraid of public opinion, does not dare to give up the duel. The result is its inevitability, tragic death of Lensky and grave Onegin's mental anguish.
Onegin's murder of Lensky in a duel - culmination in the development of the plot. This tragic event finally separates Onegin from Tatiana. The hero, torn apart by mental anguish, can no longer remain in the village.
At the same time, the duel shows and "Non-life" character of Lensky, the isolation of the hero from reality.
Comprehending the possible future of Lensky (in case he had not died in a duel), Pushkin outlines two paths for his hero. Lensky could become an outstanding poet:
Maybe he is for the good of the world
Or at least he was born for glory;
His silent lyre
Rattling, continuous ringing
For centuries, I could raise ...
However, Lensky could expect life is vulgar and ordinary:
Or maybe that: a poet
The ordinary one was waiting for his fate.
The youths of summer would have passed
In him, the ardor of the soul would have cooled.
In many ways, he would have changed
Used to part with the muses, get married,
In the village, happy and horned,
Would wear a quilted robe;
I would really know life ...
The death of Lensky has a duel and symbolic meaning for the poet himself. Saying goodbye to Lensky at the end of the sixth chapter, the author of the novel says goodbye with my own youth marked by romantic dreams.
But so be it: let's say goodbye together,
Oh my light youth! -
exclaims the poet.
Duel Onegin and Lensky - a turning point in the development of the plot. From the seventh chapter, we learn that Onegin is leaving the village, Olga is marrying an ulan, Tatiana is being taken to Moscow, to the “fair of brides”.
Among the most important events seventh chapter note Tatiana's visit to Onegin's house and reading his books. Belinsky called this event "an act of consciousness" in Tatyana's soul. The meaning of Tatyana's reading of Onegin's books lies in the fact that she deeper understands the character of the hero, tries to comprehend his contradictory nature.
The central theme of the seventh chapter novel - Moscow. Its significance is evidenced by three epigraphs taken from the works of various authors - contemporaries of Pushkin.
Moscow, Russia's daughter is loved,
Where can you find your equal? -
II Dmitriev solemnly asks.
How not to love your native Moscow? -
with love, but at the same time with irony, E.A. B O ratynsky.
An excerpt from Woe from Wit reminds us of Griboyedov's satire on the Moscow nobility:
Persecution of Moscow! What does it mean to see the light!
Where is better?
Where we are not.
Epigraphs convey the poet's ambiguous attitude to the ancient capital.
On the one side, Moscow–homelandpoet... After his exile to Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin recalls his meeting with her in the following lines:
When churches and bell towers,
Gardens, palaces semicircle
Opened before me suddenly!
In my wandering destiny
Moscow, I was thinking about you!
For the Russian heart it has merged!
How much it echoed!
Moscow for Pushkin was also symbol of Russia's victory over Napoleon in the war of 1812:
Napoleon waited in vain,
Intoxicated with the last happiness,
Moscow kneeling
With the keys of the old Kremlin:
No, my Moscow did not go
To him with a guilty head.
Not a holiday, not an accepted gift,
She was preparing a fire
Impatient hero ...
On the other hand, Pushkin satirically depicts life Moscow nobility. Here it is especially obvious traditions of Griboyedov,reminiscences from "Woe from Wit" ("But there is no change in them ...").
Pushkin's critical attitude to the Moscow world is not accidental. The seventh chapter, like the eighth, Pushkin finished after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising. Returning to Moscow after exile, Pushkin did not meet many of his former friends. It is characteristic that in the seventh chapter one Vyazemsky "managed" to "occupy" Tatyana's soul. Although this chapter unfolds until 1825, "Reflection" of the post-December era is obvious here.
Eighth chapter contains plot denouement and goodbye words the author with the heroes and the reader. The motive of farewell is also present in the epigraph from Byron: “Fare thee well, and if for ever, still for ever, fare thee well” 1.
In the eighth chapter, the action of the novel is again transferred to Petersburg.Satirical pathosin the image high society Petersburg in this chapter is strikingly different from the mild irony prevailing in the first chapter. The fact is that here, as in the seventh chapter, which tells about Moscow, there is a "reflection" of the era after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising: those comrades to whom the poet "in a friendly meeting" read the first stanzas of the novel have already passed away or ended up in hard labor ... From here the author's sad mood in the last chapter his creations.
Talking about Onegin in the eighth chapter, Pushkin conveys difficult state of mind of the hero after the murder of Lensky:
Anxiety seized him
Wanderlust
(A very painful property,
Few voluntary cross).
He left his village,
Forests and cornfields solitude,
Where is the bloody shadow
It appeared to him every day,
And he began wandering without a goal ...
The emotional anguish of the protagonist was most vividly reflected in the dream-memory 2, which is the content of XXXVI and XXXVII lines of the eighth chapter:
So what then? His eyes were reading
But the thoughts were far away;
Dreams, desires, sorrows
Squeezed into the soul deeply.
He is between the printed lines
Read with spiritual eyes
Other lines. In them he
Was completely deepened.
They were secret legends
Hearty, dark antiquity,
Unrelated dreams
Threats, rumors, predictions,
Ile long tale nonsense alive,
Or letters from a young maiden.
And gradually into sleep
And he falls into feelings and thoughts,
And before him is imagination
Pharaoh mosques his motley mosque.
Then he sees: in the melted snow,
As if sleeping at the night,
Then he sees the forgotten enemies,
Slanderers and evil cowards,
And a swarm of young traitors,
And a circle of despicable comrades,
That is a country house - and by the window
She sits ... and that's all she is!
The culminating event of the entire work - the tragic death of Lensky - is accentuated in this way in the last, eighth chapter, becoming, along with the flared up passion for Tatiana, the most important component of the inner life of the protagonist. Onegin's dream clearly enhances the effect " specularity»The composition of the novel. Onegin's dream retrospectively recreates the same tragic event (the murder of Lensky) that was predicted in prophetic Tatiana's dream.
In addition, Onegin's dream contains images, directly referring the reader to Tatiana's state of mind in the middle chapters of the novel ("secret legends of the heart, dark antiquity", "predictions", "living nonsense fairy tales", "letters of a young maiden").
At the same time, the fabulous images from Tatyana's dream, which are based on folklore roots and emphasize Tatyana's living connection with the element of folk life, can be opposed with a metaphorical pharaoh image 1 from Onegin's dream ("before him the pharaoh's motley flies his imagination"). As you know, Pharaoh is the name of a gambling game of cards, symbolizing in Pushkin's work the power of demonic forces over the human soul (remember "The Queen of Spades"). Onegin's soul was completely at the mercy of these forces, and the ominous image of the pharaoh gives the hero's sleep a gloomy flavor. The world of evil, reigning in Onegin's dream, includes both "forgotten enemies" and "slanderers" and "evil cowards" and "a swarm of young traitors" and "a circle of despicable comrades." These faces from Onegin's past, like the image of the pharaoh, become a symbol of improper existence hero.
In the eighth chapter, in accordance with the principle “ specularity", The characters change places. Now already passion flares up in Onegin's soul... In Onegin's feelings for Tatiana, one can see not only the life-giving force that cleans the hero's soul. Rather it "Dead trace of passion", according to the figurative definition of the poet. This passion could not heal Onegin's soul, it only intensified his mental anguish caused by the murder of a friend.
Onegin's letter to Tatiana–the most important ideological center the whole novel. In his letter, Onegin exclaims bitterly:
I thought: freedom and peace
A replacement for happiness. Oh my God!
How wrong I was, how punished ...
The meaning of the denouement the novel is that Tatiana rejects Onegin:
I love you (why dissemble?),
But I'm given to another,
I will be faithful to him forever.
The denouement allows the reader to clearly understand not only the meaning of the moral crisis experienced by the hero, but also the spiritual foundations of the heroine's personality. Tatyana retains in her soul a feeling for Onegin, but loyalty to marital duty is above all for her. Tatyana opposes Onegin's unbridled passion Christian submission to fate("My fate has already been decided") and moral firmness.
It is significant that Pushkin in his novel shows his heroes in spiritual evolution.
Tatiana is transformed from a dreamy country girl into a brilliant socialite. At the same time, she retains in her soul those deep moral values that were laid in her in her youth. The heroine tells Onegin about her attitude to social life:
And to me, Onegin, this splendor,
Tinsel of hateful life,
My progress in a whirlwind of light
My fashion house and evenings, -
What's in them? Now I'm glad to give
All this rags of masquerade
All this shine and noise and fumes
For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,
For our poor home
For those places where for the first time
Onegin, I saw you,
Yes, for a humble cemetery,
Where today is the cross and the shadow of the branches
Over my poor nanny ...
Not falling in love with the Petersburg world, Tatyana nevertheless patiently carries her cross, remaining a devoted wife and fulfilling the role of a high society lady, which she does not love.
The changes that take place in Onegin's soul during the course of the novel are also obvious. At the beginning of the work, Onegin appears before us as a frivolous secular dandy. Then - a skeptic, disappointed in high life, obsessed with despondency, blues. At the end of the novel, we have a man who has lost the meaning of life.
At the end of the work, the author leaves Onegin "in a minute that is evil for him." What will happen to the hero next is unknown. Interchange, bearing element understatement,incompleteness, –innovative feature compositions of Pushkin's novel.
Nature in the novel
Images of nature occupy a large place in the work, constituting the most important facet of the "encyclopedia of Russian life." In addition, the landscape serves several other essential functions.
As noted above, descriptions of nature help the author organize the artistic time of the novel. The action of the work begins in the summer. Onegin flies "in the dust on the postage" to the village to see his sick uncle. In the second chapter, Pushkin paints a picture of rural nature:
The lord's house is secluded,
Shielded from the winds by a mountain,
He stood over the river. In the distance
Before him dazzled and bloomed
Golden meadows and fields ...
Summer gives way to autumn:
Already the sky was breathing in autumn,
Less often the sun shone
The day was getting shorter;
Mysterious forest canopy
She bared herself with a sad noise ...
Finally winter comes:
That year the autumn weather
I stood in the yard for a long time
Winter was waiting, nature was waiting.
Snow fell only in January ...
At the beginning of the seventh chapter, Pushkin describes the awakening of spring:
Driven by the spring rays
There is already snow from the surrounding mountains
Escaped by muddy streams
To the sunken meadows ...
In addition, in the descriptions of nature, we observe the creative evolution of the author, his path from romanticism to "poetry of reality".
As you know, Pushkin began to write his work in southern exile, during the romantic period of creativity. In the first chapter we meet romantic images of nature:
Adriatic waves
Oh Brenta! No, I will see you
And, full of inspiration again,
I will hear your magic voice!
However, in general, the novel is dominated by realistic pictures of nature, often containing details of Russian life. As an example, we will give a description of the Russian winter in the fifth chapter of the work:
Winter! .. The peasant, triumphant,
On the woods, it renews the path ...
Pushkin himself comments on such pictures as follows:
But maybe this kind
Pictures won't appeal to you;
All this is low nature;
Little graceful here.
At the same time, the reader understands that it was in the pictures of simple Russian nature that the author was able to find true poetry. “What was low for former poets was noble for Pushkin; what was prose for them was poetry for him, "wrote Belinsky.
Pushkin draws in his work and cityscape... The depiction of the White Nights in St. Petersburg in the first chapter is taken in romantic key. The poet talks about how he walked with Onegin along the embankments of the Neva, "when it is transparent and light / The night sky over the Neva / And the waters are cheerful glass / Does not reflect the face of Diana ..." City landscape in the eighth chapter emphatically realistic, even prosaic: “On the blue crushed ice / The sun is playing; melts dirty / There is snow on the streets ”.
Your creative evolution from romanticism to realism Pushkin comprehends in Onegin's Journey.
At first, the poet writes about the romantic images of nature that worried him in his youth:
At that time I seemed to need
Deserts, waves of pearl edges,
I need other pictures:
I love the sandy slope
There are two rowans in front of the hut,
A gate, a broken fence ...
Besides, images of nature in the novel are the most important a means of characterizing heroes; in addition, they help to understand the worldview of the author himself.
Two days seemed new to him
Secluded fields
The coolness of the gloomy oak tree,
The murmur of a quiet stream;
To the third grove, hill and field
He was no longer occupied;
For village silence:
More vivid creative dreams.
As for Lensky, he sees nature in romantic outlines:
He fell in love with thick groves,
Solitude, silence,
And the night, and the stars, and the moon ...
She loved on the balcony
Warn the dawn to rise, -
Pushkin writes about Tatiana in the second chapter. In the fifth chapter, the poet tells how Tatiana meets winter:
Waking up early
Tatyana saw through the window
In the morning, the whitened courtyard ...
In Tatyana's love for the Russian winter, the poet sees a vivid manifestation of the original Russian soul:
Tatiana (Russian soul,
Without knowing why)
With her cold beauty
Loved the Russian winter ...
The poet touchingly describes Tatyana's farewell to nature, to village life in the seventh chapter of the novel:
Sorry peaceful valleys
And you, the familiar mountain peaks,
And you familiar forests;
Forgive me heavenly beauty
I'm sorry, cheerful nature,
Changing sweet, quiet light
To the noise of the brilliant vanity ...
Finally, nature in the novel is also a source of the author's philosophical reflections on the transience of life, on the continuity of generations, on the connection of times. So, the poet reflects on the change of generations at the end of the second chapter:
Alas! On the reins of life
Instant harvest of a generation
By the secret will of Providence
Rise, ripen and fall;
Others follow them ...
So our windy tribe
Grows, worries, boils
And to the grave of great-grandfathers press.
Our time will come, our time will come,
And our grandchildren in a good hour
They will oust us from the world too!
Describing the awakening of spring in the seventh chapter, the poet again returns to thoughts about the passing youth, about the transience of life:
How sad is your appearance to me,
Spring, spring! It's time for love!
What a languid excitement
In my soul, in my blood!
With what heavy emotion
I enjoy the breeze
Into my face the blowing spring
In the bosom of rural silence!
Or, not rejoicing in the return
Dead leaves in the fall,
We remember the bitter loss
Listening to the new noise of the forests;
Or with nature lively
We bring together the confused thought
We are the withering of our years,
Which there is no rebirth?
Thus, the artistic role of images of nature in Eugene Onegin is multifaceted. The landscape serves a compositional function, helping the author to organize the artistic time in the novel; descriptions of nature reflect the author's creative evolution, his path from romanticism to "poetry of reality"; landscape - a means of characterizing heroes, a way of self-expression of the author; finally, nature in Pushkin's work is a source of the poet's philosophical reflections on life, fate, on the continuity of generations, on the connection of times.
In the eighth article from the cycle “The Works of Alexander Pushkin,” Belinsky wrote: “'' Onegin '' is the most intimate work of Pushkin, the most beloved child of his fantasy, and one can point to too few creations in which the poet's personality would be reflected with such fullness, light and it is clear how the personality of Pushkin was reflected in Onegin. Here is all his life, all his soul, all his love; here are his feelings, concepts, ideals. To evaluate such a work means to evaluate the poet himself in the entire scope of his creative activity. "
As you know, "Eugene Onegin" is a work of an unusual genre. In a letter to Prince PA Vyazemsky, Pushkin noted: "I am not writing a novel, but a novel in verse: a devilish difference."
A novel in verse - a lyric epic work where not only are important author's narration about events and heroes, but also lyrical digressions, in which the poet's inner world finds free, direct expression.
In Eugene Onegin we find various types of deviations:autobiographical, moral, historical, journalistic, philosophical.
Let us briefly characterize the subject of the digressions. Most of all digressions in the novel have autobiographical content: the author tells the reader about his life from his lyceum years to his arrival in Moscow, and then to Petersburg after being exiled to Mikhailovskoye.
In the digressions, we also find the author's philosophical reflections on the transience of life, on the change of generations. The poet shares with the reader his thoughts about love and friendship, about a duel and murder in a duel, while expressing a sharp rejection of individualism and selfishness ("We all look at Napoleons ...").
The poet's judgments about Russian and Western European literature and culture are interesting. Here, in particular, one should note the digressions about the theater in the first chapter, about literary heroes - in the third, about the poetic genres of elegy and ode - in the fourth.
The poet expresses his judgments about contemporary poets (about Yazykov, Boratynsky), about the Russian language, about the albums of district ladies and metropolitan ladies, about modern youth, its education, about the tastes and customs of modern Pushkin's society, about secular entertainments, about balls, about the cuisine of that time, even about the types of wines!
Among the journalistic digressions, let us name the poet's reflections in the seventh chapter on the roads in Russia and the future of the country. Let us especially note the historical digression about Moscow in the seventh chapter, where Pushkin admires the feat of the inhabitants of the ancient capital in the war of 1812 ("Napoleon waited in vain ...").
The author's thoughts about his own novel are also interesting: the poet talks about the plan of the work, about the heroes, introduces them to the readers; says that the “fifth notebook” of the novel needs to be “cleared of digressions”; finally, he says goodbye to the reader and the characters.
Copyright deviations serve several functions. Let's name the main ones. First, they help the poet create an “encyclopedia of Russian life” (Belinsky). Secondly, they reveal to the reader the identity of the author himself.
The image of the author of "Eugene Onegin" is multifaceted. The author appears before us in several of his guises: autobiographer,creator of the novel, commentator of his own work, hero of the novel, philosopher, poet.
In Eugene Onegin, Pushkin acquaints the reader with the facts of his biography. In most detail he describes his own life and creative way in the digression about the Muse at the beginning of the eighth chapter.
First, the poet recalls the lyceum years:
On those days when in the gardens of the lyceum
I bloomed serenely
I read Apuleius willingly,
But I haven't read Cicero,
Those days in the mysterious valleys
In the spring, at k l ikah swans,
Near the waters shining in silence
Muse began to appear to me.
The poet recalls his first successes, the lyceum exam, which was attended by G.R. Derzhavin. The poet says about himself and about his Muse:
And the light met her with a smile,
Success was the first to inspire us,
Old man Derzhavin noticed us
I brought a frisky Muse
To the noise of feasts and violent arguments ...
It is known that at this time the poet participated not only in friendly feasts, but also in bold discussions among radical youth.
How often on the rocks of the Caucasus
She is Lenore, in the moonlight,
And here she is in my garden
She appeared as a district lady,
With a sad thought in the eyes,
With a French book in hand.
At the end of his digression about the Muse, the poet recalls how she reappeared in St. Petersburg:
She likes the order slim
Oligarchic conversations
And the coldness of calm pride,
And this mixture of ranks and years.
Autobiographical digressions are also present in other chapters of the novel. For example, in the first chapter, the poet recalls St. Petersburg at the moment when he himself is in southern exile:
I used to walk there too,
But the north is bad for me.
Will the hour of my freedom come?
"It's time, it's time!" - I appeal to her;
I wander over the sea, waiting for the weather
Manyu sailing ships.
Here the poet hints at his plan to escape abroad. Here, in the first chapter, he recalls his youthful infatuation with Maria Raevskaya:
I remember the sea before the storm:
How I envied the waves
Running in a stormy line
Lie at her feet with love!
But in the fourth chapter, Pushkin talks about his life in Mikhailovsky:
But I am the fruit of my dreams
And harmonious undertakings
I only read to the old nanny,
To the friend of my youth ...
The poet had a vivid impression of a new meeting with Moscow, where he arrived after exile:
Ah, brothers! How pleased I was
When churches and bell towers,
Gardens, palaces semicircle
Opened before me suddenly!
How often in sorrowful separation,
In my wandering destiny
Moscow, I was thinking about you!
Moscow ... How much of this sound
For the Russian heart it has merged!
How much it echoed!
As mentioned above, the author appears in the work both as the creator of the novel, and as a commentator of his own work (remember that Pushkin himself wrote notes to it), and as a philosopher reflecting on the transience of human life, on the change of generations (“Alas! reins ... ").
The poet appears before us as the hero of his own novel. In the first chapter, he talks about how he walks with his "good friend" Onegin along the embankments of the Neva, in the third - about Tatyana's letter, which he keeps with himself:
Tatiana's letter is in front of me,
I sacredly shore it ...
Finally, let us define the main, most essential facet of the author's image. The author appears in the novel as a poet.
It is as a poet that he opposes himself to Onegin, who could not distinguish iambic from chorea and to whom “hard work” was “sick”. But the point is not only that Onegin, unlike the author, did not know how to write poetry.
Onegin is a skeptic. He cannot fully appreciate the beauty of the world around him. The author is characterized by a special, poetic attitude to life. Even in the ordinary, he knew how to see the beautiful. As Belinsky noted about Pushkin, "he contemplated nature and reality from a special angle of view, and this angle was exclusively poetic."
Onegin is indifferent to nature. This is what Pushkin writes about Onegin's first impressions in the village (“Two days seemed new to him / Secluded fields ...”).
I was born for a peaceful life
For village silence:
More vivid creative dreams ...
During the days of joy and desire
I was crazy about balls ...
So, Onegin's indifference to life is contrasted with the poetic view of the world of the author of the novel.
He sang parting and sorrow
And something, and a hazy distance,
And romantic roses ...
And this is no coincidence. Romanticism for Pushkin is a passed stage in his own creative biography. And at the same time, Lensky is a sublime, poetic nature - in many ways closer to the author than the skeptic Onegin. Lensky's spiritual image is associated with memories dear to Pushkin of his own romantic youth, her freedom-loving dreams, unfulfilled hopes, lofty ideals. Pushkin's thoughts about Russian romantic poets - friends of the author of "Eugene Onegin" are also connected with Lensky. It is no coincidence that in the digression at the end of the sixth chapter, where the author says goodbye to Lensky, who died in a duel, he says goodbye to his own youth: “But so be it: let's say goodbye together, / Oh my light youth!”).
Tatyana, dear Tatyana!
With you now I shed tears, -
writes Pushkin in the third chapter, talking about how Tatiana fell in love with Onegin.
Why is Tatyana more guilty?
For the fact that in sweet simplicity
She knows no deception
And believes the chosen dream?
Forgive me: I love it so much
The author-poet appears on the pages of the novel in his creative and spiritualevolution... As you know, Pushkin began to write his work in 1823, during the period of southern exile, at the time of the heyday of romanticism in his own work. It is no coincidence that in the first chapter of the novel we find romantic images ("Adriatic waves ...").
At that time I seemed to need
Deserts, waves of pearl edges,
And the noise of the sea, and heaps of rocks,
And the ideal of a proud virgin ...
Romantic illusions are a thing of the past, and they were replaced by a different view of the world (“I need other pictures ...”).
The pages of the novel reflect not only the creative, but also the spiritual evolution of the poet.
Pushkin began writing his work in 1823 in southern exile, while still a very young man. The poet was vividly excited by passions, he still yearned for balls, for the theater, for other secular entertainments that he left in St. Petersburg. At the same time, the poet was experiencing an ideological crisis associated with disappointment in educational ideas, which he previously shared with his friends - the future Decembrists.
The following chapters were written by Pushkin in Mikhailovsky, where the poet began to develop new life guidelines for him (the beauty of Russian nature, the spiritual values of the common people). Hence the author's special interest in the spiritual image of Tatiana, who became the poet's “sweet ideal”.
The seventh and eighth chapters were written by Pushkin during the period of wanderings, worldly disorder and painful spiritual searches.
It is important to note the fact that the poet completed the novel after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, when Pushkin's beloved friends ended up in hard labor. Hence the "reflection" of the post-December era, which we observe in the last chapters of the work. The last stanza of Eugene Onegin is significant in this respect:
But those who are in a friendly meeting
I was the first to read the stanzas ...
There are no others, but those are far away,
As Sadi once said.
Without them, Onegin is finished ...
Let's draw conclusions. In a work of such a genre as a novel in verse, the role of the author's digressions and the image of the author is extremely important. The digressions, written in a light, casual manner, organically accompany the story. The author's "I" becomes the most important prerequisite for the artistic unity of the novel in verse.
The digressions fulfill two important functions: with their help, an "encyclopedia of Russian life" is created and the multifaceted image of the author himself is revealed - the creator of the novel, its commentator, hero, philosopher, autobiographer, and finally, the poet, who appears before the reader in creative and spiritual evolution.
Onegin stanza
Pushkin's novel is written in the Onegin stanza, which also gives the work harmony, completeness, integrity. The Onegin stanza consists of fourteen verses of the iambic tetrameter, connected by a certain sequence of rhymes. We represent the rhyme system in the Onegin stanza using the following scheme, where uppercase letters denote female rhymes, lowercase letters denote male rhymes:
The first four lines are linked by a cross rhyme. The next four lines have contiguous (paired) rhymes. Lines nine through twelve are linked by a girdle rhyme. The last two lines are linked by a paired rhyme.
Most of the stanzas in Eugene Onegin represent a complete artistic whole. Typically, the first four lines contain an exposition, an introduction to the topic. In the following lines, the theme is developed and culminated. Finally, the final couplet often contains a spectacular, aphoristic ending.
The entire text of the novel is written in the Onegin stanza, except for the letters of the characters in the third and eighth chapters, as well as the songs of the girls at the end of the third chapter, which emphasizes the originality of these elements of the literary text.
Questions and tasks
1. Where and when did Pushkin begin work on Eugene Onegin? When did he basically complete the novel? When was Onegin's letter to Tatiana written? How has the novel's plan changed throughout its creation? How many chapters are there in the final text of the work? How did Pushkin publish excerpts from Onegin's Travels?
2. Why could Pushkin assert that in his novel the time is “calculated according to the calendar”? What is the chronological framework of the events that make up the plot of the work?
3. Draw a circle of topics covered in Eugene Onegin. Why did Belinsky call Pushkin's work "an encyclopedia of Russian life"?
4. Formulate the central problem of Pushkin's novel. What other problems of a socio-historical nature are raised in Eugene Onegin? Highlight the range of moral, philosophical and aesthetic problems of the work.
5. How did the evolution of Pushkin's outlook in the 1820s affect the ideological orientation of Eugene Onegin? What universal values does Pushkin assert in his novel? How are the ideas of the work related to national roots? What life principles does Pushkin the poet assert? Can we say that Eugene Onegin is also marked by satirical pathos?
6. What realistic principles can you note in Pushkin's novel? What is the difference between a realistic novel in verse and romantic poems?
7. What genre definition did Pushkin give to Eugene Onegin? What traditions of Byron did Belinsky mention in Pushkin's novel? What, according to the critic, is Pushkin's fundamental innovation in comparison with Byron? How did Pushkin himself characterize the form of "Eugene Onegin"?
8. What distinctive features characterize the plot of "Eugene Onegin" and the arrangement of the central characters? Briefly describe the exposition, plot, climax, denouement of the novel. What elements of the work, in addition to plot construction, play an important role?
9. Which of the heroes of the novel can be called the main, secondary, episodic? What characters are plot-forming? Can the author be considered one of the characters in the novel?
10. Why Onegin can be called a hero of the time? Describe the social status of the character, his views, interests. What brings Onegin closer to opposition-minded youth? Why can we assert that Onegin is the face of the Pushkin circle? What contradictions distinguish the outlook and character of the hero? Why is Onegin called "an extra person"? Note some artistic means of creating his image.
11. What type of the Pushkin era was recreated in the image of Lensky? Tell us about the education of the hero, about the warehouse of his personality. Why does the death of Lensky acquire symbolic meaning in the novel? Briefly describe the artistic means of creating his image.
12. Why did Belinsky define the creation of the image of Tatyana as a feat of Pushkin? What traits of the Russian national character were combined in Tatiana? What is the originality of her nature manifested in? How do other characters in the novel set off Tatyana? What is the role of Tatiana in the plot of the work? Why does the author call Tatiana a "sweet ideal"?
13. Review the minor and episodic characters in Eugene Onegin. What role do they play in the creation of the "encyclopedia of Russian life"? What real historical figures, literary heroes and mythological characters are mentioned in the pages of Pushkin's novel? What is their meaning in the work?
14. Describe the compositional functions of individual chapters of "Eugene Onegin". Reveal the meaning of epigraphs, the main events that make up the plot of the work. Pay special attention to such elements of the composition as characters' letters, Tatyana's dream, a duel episode, Onegin's dream-vision, the last explanation of the characters. What has changed in the worldview of Onegin and Tatiana over the course of the novel? What is the "understatement" of the denouement of the work manifested in?
15. Tell about the main functions of images of nature in the work. How does the landscape help the author to organize the artistic time in the novel, to reveal the characters of the heroes? How is the author's worldview and his creative evolution revealed through the images of nature?
16. What are the main types and themes of author's digressions in "Eugene Onegin". Give examples of different types of deviations. What facets of the author's image are revealed on the pages of the novel? Describe them, identifying the relationship between the image of the author and the images of the heroes. How the pages of the work are reflected life path, creative and spiritual evolution of the poet?
17. What is Onegin stanza? What is its structure? What elements of the text of "Eugene Onegin" are written in a stanza other than Onegin?
18. Make an outline and prepare an oral report on the topic: "" Eugene Onegin "as an" encyclopedia of Russian life "".
19. Write an essay on the topic: "Moscow in the comedy by A. Griboyedov" Woe from Wit "and in the novel by A. Pushkin" Eugene Onegin "".
AS Pushkin is one of the greatest poets of Russian and world literature. The personality of Pushkin, a poet and a citizen, was formed in the 10s of the 19th century, when the Russian officers who returned from the war of 1812 were disposed to decisive political changes, they considered it necessary to abolish serfdom. It was the time of the rise of social thought, the active participation of advanced youth in the fate of their country, the Russian people. Under the influence of this era of free thought and progress, the moral and ethical ideals of the poet, his views on modern society were formed.
Many of the most important issues and problems of that time were reflected in Pushkin's work. The poet's legacy is extremely large and varied. These are poems, stories, and poems. All these works address issues of national culture, education, reflect the searches of progressive-minded people, the life of various strata of society.
His lyrical works are of great importance for revealing the ideals of the poet. This is love lyrics, allowing you to understand the inner world of the poet, and. freedom-loving lyrics showing the author's attitude to the issues of autocracy, oppression, serfdom.
Meeting with members of the Northern Society of Decembrists, Pushkin shared the thoughts and sentiments of the noble revolutionaries. Impressed by these meetings, disputes and reflections on the fate of Russia, Pushkin wrote the most fiery poems: "Liberty", "Village", "To Chaadaev" and others. They created the image of a lyrical hero striving for justice, freedom, brotherhood, the image of a poet - a herald of truth:
I want to sing Freedom to the world,
Strike vice on thrones.
The ideal revolutionary fighter for Pushkin has always been the Decembrists, capable of sacrificing their lives for a cause, for an idea. After the defeat of the December uprising, the poet remains true to his ideals. Not resigning himself to the existing situation, he writes a letter to his friends languishing in exile. It sounds like an attempt to support the spirit of the Decembrists, the conviction that their cause will not be forgotten:
Your sorrowful labor will not be lost
And doom high aspiration.
But it will not be a mistake to say that the most sincere, the most significant work of the poet is the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin". It was in this work that Pushkin's views on modern society were most fully and clearly reflected, the author's moral ideals were manifested. According to VG Belinsky, the novel was “an encyclopedia of Russian life and an extremely popular work”. The work was written over several years, during this period a lot has changed in the life of Russia, in the life of the poet himself. All this is reflected in the images of the main characters of the work - Eugene Onegin and Tatiana Larina. On the pages of the novel in the characters of the heroes, in their attitude to life, a new worldview of the poet himself is being formed. The author very often refers to comparing himself with Onegin, reflecting in the image of the protagonist both the vices of society and the positive traits of the younger generation. The closest approach of the poet's personality to the image of Eugene occurs at the end of the novel, when the hero returns from his journey. The reader sees how much the spiritual world of Onegin has changed, his moral qualities.
At the beginning of the work, Pushkin calls Eugene "a good friend", thereby expressing sympathy for young man... But the poet shows that while Onegin is far from perfect: he is too fond of comfort, too selfish, not accustomed to systematic work. The author sneers at his superficial education and bitterly declares that very little is needed for recognition in a secular society:
He is in French perfectly
I could express myself and wrote,
Easily danced the mazurka
And bowed at ease ...
This is enough: "... The Light decided that he was smart and very nice." And here the poet, one of the most educated people of his time, declares with a sly grin:
We all learned a little bit Something and somehow ...
Yes, Onegin was corrupted by the light, yes, luxury, wealth, idleness had too pernicious influence. But why did one and the same environment give birth to Pushkin and Onegin, “the best people” and the Decembrists? There are also some internal factors that allow a person to resist vulgarity and stupidity. Onegin has a rare mind, the ability to think. And the novel shows how this man is trying to find the meaning of life, the use of his forces and energy. Such a search, according to Pushkin, is one of the main features of a morally perfect person. The author compares himself and the hero in relation to art and love. If at the beginning of the novel love for Onegin seems to be just empty entertainment, an easy affair, then for the author this feeling is sacred, poetic, necessary. And the hero himself is ultimately endowed with the ability to love sincerely and passionately, which is also an important feature of a real person. Having led his hero through a series of trials, the poet endows him with will, strength of soul, and the ability to compassion. It was in this Onegin that the poet's moral ideals were reflected.
And, of course, Pushkin's views on the ideal of the Russian woman were reflected in the image of Tatyana Larina. Tatiana is Pushkin's favorite heroine.
The girl, like Onegin, is of noble origin, like him, she received a superficial home education. But Tatiana is distinguished by sincerity and purity. Living “in the wilderness of a forgotten village”, she is far from the falsehood and hypocrisy of a secular society. Russian nature, rural life with its rituals and traditions had a great influence on the formation of her personality. Reading was of certain importance for Tatiana:
She liked novels early;
They replaced everything for her;
She fell in love with deceptions
And Richardson and Russo.
The wholeness and spiritual beauty of this image, the ability for selfless love and moral purity are striking.
Like any young girl, Tatyana was waiting for a beautiful and noble prince, therefore, when Eugene appeared in their village, Tatyana decided that this was the very hero, whose image she had painted for herself. With all sincerity and naturalness, the girl confesses her feelings, without fear of gossip and condemnation. The poet admires such qualities of Tatyana's soul.
Later, having entered the upper world, where hypocrisy and debauchery reign, she does not betray her principles, remains true to the ideals of her youth:
Now I'm glad to give
All this rags of masquerade
All this shine and noise and fumes
For a shelf of books, for a wild garden ...
Tatiana still loves Eugene, but she is not one of those who build her happiness on the misfortune of her neighbor. The girl sacrifices herself, her feelings, obeying a sense of duty, responsibility. Pushkin considers loyalty, the ability to self-sacrifice to be a necessary trait of a real woman.
It was such women with a truly Russian character who, after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, followed their husbands to Siberia, leaving luxury and comfort without fear of hardship and hardship. If Pushkin had dedicated the novel to the Decembrists, his Volkonskaya or Trubetskaya would certainly have had the features of Tatyana Larina.
So, in the novel “Eugene Onegin” and in lyric works, the issues that worried the progressive people of the 19th century were reflected with the greatest clarity and completeness, and Pushkin's moral ideals were manifested.
Pushkin's work "Eugene Onegin" is named after the protagonist, a young St. Petersburg aristocrat. It is believed that it was Onegin who was the ancestor of the image of the "superfluous person" in Russian literature. It is with this image that a complex of moral and philosophical problems is associated in the novel.
The first chapter tells us about the upbringing, education, lifestyle of the hero. This is a person who belongs to the high society of St. Petersburg. As befits children from noble families, he was brought up by French tutors. Pushkin shows that his hero did not receive a deep education. He is a fan of fashion, does and reads only what can show off at a reception or at a dinner party. Therefore, "he could not distinguish iambic from a chorea," but "read Adam Smith and was a deep economy."
The only thing that interested Onegin and in which he achieved perfection was "the science of tender passion." The hero learned early to disguise, to pretend, to deceive in order to achieve his goal. But his soul was always empty at the same time, only one pride was amused. Very soon Onegin got tired of the emptiness of days spent in meaningless worries, and he became bored. He was fed up with such artificial life, he wanted something else. An attempt to get lost in the village was unsuccessful.
Onegin had great potential. The author characterizes him as a man of great intelligence, sober and calculating, capable of much. The hero frankly misses among his narrow-minded village neighbors, avoids their company in every way. But he is able to understand and appreciate the soul of another person. It happened with Lensky when he met, and it happened when he met Tatyana.
We see that Onegin is capable of noble deeds. He did not take advantage of Tatyana's love. The hero was sure that no one could excite him for a long time, so he does not reciprocate the heroine.
The appearance of the image of Lensky in the novel contributes to the completeness of the disclosure of the image of the protagonist. The young poet is in love with Tatyana's older sister, Olga. By contrasting Onegin and Lensky, the author shows the depth of Eugene Onegin's nature. During a quarrel with his neighbor, the hero reveals the tragic contradictions of his inner world. On the one hand, he understands that a duel with a friend is an unforgivable stupidity. But, on the other hand, Eugene considers it humiliating for himself to refuse this fatal duel. And here he manifests himself as a slave of public opinion, a child of the upper world.
As a result, Onegin kills Lensky. This turns out to be the strongest shock for the hero, after which his strong internal changes began. After the murder of Lensky, Yevgeny flees the village. We learn that for some time he wandered, retired from high society, changed a lot. Everything superficial is gone, only a deep, ambiguous personality remains. Eugene meets Tatiana again. Now she is a married woman, a socialite. Seeing such changes, the hero now falls in love with Tatiana himself. It is at this moment that we understand that Onegin is capable of love and suffering. But Tatiana refuses him, she cannot betray her husband.
Thus, initially Onegin is a deep and interesting personality. But high society"Did him a disservice." Only after moving away from his environment, the hero again "returns to himself" and discovers in himself the opportunity to deeply feel and sincerely love.
In the work, along with Eugene Onegin, the image of the author lives and acts. This is a full-fledged hero, because throughout the poem this image is revealed and developed in lyrical digressions, as well as in the plot itself. We learn about the past of this character, his thoughts about everything that happens around, finally, his attitude towards Eugene Onegin.
It is with the main character of the poem that most of the author's judgments and assessments are associated. The author emphasizes his unity with the hero, who also came out of the noble environment and received a typical education for that circle and that time. Throughout the entire novel, Pushkin compares, compares himself with Onegin. For this, he finds various artistic techniques. One of them is rapprochement with the hero through common familiar faces. So, at the restaurant Eugene "waits ... Kaverin" - a close friend of Pushkin in his youth. In addition, the author compares Onegin to Chaadaev, whom he knew himself and to whom he dedicated several poems.
PROBLEM:
The problems of the goal and meaning of life are key, central in the novel, because at the turning points in history, which became for Russia the era after the December uprising, a radical reassessment of values takes place in the minds of people. And at such a time, the artist's highest moral duty is to point society to eternal values, to give firm moral guidelines. The best people of the Pushkin, that is, the Decembrist, generation seem to be “out of the game”: they are either disappointed in the old ideals, or they do not have the opportunity in the new conditions to fight for them, to put them into practice. The next generation, the one that Lermontov calls "the gloomy crowd and soon forgotten," was initially "brought to its knees." Due to the peculiarities of the genre, the novel reflects the very process of reassessment of all moral values. Time in the novel flows in such a way that we see the characters in dynamics, trace their spiritual path. Before our very eyes, all the main characters are going through a period of formation, painfully searching for the truth, determining their place in the world, the purpose of their existence.
The search for the meaning of life takes place in different planes of existence. The plot of the novel is based on the love of the main characters. Therefore, the manifestation of a person's essence in the choice of a beloved, in the nature of feelings is the most important feature of the image, which determines his entire attitude to life. Lyrical digressions reflect the changes in the author's feelings, his ability to both light flirtation (characteristic of "windy youth"), and to true deep admiration for his beloved.
What in his youth seemed a sign of limitation, spiritual and mental scarcity, in his mature years turns out to be the only correct, moral way. And in no case should the author be suspected of hypocrisy: we are talking about maturity, about the spiritual maturation of a person, about a normal change in value criteria:
Blessed is he who was young from a young age,
Blessed is he who matured in time.
After all, the tragedy of the main characters stems from Onegin's inability to "ripen in time", due to the premature old age of the soul.
Love for the author and for his heroine Tatyana Larina is a huge, intense spiritual work. For Lensky, this is a necessary romantic attribute, which is why he chooses Olga, devoid of individuality, in which all the typical features of the heroine of sentimental novels have merged. For Onegin, love is "the science of tender passion." He learns the true feeling by the end of the novel, when the experience of suffering comes.
Human consciousness, the system of life values, as you know, is largely shaped by the moral laws adopted in society. The author himself assesses the influence of high society ambiguously. Chapter 1 gives a harshly satirical depiction of light. The tragic 6th chapter ends with a lyrical digression: the author's reflections on the age boundary that he is preparing to step over. And he calls on the "young inspiration" to save the poet's soul from death.
Society is not homogeneous. It depends on the person himself whether he accepts the moral laws of the faint-hearted majority or the best representatives of the world.
The image of “dear friends” surrounding a person in a “deadening” “pool of light” does not appear in the novel by accident. Just as "the science of tender passion" became a caricature of true love, so a caricature of true friendship - secular friendship. “Friends have nothing to do” - this is the verdict of the author. Friendship without a deep spiritual community is just a temporary empty union. A full-fledged life is impossible without disinterested dedication in friendship - that is why these "secular" friendships are so terrible for the author. For the author, the inability to make friends is a terrible sign of the moral degradation of modern society.
The author himself acquires the meaning of life in the fulfillment of his destiny. The entire novel is full of deep reflections on art. The image of the author in this sense is unambiguous: he is, first of all, a poet, his life is inconceivable outside of creativity, outside of intense spiritual work. In this, Eugene is directly opposite to him. And not at all because he does not plow and sow before our eyes. He has no need for work. And the education of Onegin, and his attempts to immerse himself in reading, and his effort to write ("yawning, took up the pen") the author perceives ironically: "He was sick of hard work."
Especially important in Eugene Onegin is the problem of duty and happiness. In fact, Tatyana Larina is not a love heroine, she is a heroine of conscience. Appearing on the pages of the novel as a 17-year-old provincial girl dreaming of happiness with her lover, she grows before our eyes into a surprisingly holistic heroine, for whom the concepts of honor and duty are above all. Olga, the bride of Lensky, soon forgot the deceased young man: "the young ulan captured her." For Tatiana, Lensky's death is a tragedy. She curses herself for continuing to love Onegin: "She must hate her brother's killer in him." A heightened sense of duty dominates the image of Tatiana. Happiness with Onegin is impossible for her: there is no happiness built on dishonor, on the misfortune of another person. Tatiana's choice is the highest moral choice, the meaning of life for her is in accordance with the highest moral criteria.
The climax of the plot is the 6th chapter, the duel of Onegin and Lensky. The value of life is tested by death. Onegin commits a tragic mistake. At this moment, the opposition of his understanding of honor and duty to the meaning that Tatyana puts into these words is especially vivid. For Onegin, the concept of "secular honor" turns out to be more significant than a moral duty - and he pays a terrible price for the admitted shift of moral criteria: he has the blood of his murdered comrade forever on him.
The author compares two possible paths for Lensky: the sublime and the down-to-earth. And for him, what is more important is not what fate is more real - it is important that there will be none, because Lensky was killed. For a light that does not know the true meaning of life, human life itself is nothing.
NOBILITY IN ROMANE:
1) St. Petersburg "light" - an aristocratic society - is shown in the first and eighth chapters of the novel. Showing all the emptiness of the life of a secular society. Pushkin sharply satirically draws images of his typical representative. Here are “necessary fools”, and “ballroom dictators and masters angry at everything,” and “seemingly evil” ladies, and not “smiling girls.
2) In the seventh chapter we have before us the Moscow nobility of the capital. It is distinguished by the inertness and conservatism of life and habits, limited interests, vulgarity and meaninglessness of life. Deaf province emanates from this noble Moscow.
3) The third group of nobility represented in the novel is the provincial landed nobility. Guests who have gathered for Tatyana Larina's name day pass in a long line in front of the readers. Here and "fat Pidyakov, Gvozdin," an excellent owner, the owner of beggar men ", and the Skotinins familiar to us from the" Minor "from the 18th century, safely migrated to the 19th century, and" a retired adviser Flyanov, a heavy gossip, an old rogue, a glutton, a bribe-taker and a jester ", other. Painting this society in Tatyana's dream in the images of various monsters, Pushkin characterizes the wild world of the provincial nobility as the embodiment of inertia, ignorance, mental dullness, blind adherence to antiquity. The poet is merciless in his satirical description of the "wild nobility".
Pushkin also speaks with irony about the "life of the peaceful" family of the Larins, faithful to the "habits of dear old days." Larin himself “was a good fellow, belated in the last century”; he did not read books "entrusted the farm to his wife," and he himself ate and drank in his dressing gown "and" died at one o'clock before dinner. "
But even in the estate of the Larins, for all their peaceful life and a certain proximity to the people, serfdom reigns. As usual, as she "salted mushrooms for the winter" and "went to the bathhouse on Saturdays," Larina "shaved her foreheads", that is, she gave the guilty peasants to the soldiers, and "beat the maids, being angry."
SYSTEM OF IMAGES:
Onegin is a "secular St. Petersburg young man", a metropolitan aristocrat.
Drawing the image of his hero, Pushkin speaks in detail about his upbringing and education, about life in the Petersburg "world". "Having fun and luxury child", Onegin received a typical for aristocratic youth of that time home education and upbringing under the guidance of a French governor. He was brought up in the spirit of an aristocratic culture, cut off from the national and folk soil.
The corrupting influence of the "light" further removed Onegin from the people. Onegin leads a life typical for the "golden youth" of that time: balls, restaurants, walks along Nevsky Prospekt, visits to theaters. It took him eight years.
But Onegin by nature stands out from the general mass of aristocratic youth. Pushkin notes his "involuntary devotion to dreams, inimitable strangeness and a sharp, chilled mind", a sense of honor, nobility of the soul. This could not but lead Onegin to disillusionment with the life and interests of a secular society, to dissatisfaction with the political and social situation that developed in Russia after Patriotic War 1812, during the years of intensification of reaction, during the years of the domination of the Arakcheevshchina. The blues and boredom took possession of Onegin. After leaving secular society, he tries to engage in some useful activity. Nothing came of his attempt to write: he did not have a vocation (“yawning, he took up the pen”) and the habit of work, his aristocratic upbringing affected him (“stubborn work was nauseous to him”). An attempt to combat the "spiritual emptiness" by means of reading was also unsuccessful. Books that “he read either did not satisfy, or turned out to be in tune with his thoughts and feelings and only strengthened them.
Onegin is trying to deal with the arrangement of the life of the peasants on the estate, which he inherited from his uncle.
Yarem he is an old corvee
Replaced the rent with an easy one ...
But all his activities as a landlord-owner were limited to this reform. The former moods, although somewhat softened by life in the bosom of nature, continue to dominate him.
Onegin's extraordinary mind, his freedom-loving moods and critical attitude to reality put him high above the noble crowd, especially among the local nobility, and doomed, in the absence social activities, for complete loneliness.
Having broken with secular society, in which he found neither high morals, nor real feelings, but only a parody of them, and being cut off from the life of the people, Onegin loses his connection with people.
Onegin was also unable to save Onegin from the "spiritual emptiness" of the strongest feelings that unite man with man: love and friendship. He rejected Tatyana's love, since he valued “freedom and peace” above all else, and was unable to unravel the full depth of her nature and her feelings for him. He killed his friend Lensky, because he could not rise above the public opinion of the local nobility, which he internally despised. Estates prejudice prevailed in the hesitation that he experienced after receiving a challenge to a duel. He was frightened by "the whispers, the laugh of fools", the Zaretskys' gossip.
In a depressed state of mind, Onegin left the village. He "began his wanderings," but this did not dissipate him either.
Returning to St. Petersburg, he met Tatiana as a married woman, the wife of his relative and friend. Love for her flared up in him, but Tatyana unraveled the selfishness that underlies his feelings for her: he again did not understand the depth of her requests. The romance ends with the scene of Onegin's date with Tatiana. Nothing is said about the further fate of Onegin. However, Pushkin thought to continue the novel. In the fall of 1830, he wrote the tenth chapter, in which he was going to talk about the emergence of the first secret societies of the Decembrists. But under censorship conditions, he could not have printed it; moreover, it was dangerous to keep it at home. And Pushkin burned what was written in the same autumn. In the poet's papers, only a few, scattered pieces of the initial stanzas of the chapter have survived.
How did Pushkin think to unfold the action in Chapter X? Would he have brought Onegin to the Decembrist society? There is evidence from one of Pushkin's acquaintances that, according to the poet, "Onegin should have either died in the Caucasus, or become one of the Decembrists." But how accurate this evidence is is unknown. In the person of Onegin, Pushkin was the first writer to depict the type of enlightened nobleman that emerged in Russia in the 20s of the 19th century and was widely known in the years following the defeat of the Decembrists. Onegin is a typical representative of this enlightened part of the noble intelligentsia, which was critical of the way of life of the noble society and government politics. This aristocratic intelligentsia avoided serving the tsarism, not wanting to join the ranks of the silent, but it also stood aloof from social and political activity. And such a path, although it was a kind of protest against the socio-political system, inevitably doomed to inaction, to retreat from the people, to closure
into a narrow circle of selfish interests. This naturally led such people to "spiritual emptiness", depriving their lives of a high goal, a positive program. Belinsky said beautifully about Onegin and thus about people of this type: “The inactivity and vulgarity of life suffocate him, he does not even know what he needs, what he wants, but he ... knows very well that he does not need I don’t want what I am so happy with, so proud mediocrity is so happy ”.
The absence of a positive program dooms Onegin to inaction. Herzen rightly said about him:
“... The youth does not meet any lively interest in this world of servility and petty ambition. And yet in this society he is condemned to live, since the people are even more distant from him ... but there is nothing in common between him and the people ... "
The image of Onegin has tremendous generalizing power. “The fact is that we are all more or less Onegin, since we just do not prefer to be officials or landowners,” Herzen said. The typicality of Onegin was so strong that from that time, according to Herzen, “every novel, every poem had its own Onegin, that is, a person condemned to idleness, useless, led astray, a stranger in his family, a stranger in his country, who does not want to do evil and is powerless to do good, does nothing in the end, although he takes on everything, except, however, two things: firstly, he never takes the side of the government, and. secondly, he never knows how to take the side of the people. "
In the image of Onegin, Pushkin showed the path taken by a part of the noble intelligentsia of his time - seeking in isolation from society and from the people. Pushkin condemned this path of the individualistic hero, making him socially useless, "superfluous" person.
Another path followed by the noble intelligentsia of the 20s of the XIX century is revealed in the image of Lensky. This is the path of passion for philosophical teachings fashionable at that time and dreamy romantic poetry divorced from life:
There are many excellent inclinations in Lenskoye. Pushkin points to the inherent in Lensky "noble aspiration and feelings and thoughts of young, tall, gentle, daring", "thirst for knowledge and work and fear of vice and shame."
But Lensky lacks knowledge and understanding of reality. "A dear ignoramus with his heart", he perceives people and life as a romantic dreamer. Like Onegin, the society of the provincial nobility is alien to him with narrow interests, but he idealizes Olga, an ordinary girl. Misunderstanding of people, enthusiastic dreaminess lead Lensky to a tragic end at the very first encounter with reality.
Lensky is an educated, cultured person. In his conversations with Onegin, philosophical, social and scientific issues are raised. Pushkin notes his "freedom-loving dreams." Lensky is a poet, a sentimental romantic. In stanza X of the second chapter, Pushkin lists the main motives of Lensky's poetry, and in stanzas XXI and XXII of the sixth chapter, he cites his elegy as an example of romantic poetry.
The motives that Pushkin notes in Lensky's poetry are close to Zhukovsky and other poets - sentimental romantics of that time. The motives of "love, sadness, separation", the mysterious "something", the glorification of the "faded color of life", "foggy distance" and "romantic roses" are typical of Zhukovsky's poetry.
Romantics like Lensky cannot resist the blows of life: they either reconcile themselves with the prevailing way of life, or die at the first encounter with reality. Lensky died. But if he had remained alive, then most likely he would have turned into an ordinary landowner-philistine. He would hardly have become a major poet: this was not promised by the "languid and languid" poetry of Lensky.
Tatiana is a sweet ideal for Pushkin. First of all, Tatiana is a whole person. The nature of the heroine is not complex, but deep and strong. It does not contain those painful contradictions that too difficult natures suffer from; Tatiana was created as if all from one single piece, without any attachments and impurities. Her whole life is imbued with that value, that unity, which in the world of art is the highest dignity. artwork... In the character of Tatiana there are features that make her akin to Onegin, the nature of Tatiana is striking in its originality and originality. Tatyana “seemed like a stranger to her family,” she feels lonely both in the village and in the highest class. Dissatisfaction environment makes Tatiana feel melancholy. Just like Onegin, Tatiana saw and understood all the vulgarity and emptiness not only of the estate, but also of the Moscow and St. Petersburg noble society. She wants to arrange her life not according to the customs accepted in the landlord's environment. She wants to decide her own destiny, to determine her life path. She wants to choose a life partner herself. The heroine dreams of such a person who would bring high content into her life, would be similar to the heroes of her beloved Romano. It seemed to her that she found such a person in Onegin. Eugene rejected Tatyana's love. That love brought her only suffering. Tatiana's tragedy was that she met a man who was an "egoist", albeit a "suffering", a "sad eccentric" who could not bring into her life what she dreamed of.
Tatiana is a simple provincial girl, she is not a beauty and strikes the imagination with an abundance of contrasting features in her character. Thoughtfulness and daydreaming distinguish her among the local inhabitants, she feels lonely among people who are not able to understand her spiritual needs. Tatiana's character did not change, although life brought her only suffering and she did not find what she was striving for with her exalted soul. From childhood there was something in her character that distinguished the heroine from other girls in her circle. She did not caress her parents, played little with children, did not do needlework, was not interested in fashion. Since childhood, Tatiana lived in the midst of nature and loved her. Tatiana is trying to break out of the circle familiar to a rural young lady. She is the first! - writes a letter to Onegin. Tatyana's actions are guided by a "rebellious imagination" is tempered and directed by "the mind and will of the living." Tatiana has great traits: daydreaming, love of nature, romantic belief in premonitions and destiny. She is attracted by her moral qualities: spiritual simplicity, sincerity, artlessness. The heroine also has a huge advantage: Tatiana is close to national and folk soil. Already by the very name of the heroine, which was widespread at that time mainly among the common people, Pushkin wants to emphasize Tatyana's closeness to the masses. "Russian soul", according to the poet's description, Tatiana loved her native nature and folk customs... Through the courtyard girls and especially through the nanny, she became acquainted with folk poetry and fell in love with it. Tatiana “thinks about the villagers” and helps the poor. Tatyana Larina begins a gallery of beautiful images of a Russian woman, morally impeccable, faithful to duty, seeking a deeply inclusive life.
In the scene of Tatyana's last meeting with Onegin, her high spiritual qualities are revealed even more fully: moral impeccability, truthfulness, loyalty to duty, decisiveness. Time passed, Tatiana was married, although her first love still lives in her heart. But she remains true to her duty. Onegin, so smart and subtle, was unable to appreciate the priceless gift of love sent to him by God in time. The closeness to the peasants, the strong influence of the nanny, brought up simplicity, sincerity, solid foundations of morality, loyalty to duty and democratism in Tatiana. Tatyana is a completely natural person, she lives with feelings, not mind. Having met Onegin, who so completely got used to the image of a literary hero that he stopped noticing reality, Tatyana fell in love with him. But it is also obvious that their union was impossible. Life remains life, and literature remains literature, the line between them exists, and it cannot be destroyed.
We must pay tribute to the genius of Russian literature A.S. Pushkin, who managed to create such a wonderful image, faithful to duty, looking for a nature that amazes with its integrity.
The complete opposite of Tatiana is her younger sister Olga. If Tatiana's childhood was "wild, sad, silent, like a flying doe, fearful", then Olga "is always cheerful as morning, as the life of a poet is simple-minded." In Olga there is a lot of cheerfulness, agility, vitality is in full swing in her. She is always “with a clear smile on her lips,” in the Larins' house her “sonorous voice” is heard everywhere.
But Olga's external attractiveness and enchanting cheerfulness cannot hide her poverty. peace of mind... Her nature is devoid of that originality and depth that characterize Tatiana. Olga lives thoughtlessly, guided in her life by the views and habits established in the noble local life. “Always modest, always obedient,” she, without thinking deeply, follows the rules of life accepted in the noble environment. She cannot understand Tatiana, she is not forced to think about Lensky's behavior and mood on the evening before the duel. Her feelings do not differ in the same depth and stability as those of Tatiana. She “did not cry for long” about Lensky and soon got married, “repeating her mother, with minor changes that were required by the time” (Belinsky).
Pushkin himself points out the prevalence of this type of woman in life and in the literature of that time:
... any romance
Take it and find it right
Her portrait ...
But under the pen of Pushkin, this image, although sketched, acquired such artistic expressiveness that it influenced the creation of a number of female images in the works of later writers (for example, Martha in Goncharov's novel "The Break").
Problems and heroes of the novel "Eugene Onegin"
Before talking about the problems and the main characters of the novel in the poem "Eugene Onegin", it is necessary to clearly understand the peculiarities of the genre of this work. The genre of "Eugene Onegin" is lyric-epic. Consequently, the novel is based on the inextricable interaction of two plots: the epic (the main characters of which are Onegin and Tatiana) and the lyrical (where the main character is the narrator, on whose behalf the story is told). The lyrical plot is not just equal in the novel - it dominates, because all the events of real life and the life of the novel are presented to the reader through the prism of the author's perception, the author's assessment.
The key, central problem in the novel is the problem of the goal and meaning of life, because at the turning points of history, which became for Russia the era after the Decembrist uprising, a radical reassessment of values takes place in the minds of people. And at such a time, the artist's highest moral duty is to point out to society the eternal values, to give firm moral guidelines. The best people of the Pushkin - Decembrist - generation seem to be "out of the game": they are either disappointed in the old ideals, or are unable to fight for them in the new conditions, to put them into practice. The next generation - the one that Lermontov calls "the gloomy crowd and soon forgotten" - was initially "brought to its knees." Due to the peculiarities of the genre, the novel, which literary criticism rightly interprets as a kind of "lyric diary" of the author, reflects the very process of re-evaluating the entire system of moral values. Time in the novel flows in such a way that we see the characters in dynamics, trace their spiritual path. Before our very eyes, all the main characters are going through a period of formation, painfully searching for the truth, determining their place in the world, the purpose of their existence.
The central image of the novel is that of the author. For all the autobiographical character of this character, in no case can he be identified with Pushkin, if only because the world of the novel is an ideal, fictional world. Therefore, when we talk about the image of the author, we do not mean Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin personally, but the lyric hero of the novel "Eugene Onegin".
So, before us is the author's lyric diary; frank conversation with the reader, where confessional moments are interspersed with light chatter. The author is sometimes serious, sometimes frivolous, sometimes evilly ironic, sometimes just cheerful, sometimes sad and always sharp. And most importantly, he is always absolutely sincere with the reader. Lyrical digressions reflect the changes in the author's feelings, his ability both to light flirting (characteristic of "windy youth") and to deep admiration for his beloved (compare stanzas XXXII and XXXIII of the first chapter of the novel).
We, the enemies of Hymen,
V home life see one
A series of tiresome pictures ...
The spouse is perceived as an object of ridicule:
Cuckold majestic
Always happy with myself
With my lunch and my wife.
But let us pay attention to the opposition of these verses and lines of "Excerpts
from Onegin's journey ":
My ideal now is the mistress
My desires are peace
Yes, a cabbage pot, but a big one.
What in his youth seemed a sign of limitation, spiritual and mental scarcity, in his mature years turns out to be the only correct, moral way. And in no case should the author be suspected of hypocrisy: we are talking about the spiritual maturation of a person, about a normal change in value criteria:
Blessed is he who was young from a young age,
Blessed is he who matured in time.
The tragedy of the protagonist largely stems from Onegin's inability to "ripen in time", from the "premature old age of the soul." What happened harmoniously in the author's life, although not painlessly, became the cause of the tragedy in the fate of his hero.
The search for the meaning of life takes place in different planes of existence. The plot of the novel is based on the love of the main characters. Therefore, the manifestation of a person's essence in the choice of a beloved, in the nature of feelings is the most important feature of the image, which determines his entire attitude to life. Love for the author and for his heroine Tatiana is a huge, intense spiritual work. For Lensky, this is a necessary romantic attribute, which is why he chooses Olga, devoid of individuality, in which all the typical features of the heroines of sentimental novels have merged:
Her portrait, he is very nice,
I used to love him myself,
But he bothered me immensely.
For Onegin, love is "the science of tender passion." He learns the true feeling by the end of the novel, when the experience of suffering comes.
"Eugene Onegin" is a realistic work, and realism, unlike other artistic methods, does not imply any final and only correct solution to the main problem. On the contrary, it requires an ambiguous interpretation of this problem:
This is how nature created us,
It is inclined to contradiction.
The ability to reflect the "tendency" of human nature to "contradict", the complexity and variability of the identity of the individual in the world are the hallmarks of Pushkin's realism. The duality of the image of the author himself lies in the fact that he assesses his generation in its integrity, without ceasing to feel like a representative of a generation endowed with common advantages and disadvantages. Pushkin emphasizes this duality of self-awareness of the lyric hero of the novel: "We all learned a little ...", "We honor everyone with zeros ...", "We all look at Napoleons", "So people, I first repent, // There is nothing to do friends..."
The consciousness of a person, the system of his life values is largely formed by the moral laws adopted in society. The author himself assesses the influence of high society ambiguously. The first chapter gives a sharply satirical depiction of the light and pastime of the secular youth. The tragic 6th chapter, where the young poet dies, ends lyrical digression: the author's reflections on the age limit, which he is preparing to step over: "Can I really be thirty soon?" And he calls on the "young inspiration" to save the "poet's soul" from death, not to let "... turn to stone // In the deadening ecstasy of light, // In this pool, where I am with you // Swimming, dear friends!" So, a whirlpool that deadens the soul. But here's the 8th chapter:
And now I am a muse for the first time
I bring you to a social event.
She likes the order slim
Oligarchic conversations
And the coldness of calm pride,
And this mixture of ranks and years.
Very correctly explains this contradiction Yu.M. Lotman: "The image of light received double illumination: on the one hand, the world is soulless and mechanistic, it remained an object of condemnation, on the other, as a sphere in which Russian culture develops, life is inspired by the play of intellectual and spiritual forces, poetry, pride, like the world of Karamzin and the Decembrists, Zhukovsky and the author of "Eugene Onegin" himself, he retains unconditional value. Society is heterogeneous. It depends on the person himself, whether he accepts the moral laws of the faint-hearted majority or the best representatives of the world "(Lotman YM Roman A. Pushkin" Eugene Onegin ": Commentary. SPb., 1995).
The "faint-hearted majority", "friends" surrounding a person in a "deadening" "pool of light" do not appear in the novel by chance. Just as "the science of tender passion" became a caricature of true love, so a caricature of true friendship - secular friendship. "Friends have nothing to do" - this is the author's verdict to the friendship between Onegin and Lensky. Friendship without a deep spiritual community is just a temporary empty union. And this caricature of secular friendships enrages the author: "... save us from friends, God!" Compare the caustic lines about the "friends" slander in the fourth chapter of the novel with the heartfelt verses about the nanny (stanza XXXV):
But I am the fruit of my dreams
And harmonious undertakings
I only read to the old nanny,
To the friend of my youth ...
A full-fledged life is impossible without disinterested dedication in friendship - that is why these secular "friendships" are so terrible for the author. For in true friendship, betrayal is the most terrible sin that can not be justified by anything, in a secular parody of friendship, betrayal is in the order of things, normal. For the author, the inability to make friends is a terrible sign of the moral degradation of modern society.
But there is no friendship between us.
Destroying all prejudices,
We honor everyone with zeros
And in units - yourself.
We all look at Napoleons,
Millions of two-legged creatures
For us, the tool is one;
We feel wild and funny.
Let's pay attention to these verses, they are one of the most important, central in Russian literature of the XIX century. Pushkin's formula will form the basis of "Crime and Punishment", "War and Peace". The Napoleonic theme was first recognized and formulated by Pushkin as a problem of the goal of human life. Napoleon appears here not as a romantic image, but as a symbol of a psychological attitude, according to which a person, for the sake of his desires, is ready to suppress, destroy any obstacle: after all, the people around are only "two-legged creatures"!
The author himself sees the meaning of life in fulfilling his destiny. The entire novel is full of deep reflections on art, the image of the author in this sense is unambiguous: he is, first of all, a poet, his life is unthinkable outside creativity, outside of intense spiritual work.
In this, Eugene is directly opposite to him. And not at all because he does not plow and sow before our eyes. He has no need for work, in the search for his destiny. And Onegin's education, and his attempts to immerse himself in reading, and his wuxi
