The principle of compositional structure of the work of Eugene Onegin. Features of the composition of the novel by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". Mirror construction of the novel Eugene Onegin
The theme of the novel “Eugene Onegin” (1831) is a depiction of Russian life in the first quarter of the 19th century. V.G. Belinsky called this work “an encyclopedia of Russian life” (V.G. Belinsky “Works of A. Pushkin”, article 9), because Pushkin in his novel “knew how to touch on so much, hint about so much that belongs exclusively to the world of Russian nature, to the world of Russian society” (ibid.). The idea of “Eugene Onegin” is to evaluate the type of modern young man common in noble society, who cannot find a worthy application for his abilities in the life around him, since the life goals familiar to the noble circle do not suit him, they seem unworthy and petty. For this reason, such young people find themselves “superfluous” in society.
The plot of the novel is based on the love story of Evgeny Onegin and Tatyana Larina. Consequently, the plot of the plot will be their first meeting in the Larins’ house, where Onegin ends up by chance: he wanted to look at Olga, Lensky’s “object of love.” Moreover, the very scene of the first meeting of the main characters is not described in the novel: Onegin and Lensky talk about it, returning home from guests. From their conversation it is clear the impression that Tatyana made on the title character. Of the two sisters, he singled out Tatyana, noting the unusualness of her appearance and the mediocrity of Olga:
Olga has no life in her features.
Exactly like Vandice's Madonna.
She's round and red-faced... (3, V)
Tatyana fell in love with Onegin at first sight, as she admitted in her letter:
You barely walked in, I instantly recognized
Everything was stupefied, on fire
And in my thoughts I said: here he is! (3, XXXI)
The first meeting of Onegin and Tatyana occurs in the third chapter. This means that the first two chapters of the novel are an exposition of the plot, where the author talks in detail about the two main characters: their parents, relatives, teachers, their favorite activities, characters, habits. The climax of the plot is the explanation between Onegin and Tatiana in the garden, when the hero indifferently refuses the love of an extraordinary girl, and Tatiana loses all hopes of happiness. Later, having gained rich experience in the “whirlwind” of social life, the heroine realized that Eugene treated her nobly, and appreciated this act:
But you
I don't blame; at that terrible hour
You acted nobly
You were right with me. (8, ХLIII)
The second climax is the explanation of the main characters in St. Petersburg several years after the first. Now Tatyana, a brilliant society lady, continuing to love Onegin, refuses to respond to his fiery passion and scandalous proposal, and now Onegin, in turn, loses hope for happiness.
In addition to the main storyline - the love story of Onegin and Tatyana - Pushkin develops a side storyline - the story of the friendship of Onegin and Lensky. There is a plot here: two young educated noblemen, finding themselves in the wilderness of the village, quickly become acquainted, as Lensky
With Onegin I wished cordially
Let's make the acquaintance shorter.
They got along. (2, XIII)
The plot scheme of the friendship story can be built like this: the climax is Onegin’s behavior at Tatyana’s name day (his flirtation with Olga), the denouement is the duel of friends and the death of Lensky. The last event is at the same time a culmination, as it made Onegin, it seems for the first time in his life, “shudder” (6, XXXV).
The novel contains another side storyline - the love story of Lensky and Olga. In it, the author omits the plot, only mentioning in passing that a tender feeling was born in the hearts of young people a long time ago:
A little boy, captivated by Olga,
Having not yet known heartache,
He was a touched witness
Her infantile fun... (2, XXXI)
The culmination of this love story is the ball at Tatiana's name day, when Olga's character is fully revealed: a vain, proud and empty coquette, she does not understand that she is offending her groom with her behavior. Lensky's death unleashes not only the friendship storyline, but also the story of his short love.
From all that has been said above, it is clear that both the main and secondary storylines are constructed quite simply, but the composition of the novel itself is extremely complex.
Analyzing the main storyline, several features should be noted. The first of them is a rather lengthy exposition: it consists of two chapters out of eight. Why does Pushkin describe in such detail the development of the characters of the main characters - Onegin and Tatyana? It can be assumed that the actions of both heroes were understandable to readers, in order to most fully express the idea of the novel - the image of an intelligent but useless person who is wasting his life.
The second feature is that the main storyline has no resolution. After all, after the final stormy explanation with Onegin, Tatyana leaves her room, and the hero remains in place, shocked by her words. And then
Spurs suddenly rang out,
And Tatyana’s husband showed up... (8, ХLVIII)
Thus, the action ends mid-sentence: the husband finds Onegin at an inopportune hour in his wife’s room. What might he think? How will the plot turn next? Pushkin does not explain anything, but states:
And here is my hero
In a moment that is evil for him,
Reader, we will now leave,
For a long time... forever. (8, ХLVIII)
Contemporaries often reproached the author for such an ending and considered the lack of a definite outcome a disadvantage. Pushkin responded to this criticism in a humorous passage “In my autumn leisure time...” (1835):
What you say is true
Which is strange, even discourteous
Don't stop interrupting the romance,
Having already sent it to print,
What should your hero
Anyway, get married,
At least kill...
From the above lines it follows that Pushkin’s decision to interrupt the affair was quite conscious. What does such an unusual ending provide for understanding the content of the work?
Onegin's husband, relative and friend, seeing the hero in his wife's room, can challenge him to a duel, and Onegin already had a duel that turned his whole life upside down. In other words, Onegin literally finds himself in a vicious circle of events; not only his love story is built on the principle of “mirror reflection” (G.A. Gukovsky), but also his relationships with friends. The novel has no end, that is, it is built according to a circular composition: the action begins and ends in St. Petersburg, in the spring, the hero never finds love, and once again neglects friendship (courts his friend’s wife). This compositional structure successfully corresponds to the main idea of the novel: to show the hopeless, worthless life of the title character, who himself suffers from his uselessness, but cannot get out of the vicious circle of an empty life and find himself a serious occupation. V.G. Belinsky completely agreed with this end of the novel, asking the question: “What happened to Onegin later?” And he himself answers: “We don’t know, and why should we know this when we know that the powers of this rich nature are left without application, life without meaning, and the novel without end?” (V.G. Belinsky “Works of A. Pushkin”, article 8).
The third feature of the composition is the presence of several plot lines in the novel. The love story of Lensky and Olga gives the author the opportunity to compare the main characters with the secondary ones. Tatyana knows how to love “in earnest” (3, XXV), and Olga quickly consoled herself after Lensky’s death and married a lancer. The disappointed Onegin is depicted next to the dreamy, in love Lensky, who has not yet lost interest in life.
All three storylines are successfully intertwined: the climax-denouement in the story of friendship (duel) becomes at the same time the denouement in the love story of the young poet and Olga. Thus, in three storylines there are only two beginnings (in the main and in the friendship story), three climaxes (two in the main and one (ball) for two side) and one denouement (the same in the side storylines).
The fourth feature of the composition is the presence of inserted episodes that are not directly related to the development of the plot: Tatyana’s dream, Lensky’s poems, the girls’ song and, of course, numerous lyrical digressions. These episodes further complicate the composition, but do not drag out the action of the novel too much. It should be especially noted that lyrical digressions are the most important component of the work, because it is thanks to them that the novel creates the broadest picture of Russian life of the specified historical period and the image of the author, the third main character of the novel, is formed.
To summarize, we note that the novel “Eugene Onegin” in the history of Russian literature was innovative both from the point of view of describing life (a realistic depiction of reality) and from the point of view of creating the character of the title character (the image of Pushkin’s contemporary, the “superfluous man”). The deep ideological content was expressed in an original form: Pushkin used a ring composition, “mirror reflection” - repetition of the main plot episodes, and omitted the final denouement. In other words, the result is a “free novel” (8, L), in which several plot lines are skillfully intertwined and there are digressions of various types (inserted episodes more or less closely related to the plot; humorous and serious discussions of the author about everything in the world).
The construction of “Eugene Onegin” cannot be called logically flawless. This applies not only to the lack of a formal resolution in the novel. Strictly speaking, several years must pass between the events described in the seventh and eighth chapters until Tatyana turns from a provincial young lady into a society lady. Initially, Pushkin decided to fill these few years with Onegin’s travels around Russia (chapter “Onegin’s Travels”), but later placed them in an appendix to the novel, as a result of which the logic of the plot was broken. Both friends and critics pointed out this formal shortcoming to the author, but Pushkin ignored these comments:
There are a lot of contradictions
But I don’t want to fix them. (1, LX)
The author very accurately called his work “a collection of motley chapters” (introduction): it reflected real life, organized not according to the strict laws of logic, but rather according to the theory of probability. However, the novel, following real life, has lost neither dynamism, nor artistic integrity, nor completeness.
The genre of “Eugene Onegin” is a novel in verse, that is, a lyric-epic work where the lyrical and epic are equal, where the author freely moves from narration to lyrical digressions. Thus, the genre of “free novel” largely determined the composition of “Eugene Onegin”.
There are two in the novel storylines:
1. Onegin - Tatiana:
Acquaintance - evening at the Larins':
The time has come, she fell in love...
Conversation with Nobody, Letter to Onegin.
Two days later there is an explanation in the garden.
Tatiana's dream. Name day.
Tatyana comes to Onegin's house.
Departure for Moscow.
Meeting at a ball in St. Petersburg two years later.
Evening at Tatiana's.
There is no doubt, alas! Evgeniy
In love with Tatiana like a child...
Letter to Tatiana. Explanation.
2. Onegin - Lensky:
Dating in the village:
First by mutual difference
They were boring to each other:
Then I liked it; Then
We came together every day on horseback
And soon they became inseparable.
Conversation after the evening at the Larins’:
Are you really in love with the smaller one?
I would choose another
If only I were like you, a poet.
Tatiana's name day:
Swore to enrage Lensky
And take some revenge.
Two bullets - nothing more -
Suddenly his fate will be resolved.
Composition:
Chapter 1 is a detailed exposition.
Chapter 2 - the beginning of the second storyline (Onegin’s acquaintance with Lensky).
Chapter 3 - the beginning of the first storyline (Onegin’s acquaintance with Tatyana).
Chapter 6 - duel (culmination and denouement of the 2nd line).
Chapter 8 - interchange of the 1st line.
The openness of the novel- an important compositional feature.
The unusual outcome - the lack of certainty - Lensky's two paths:
Perhaps he is for the good of the world
Or at least he was born for glory...
Or maybe even that; poet
The ordinary one was waiting for his fate...
I line interchange:
And here is my hero,
In a moment that is evil for him,
Reader, we will now leave,
For a long time... forever.
Basic principle of novel organization- this is symmetry (mirrority) and parallelism. Symmetry expressed in the repetition of one plot situation in the third and eighth chapters; meeting - letter - explanation.
At the same time, Onegin and Tatyana seem to change roles, not only in the external scheme, but also in Pushkin’s transmission of it; in the first case the author is with Tatyana, in the second - with Onegin. “Today it’s my turn,” says Tatyana, comparing two love stories. Tatiana's integrity is contrasted with Onegin's nature.
Onegin says exactly the opposite things during his first explanation with Tatyana and in his letter:
But I'm not made for bliss
My soul is alien to him.
Your perfections are in vain;
I'm not worthy of them at all...
Freeze in agony before you
To turn pale and fade away... that's bliss!
And Tatyana remains true to herself;
I love you (why lie?)...
Two letters, the composition of which is in turn parallel - waiting for a response - the recipient's reaction - two explanations.
Petersburg plays a framing role (appears in chapters 1 and 8).
The axis of symmetry is Tatyana’s dream (chapter 5).
The antithesis of the parts of the novel, associated primarily with the disclosure of one or another image:
Chapter 1 - Petersburg - the life of Onegin.
Chapter 2 - village - Tatiana's life.
The main compositional unit of the novel- head. Each new chapter is a new stage in the development of the plot. A stanza is a smaller, but also complete unit, always marking a new stage in the development of thought.
The compositional role of lyrical digressions:
1. Usually lyrical digressions are related to the plot of the novel. Tatiana Pushkin contrasts with secular beauties:
I knew unattainable beauties,
Cold, clean like winter,
Relentless, incorruptible,
Incomprehensible to the mind...
2. Different sizes of lyrical digressions - from one line (“Like Delvig drunk at a feast”) to several stanzas (Chapter I, LVII-LX).
3. Often lyrical digressions end or begin a chapter.
Beginning of Chapter Eight:
In those days when in the gardens of the Lyceum
I blossomed serenely...
End of Chapter One:
Go to the banks of the Neva,
Newborn creation
And earn me a tribute of glory;
Crooked talk, noise and swearing!
4. Lyrical digressions are used to transition from “one narrative plan to another.
Now we have something wrong with the subject;
We better hurry to the ball,
Where to headlong in a Yamsk carriage
My Onegin has already galloped.
5. Lyrical digressions appear before the climax of the action:
Before the explanation with Onegin;
Before Tatyana goes to bed;
Before the duel.
That's all it meant, friends;
I'm shooting with a friend.
The compositional role of the landscape. Shows the passage of time in the novel. Characterizes the spiritual world of heroes; often accompanies the image of Tatiana.
The role of plug-in elements:
1. The letters are not written in Onegin’s stanza, which emphasizes their independent role in the novel and correlates with each other.
2. Tatiana’s dream is the axis of symmetry of the novel, a parody of the guests. It foreshadows future events and in a sense represents the author's position.
3. Folklore elements accompany the image of Tatiana. They are given before turning points in her fate:
The girls' song - before the explanation with Onegin;
The dream is before the name day and the duel between Onegin and Lensky.
The compositional role of the novel's internal time. The novel's time does not always correspond to the real passage of time, although certain milestones (for example, the change of seasons) also indicate real time in Eugene Onegin.
In the village, time stands almost still; Six months pass between Tatiana and Onegin’s explanation and the duel.
The compositional role of household items: new things mark a new stage in the hero’s life and, accordingly, in the organization of the novel.
The author's attitude to composition. Despite the clarity of the composition, it seems that the author treats it lightly and carelessly - the poet skips events in the lives of the heroes, lines, stanzas, omits an entire chapter (“Onegin’s Travels” leaves the denouement open. All this corresponds to the principles of the lyrics. Pushkin asserts the author’s the right to freely construct a free novel.
A.S. Pushkin begins writing the novel “Eugene Onegin” in 1823. At that time the poet was in southern exile. Researchers call this period romantic: Pushkin is interested in Byron’s work, which is reflected in his own poetry.
But “Eugene Onegin” is far from a romantic work. Pushkin wanted to show in his novel a young man typical of his time, which was impossible to do with Byron’s means. The hero in the works of romanticism is shrouded in mystery, while in real life the origin of many of his traits was quite clear to Pushkin. But the originality of the novel is due not only to this: the author himself developed and improved, and he used many of his literary discoveries in the creation of this work.
The novel “Eugene Onegin” turned out to be complex and ambiguous, since not only the image of the main character became new; The author's innovation was evident both in the genre and in the composition of the work.
“I am now writing not a novel, but a novel in verse: a devilish difference,” - this is how Pushkin defined the genre of “Eugene Onegin” in a letter to Vyazemsky. The novel as an epic work presupposes the author’s detachment from the events described and objectivity in their assessment; the poetic form enhances the lyrical principle associated with the personality of the creator.
And indeed: in the novel “Eugene Onegin” there are two artistic layers, two worlds - the world of “epic” heroes (Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky and other characters) and the world of the author, reflected in lyrical digressions. Their topics are very diverse and include the poet’s memoirs, his assessment of the novel’s characters, and polemics with literary opponents. So, in one of the digressions, Pushkin writes about women’s legs (“...Diana’s breasts, Flora’s cheeks / Are lovely, dear friends! / However, Terpsichore’s leg / Is somehow more charming for me...”), in another - about romantic literary heroes (“Lord Byron, with a successful whim / Cloaked in sad romanticism / And hopeless selfishness ...”, in the third - about secular conventions, which sometimes, with all their absurdity, can become the reason for the murder of a person (“Enemies!.. / They are in silence for each other / Preparing death in cold blood ... / Shouldn’t they laugh until / their hand is stained, / Shouldn’t they part amicably?.. / But wildly secular enmity / Afraid of false shame.”). In lyrical digressions, the poet gives a broad picture of modern life, expanding the boundaries of the work of art and giving its plot realism and plausibility.
This also gives the right to call “Eugene Onegin” a social novel, since in it Pushkin shows noble Russia in the 20s of the 19th century, compares secular St. Petersburg people with simple landowners: their morals, interests, habits - and seeks to explain various social phenomena. For example, the poet determines the difference between the characters of secular nobles and landowners by the latter’s closeness to old Russian culture and to simple nature, and the boredom of St. Petersburg young people (using the example of Onegin) to satiety with the tawdry and empty life of high society, as well as the inability to find their place in society, self-realization in a field that interests them.
“Eugene Onegin” is also a social novel with a love storyline, common for works of that time: the “tall” hero, tired of the world, goes to travel, meets a girl who falls in love with him, and the hero either cannot love her for mysterious reasons - then everything ends tragically, or she reciprocates, but circumstances prevent them from being together - but everything ends well. It is noteworthy that Pushkin deprives the story of a romantic shade: Onegin goes to the village because he must receive an inheritance, and he not only does not share Tatyana’s love, but also does not see depth and seriousness in the girl’s feelings. Thus, the plot of the novel is given obvious realism.
But such an “everyday” story would be uninteresting if not for Pushkin’s psychological mastery. The poet does not simply describe events from the life of an ordinary nobleman; he gives the hero a bright and at the same time typical character for secular society, explains the origin of his apathy and boredom, and the reasons for his actions. His hero changes under the influence of life circumstances and becomes capable of real, serious feelings. And let happiness pass him by, this often happens in real life, but he loves, he worries - that’s why the image of Onegin (not a conventionally romantic, but a real, living hero) so struck Pushkin’s contemporaries. Many found his traits in themselves and in their acquaintances, as well as the traits of other characters in the novel - Tatyana, Lensky, Olga - the depiction of typical people of that era was so faithful.
But typicality was manifested not only in the choice of characters: Pushkin places his heroes in ordinary, one might even say, banal circumstances. After all, girls of that time often fell in love with at least somewhat strange young men, hoping to find in them heroes of sentimental novels, and secular people rarely married the daughters of poor landowners. The reason for this was, naturally, the very structure of Russian society: marriages for love were very rare. And, as you know, typical heroes in typical circumstances, suffering from socially determined problems, are the main subject of depiction by realistic writers. Thus, “Eugene Onegin” is a realistic socio-psychological novel.
To create such a work, it was necessary to abandon not only the standard content, but also to change the very composition of the novel. Thus, Pushkin abandons some traditional elements, such as an introduction with an address to the muse (at the end of the seventh chapter there is a parody of it: “Yes, by the way, there are two words about that: / I sing to a young friend / And his many quirks. / Bless me long work, / O you, epic muse! / And, handing me the faithful staff, / Don’t let me wander at random and at odd angles...”), the denouement of the conflict (in this novel there is a realistic “open ending”: the author leaves the hero “in an angry moment.” for him,” after an explanation with Tatyana before the appearance of her husband, and it is unclear how this unambiguous scene will end), a depiction of a number of important events from the point of view of the development of the action (Tatiana’s wedding, Olga’s reaction to Lensky’s death, etc.). Pushkin does this in order to emphasize the verisimilitude of the story told: in real life there are no introductions or epilogues, some events remain unknown to us, but we continue to live on, as Onegin, Tatyana and other heroes of the novel do after its completion.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that each literary work has its own structure, its own special construction. Thus, the plot of the novel is constructed according to the principle of artistic symmetry. It has a “mirror” structure: in the center is the scene of Lensky’s murder, and individual episodes and details are parallel in pairs. In the first part of the work, Onegin travels to the village from the city and Tatyana falls in love with him, writes a letter of recognition, and he only reads instructions to the “humble girl”; in the second part - Tatyana comes from the village to the capital, where she meets Onegin as a married lady, and Eugene falls in love with her, in turn, writes her a letter, and she refuses him and also reproaches him: “What about your heart and mind / To be a slave to petty feelings? Some details also echo: the description of Onegin’s village and city offices, the books he reads in the city and village, the images that appear in Tatyana’s dream (the monster among whom Eugene appears, killing Lensky), correlated with the image of the guests at her name day and subsequent events related to the duel. The novel also has a “ring” structure: it begins and ends with a depiction of the hero’s life in St. Petersburg.
The character system also has an orderly structure. The main principle of its construction is antithesis. For example, Onegin is contrasted with Lensky (as a Byronic hero - a romantic dreamer), and Tatyana (as a metropolitan dandy - a simple Russian girl), and high society (although he is a typical young man, but already tired of empty entertainment), and his neighbors - to landowners (as an aristocrat with metropolitan habits - to rural landowners). Tatyana is contrasted with both Olga (the latter is too empty and frivolous compared to the heroine, who “loves seriously”), and the Moscow young ladies (they tell her about their “heart secrets,” fashion, outfits, while Tatyana is focused on her solitary inner life - “thoughtfulness is her friend”, she loves reading, walking in nature, and she is not at all interested in fashion). It is very important to note that the author contrasts and compares shades and details of the same qualities (which is also typical for real life), these are not classicist or romantic literary clichés: good - evil, vicious - virtuous, banal - original, etc. An example is the Larina sisters: both Olga and Tatyana are natural, sweet girls who fell in love with brilliant young men. But Olga easily exchanges one love for another, although quite recently she was Lensky’s bride, and Tatyana loves one Onegin all her life, even after getting married and finding herself in high society.
The authenticity of what is happening in the novel is also emphasized by inserting text that is foreign to the author’s: letters from Tatyana and Onegin, songs of girls, poems by Lensky. Some of them are distinguished by a different stanza (written not in the “Onegin stanza”), have a separate title, which not only stands out from the general text of the novel, but also gives it a “documentary” quality.
It is also necessary to say how Pushkin uses the division into chapters and stanzas. Firstly, he uses numerous omissions (spaces), either meaningfully hinting at something, or dividing the text by topic, or thereby indicating a time period. For example, in stanza III of the third chapter, dots replace a lengthy description of the usual refreshments for guests in a landowner's house (it was preserved in the manuscript). Pushkin only briefly notes the “heavy services / Of hospitable antiquity,” and already in stanza 1U we see Lensky and Onegin traveling back home.
Pushkin also very skillfully interrupts chapters, leaving the characters unexpectedly and without destroying the plan of the work: each chapter is devoted to a specific topic, such as, for example, the fourth chapter - Onegin’s refusal, Tatyana’s misfortune and the mutual love of her sister, and the fifth - name day. This allows, on the one hand, to place unique authorial accents, on the other, to interest readers (after all, the novel was first published in separate chapters as they were written), and on the third, to challenge literary conventions: “I’ll finish it later somehow,” says Pushkin , interrupting chapter III “at the most interesting place”: Tatyana’s meeting with Onegin after he received a letter declaring his love.
As we can see, the rejection of old methods and the search for new ways of depicting reality (the romantics also painted reality, only “exotic”, almost impossible in ordinary life) was reflected in almost everything: the composition of the plot, the love story itself, the characters, and their description – everything was different, innovative. Pushkin’s artistic discoveries indicated the direction of all subsequent Russian literature, and the novel “Eugene Onegin” became the first realistic work in its history.
The novel "Eugene Onegin" is a genre that has no analogues in world literature - a novel in verse. Pushkin gave a genre definition to his work in a letter to Vyazemsky in 1823: “As for my studies, I am now writing not a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference! Like Don Juan." A novel in verse is a rare literary form that combines a novel plot, which is a feature of the epic genre of literature, and its presentation in poetic speech. This genre-style organization of a literary work is close to a great poem; it is no coincidence that Pushkin compares his manuscript with Byron’s poem “Don Juan” (1818-1823). The concept of “Eugene Onegin” was also influenced by another poem by Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” (1812-1818). In Byron Pushkin's poems, he was attracted by the types of heroes, as well as the problems and large form. However, unlike the works of Byron and other European poems, Eugene Onegin is a novel.
A poem is a work with a narrative plot set out against the background of lyrical experiences, which are presented in the text in the form of lengthy lyrical digressions, songs and other inserted elements. A poem, as a rule, has a poetic form. The genre of the poem has changed throughout the development of literature: epic ancient poems, medieval poems, and Renaissance poems are distinguished. The genre of the poem flourished at the beginning of the 19th century during the era of romanticism. The poems of that period were dominated by socio-philosophical and moral-philosophical issues. “Eugene Onegin” contains obvious features of a poem, which is why the poet’s contemporaries often called the work a poem. Firstly, the work is replete with author’s digressions, which in some cases are lyrical in nature. Secondly, the novel includes fragments of other genres, such as epistolary, elegiac and folklore. The text of the novel contains two letters; in chapter three, Tatyana Larina writes a letter to Onegin, revealing her feelings to him. In chapter eight, the plot situation is repeated, but now Onegin, tormented by love, confesses it to Tatyana, a stately society lady, a princess, but for Onegin - a former district young lady who once fell in love with him. Before the duel between Onegin and Lensky, Pushkin inserts Lensky’s elegy into the text of the novel, which conveys the feelings of the young poet on the last night of his life and which is intended to express the highest degree of dreamy romanticism, which by that time was already leaving the literary stage. And finally, in chapter three, the description of the confused feelings of young Tatiana, running away from a meeting with Onegin, is interrupted by the perky song of peasant girls picking berries in the garden.
However, these genre digressions are closely related to the plot; they, like other elements of the plot, constitute its integral part and cannot be considered as inserted works, as is the case in the poem. As for the author's digressions, they are also not divorced from the plot; there is not a single text episode in which the author writes about something completely abstract, unrelated to the main narrative, be it the characteristics of the hero, time, literature, history, or even the state of the roads. The plot and digressions form a single narrative space in which the picture of Russia of that time is depicted.
The question inevitably arises: why did Pushkin prefer the poetic form of the novel? The explanation that Pushkin was first and foremost a poet is not enough. Pushkin collected small and medium forms of Russian poetry and combined them for a broad depiction of Russian reality. But the literary language of prose was still in its formation stage, and Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontov contributed to its further development in the 1830s.
The originality of the plot and composition of the novel "Eugene Onegin"
The plot basis of the work is the image of Russian life and nature. The depiction of the life of Russian society is focused on the life of the nobility, morals and culture of St. Petersburg, Moscow and the provinces. A description of St. Petersburg life occupies chapters one and eight; Moscow is shown in the second part of chapter seven; The main part of the novel is devoted to the Russian village. It is in chapters two through seven that the reader is immersed in local, landowner life, observes episodes of peasant labor and life, feels surrounded by the beauty of Russian nature - in the novel, every event is accompanied by its descriptions. In the notes to his work, Pushkin wrote that in the novel “time is calculated according to the calendar,” indicating with this remark the fusion of literary time in it (that is, time within the work) and real, historical time. This is the leading principle of constructing the plot of a novel: everything that happens in it is not just connected with each other, but also happens as in reality itself.
The novel has two main plot lines: the Onegin-Lensky relationship line (the theme of friendship) and the Onegin-Tatyana relationship line (the theme of love). Complementary to the love line is the relationship between Lensky and Olga, but they should not be considered an independent storyline, since they serve to deeper depict the theme of love in the novel. Both main plot lines are distributed unevenly in the novel. The beginning of the line “Onegin - Lensky” occurs in chapter two, and it is immediately shown as conflicting:
They got along. Wave and stone
Poetry and prose, ice and fire
Not so different from each other.
A conflict emerges after friends visit the Larins. The climax of the conflict occurs at the end of chapter five, when the heroes quarrel. The duel between Onegin and Lensky and the death of the latter mark the end of the conflict.
The beginning of the main conflict between Onegin and Tatyana is described in the scene where the heroes meet at the beginning of chapter three. The meeting itself is not shown in the text, but the impressions of the characters after it are depicted: Onegin’s immediate reaction is given during Onegin and Lensky’s trip home, and in the following stanzas Tatyana’s experiences and the blossoming of her feelings are shown. There are two identical love situations in the novel, both consisting of four components: meeting, falling in love, a letter and an oral response; the characters in them change places: in chapters three and four, Tatyana's love is depicted, in chapter eight - Onegin. It is obvious that Pushkin completed Onegin’s letter to Tatiana in 1831 in order to make these situations identical and create a “mirroring” effect between them: they are reflected in each other, as in a mirror, immersing the reader in endless contemplation of the mystery of love. The composition of the love line between Onegin and Tatiana was called mirror. Two features of this line can be noted: on the one hand, it develops from the meeting to the parting of the heroes, like a mirror standing between them; these events are also shared by chapter five, which describes Tatyana’s dream and the scene of her name day. On the other hand, Tatiana’s love, described at the beginning, at the end seems to be “reflected” in Onegin’s love.
The first two chapters of the novel are expositional for the love storyline; they are written on the principle of stylistic antithesis: the first chapter shows the birth of Onegin, his upbringing and education, the time spent in secular society - the formation of the character of the hero. Chapter two is devoted to a description of the rural province; Pushkin pays a lot of attention to the characterization of Lensky, who came from Germany after studying at the University of Göttingen, but the central place in the chapter is given to the readers’ acquaintance with Tatyana.
In addition to the composition of the plot, the following compositional elements of the novel are noted: the chapter, which is the main compositional unit of the work, the stanza, the minimum narrative unit (it is necessary to take into account unfinished and missing stanzas, which are nevertheless marked with numbers); dedication; epigraphs to the novel and to each chapter, alternating plot narration and author’s digressions. Each of these elements is not a random feature of the composition; each of them plays an ideological and semantic role. For example, the epigraph to the entire novel is an excerpt from a private letter written in French. The source of this epigraph has not been established; the author seems to be mystifying the reader: why is this epigraph needed? Taking a closer look at its content, we understand that it is about the oddities of a modern hero. This is how the novel's problems are outlined:
“Imbued with vanity, he also possessed that special pride that prompts him to admit with equal indifference both his good and bad deeds - a consequence of a sense of superiority, perhaps imaginary. From a private letter (French)."
Onegin's stanza, in addition to other advantages, helps, for example, to achieve expressiveness of the narrative or to smoothly transition from the plot part to digressions and back.
Source (abbreviated): Moskvin G.V. Literature: 9th grade: in 2 hours. Part 2 / G.V. Moskvin, N.N. Puryaeva, E.L. Erokhin. - M.: Ventana-Graf, 2016
"Eugene Onegin" as a novel in verse. Features of genre and composition
“As for my studies, I Pushkin sought to create a satiated, dissatisfied and bored hero, indifferent to life and its joys - a real hero of the time, infected with the “disease of the century” - boredom. But at the same time, the author did not just strive to show the characteristic features of boredom, he wanted to find out its source, that is, where it comes from. Realizing that the genre of a romantic poem presupposes a static character of the hero, Pushkin deliberately abandons it in favor of the novel - a genre within which the dynamics of the development of the hero's character can be shown.
Pushkin builds the composition of a “free novel”, in the center of which is the figure of the author, who organizes relationships not only with the characters, but also with the readers. The novel is written in the form of a conversation between the author and the reader, hence the impression that it is being written in front of the reader’s eyes, making the latter a direct participant in all events.
The genre of “Eugene Onegin” - a novel in verse - presupposes the presence of two artistic principles - lyrical and epic. The first is connected with the author’s world and his personal experiences and manifests itself in lyrical digressions; the second assumes the objectivity of the narrative and the author’s detachment from the events described in the novel and represents the world of epic heroes.
In a prose novel, the main thing is the hero and what happens to him. And in a poetic work, the compositional core is the poetic form itself and the image of the author. In Eugene Onegin, as in a novel in verse, there is a combination of the constructive principles of prose (deformation of sound through the role of meaning) and poetry (deformation of meaning through the role of sound).
The poetic form determined both the composition and the features of the plot in Eugene Onegin. A special type of stanza - the Onegin stanza - was invented by Pushkin specifically for this work. It is a slightly modified sonnet structure: fourteen lines of iambic tetrameter with a specific rhyme scheme. In the first quatrain (quatrain) the rhyme is cross, in the second it is paired, and in the third it is encircling. Schematically, it looks like this: AbAb CCdd EffE gg (capital letters indicate feminine rhyme, that is, the stress falls on the penultimate syllable of rhyming words, and lowercase letters indicate masculine rhyme, in which the stress falls on the last syllable of rhyming words).
Speaking about the composition of the work, it is important to note two points. Firstly, it is symmetrical (its center is Tatiana’s dream in the fifth chapter), and secondly, it is closed (the action began in the spring of 1820 in St. Petersburg and ended there five years later). There are two storylines in the novel - a friendship line and a love line, and the second is mirrored: in the third chapter, Tatyana writes a letter to Onegin and understands that her feelings are not mutual, and in the eighth they change roles.
Also important for understanding the composition of the work are landscape sketches, with the help of which the author helps the reader to delve deeper into the essence of the experiences of his characters and emphasizes the features of their characters. For example, the contrast between Onegin and Tatyana is more clearly visible in the example of the heroes’ attitude to rural nature.
