The “abundance” of lyrical digressions in such important, perhaps central, works of two writers - Pushkin and Gogol - is explained by many general features, and some differences. Let's try to trace these similarities and differences and understand the place of lyrical digressions in each of the works.
The possibility of lyrical digressions was stated by both Pushkin and Gogol in the genre. “Eugene Onegin” is not just a novel, but a novel in verse (“the devilish difference!”), Pushkin especially emphasizes the combination of the epic and lyrical genres. His novel in verse is not only a story about the lives of the heroes, but also lyrical work, filled with the author's individuality.
The same thing happens in the prose “poem” (this is how Gogol defines his creation) “ Dead Souls" After all, in fact, this is not only the story of Chichikov’s adventure, but a song about Russia, Gogol’s deeply personal thoughts and experiences.
With the help of lyrical digressions, Pushkin introduces his era with its way of life into the artistic fabric of the novel (almost the entire first chapter), real people, which the reader could not help but recognize (“Fonvizin, friend of freedom”, “the overbearing Prince”, “Ozerov with young Semyonova”, “our Katenin”, “prickly Shakhovskoy” and many others). This is the important role of lyrical digressions - expansion artistic space, what makes “Onegin” “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” Having grabbed onto some detail, Pushkin complements and enlivens it with his personal perception, a wave of associations that create the impression of complete authenticity. Lyrical digressions of this kind are similar to live communication between the author and his heroes; Pushkin’s reaction is so immediate: as soon as Onegin goes to the ball, the poet already exclaims:
In the days of fun and desires, I was crazy about balls...
Then he launches into such long discussions about ladies’ legs (“Oh, legs, legs! Where are you now?..”) that later he has to apologize to the reader:
At the beginning of my novel
(See the first notebook)...
I started remembering
About the legs of ladies I know.
It's time for me to become smarter
Get better in business and style,
And this fifth notebook
Clear away from deviations.
But still lyrical digressions occupy most of novel, and since their essential role is to introduce the author, Pushkin himself, into the novel, he actually turns out to be the main character, and what the reader learns about him is perhaps more important for Pushkin than the entire story of Onegin and Tatyana. Increasingly, he turns to his own experiences:
Even though I'm heartfelt
I love my hero
At least I'll come back to him, of course,
But now I have no time for him.
But more on that later, let’s now turn to Gogol. For him, the role of “everyday” Pushkin’s digressions is played by detailed comparisons - “ladders”, in which Gogol, starting from a small detail, goes far beyond the plot, however, for Gogol these are most often random, unmotivated branches of the road of his poem “male, round” , a wide face, like Moldavian pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas are made in Rus', two-stringed light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of an agile twenty-year-old guy...”, etc. But main topic poems are Russia, and all the lyrical digressions at least briefly touch upon, develop this theme, even in the given passage: “from which they are made in Rus'... Gogol’s lyrical digressions, like Pushkin’s, serve to expand artistic space, consciousness complete image Rus' - from everyday details of generalization: “There was peace famous family, for the hotel was also of a certain kind, that is, exactly the same as hotels are in provincial cities...”, etc.) to large-scale images of a bird-troika, filled with philosophical content. As for everyday details that become the subject of the author’s irony, this is also found in Pushkin:
When good things are illuminated
Let's push more boundaries,
Over time (according to calculation
Philosophical tables,
Five hundred years from now)
Roads, right?
You will change immensely...
Now our roads are bad,
Forgotten bridges are rotting...
etc. That’s why the roads are the second the most important topic“Dead Souls”, related to the theme of Russia. The road is an image that organizes the entire plot, and Gogol introduces himself into lyrical digressions as a man of the road. “Before, long ago, in the years of my youth... I was It’s fun to drive up to an unfamiliar place for the first time... Now I indifferently drive up to any unfamiliar village and indifferently look at its vulgar appearance; It’s unpleasant to my chilled gaze, it’s not funny to me... and my motionless lips keep an indifferent silence. Oh my youth! O my conscience!”
At the end of Chapter VI of the novel, Pushkin also says goodbye to his youth:
Dreams, dreams! where is your sweetness?
Where is the eternal rhyme for it, youth?
Am I really going to be thirty soon?
However, Pushkin’s mood is completely different; he is not characterized by Gogol’s gloomy melancholy; he accepts everything that happens to him, that fate sends him, calmly:
But so be it: let’s say goodbye together,
Oh my easy youth!
Thank you for the pleasures
For sadness, for the present torment...
For everything, all your gifts
Thank you... That's enough!
With a clear soul
I'm now setting out on a new path
Take a break from your past life.
Pushkin in lyrical digressions- a living person with his own destiny, thoughts and memories. And he builds relationships with his heroes as with living people. Surrounded by many literary “models” (Clarice, Julia, Delphine, Wolmar, Werther, Grandison), they turn out to be none of them (“But our hero, whoever he was, was certainly not Grandison”). Pushkin’s discussions about literature, its various directions are very interesting: classicism, which Pushkin makes fun of, romanticism, which he moves away from, feeling that it is outdated. All this is written not entirely seriously, in a humorous tone:
Your own syllable in an important mood,
Used to be a fiery creator
He showed us his hero
Like a sample of perfection.
This is similar to Gogol’s reasoning about different “types” of writers: “Happy is the writer who, past boring, disgusting characters... without touching the ground, completely plunged into his own images, far removed from it and exalted... There is no one equal to him in strength - he God! But this is not the fate of the writer who dared to call out everything that is every minute before the eyes and which indifferent eyes do not see... For modern court does not recognize that glass that looks at the suns and conveys the movement of unnoticed insects is equally wonderful... Its harshness field, and he will bitterly feel his loneliness.” Gogol considers himself precisely the latter “type.” At the end of his poem, he responds to possible accusations “from the so-called patriots,” demanding that everything said about Russia be equally laudable, good, sublime, the parable of Kif Mokievich and Mokiya Kifovich, accusing “those who think not about not doing bad, but so that they don’t say that they are doing bad.” At the same time, Gogol also speaks of “connoisseurs of literature” who have their own idea of the purpose of writing (“It’s better to present to us the beautiful, the fascinating”). Gogol is disappointed in his readers in advance: “But it’s not so hard that they will not be happy with the hero, it’s hard because there is an irresistible confidence in the soul that the same hero... would be satisfied with the readers.”
Pushkin addresses the reader in a completely different way:
Whoever you are, oh my reader,
Friend, foe, I want to be with you
To part now as friends.
Sorry. Why would you follow me
Here I was not looking for careless stanzas...
God grant that in this book you...
Although I could find a grain.
We'll part ways for this, sorry!
Well, Pushkin’s finale:
Many, many days have passed
Since young Tatiana
And Onegin is with her in a vague dream
Appeared to me for the first time -
And the distance of a free romance
Me through a magic crystal
I haven’t yet clearly distinguished -
reminiscent of Gogol’s: “And for a long time it was determined for me by the wonderful power to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes, to look around at the whole enormous rushing life, to look at it through laughter visible to the world and invisible, unknown to him tears!”
So, lyrical digressions are a very important part of both works. In “Eugene Onegin” they introduce the true protagonist of the novel - Pushkin, a man of his era, surrounded by its attributes and signs. Gogol in his poem appears primarily as a thinker and contemplator, trying to unravel the mysterious bird-three - Rus' (“Aren’t you, too, Rus', that lively, unstoppable threesome Are you rushing?.. Rus'! where are you going? give me the answer. Doesn’t give an answer.” Lyrical digressions in “ Dead souls” are often deeper and more philosophically serious than Pushkin’s. But, although from different sides, both writers solve the same problem: both Pushkin and Gogol paint a very broad, three-dimensional picture Russian life of his time, supplementing it with his own judgments and author’s individuality, and main role This is where lyrical digressions play a role.
Historical digressions in the novel “Eugene Onegin”
“First of all, let’s re-read the epigraphs of Dmitriev, Baratynsky and Griboedov. (11, p. 181) They outline the main theme of the seventh chapter -- Moscow theme, where Pushkin transfers the action of the novel. The epigraphs indicate that the poet looks at Moscow not as a second capital, but as a beloved Russian city, with the greatest strength and completeness personifying the Motherland, the focus of one love, and bows to the great role in the history of the Russian state.” (7, p. .15)
G. Belinsky wrote: “The first half of the 7th chapter... somehow especially stands out from everything with its depth of feeling and marvelously beautiful verses.
Here Pushkin talks about the future of Russia, about future roads, and talks about the present ones. It feels like it was him who said that there are two troubles in Rus': fools and roads.
“...(Five hundred years later) roads, right,
Ours will change immensely:
The Russian highway is here and here,
Having connected, they will cross,
Cast iron bridges over water
They step in a wide arc,
And he will lead the baptized world
At every station there is a tavern..." (11, p. 194)
“Now our roads are bad.
Forgotten bridges are rotting,
There are bugs and fleas at the stations
Minutes do not allow you to fall asleep;
There are no taverns..."
“But winters are sometimes cold...
...The winter road is smooth..." (11, p. 194)
And in front of us it’s like a map of Moscow:
“Already white-stone Moscow,
Like heat, golden crosses
Ancient chapters are burning..." (11, p. 194)
"In my wandering destiny,
Moscow, I was thinking about you! Moscow...so much in this sound
For the Russian heart it has merged!
How much resonated with him!» (11, p. 194)
Petrovsky Castle was located near the entrance to Moscow. In 1812, during his campaign in Russia, Napoleon escaped in it from the fire that engulfed Moscow and the Kremlin.
“Petrovsky Castle. He's gloomy
He is proud of his recent glory.
I waited in vainNapoleon ,
Intoxicated with the last happiness,
Moscow kneeling
With the keys of the old Kremlin:
No, I didn't goMoscow is mine
To him with a guilty head.
Not a holiday, not a receiving gift,
She was preparing a fire
To the impatient hero.
From now on, immersed in thought,
He looked at the menacing flame." (11, p. 195)
In the novel, Pushkin described and perfectly correlated the landscapes of different cities and villages. I mean St. Petersburg and Moscow. And the village of Onegin and the Larins.
“Let's go! Already the pillars of the outpost
Turn white; here on Tverskaya
The cart rushes through potholes.
The booths and women flash past,
Boys, benches, lanterns,
Palaces, gardens, monasteries,
Bukharians, sleighs, vegetable gardens,
Merchants, shacks, men..." (11, p. 195)
Types of lyrical digressions in the novel “Eugene Onegin”
"Eugene Onegin" - the first realistic novel in Russian literature, which “reflected the century and modern man depicted quite correctly." A. S. Pushkin worked on the novel from 1823 to 1831.
In this work, the author freely moves from the plot narrative to lyrical digressions that interrupt the flow of the “free novel.” In lyrical digressions, the author tells us his opinion about certain events, characterizes his characters, and talks about himself. So, we learn about the author’s friends, about literary life, about plans for the future, we get acquainted with his thoughts about the meaning of life, about friends, about love and much more, which gives us the opportunity to get an idea not only about the heroes of the novel and about the life of Russian society of that time, but also about the personality of the poet himself.
Lyrical digressions in the novel “Eugene Onegin” can be divided into several groups:
1) Autobiographical digressions(memories of youthful love, references to biography, digressions on the revaluation of romantic values). Describing the action, Pushkin remains on the pages of the novel. He speaks directly to the reader, he does not leave the characters because it is difficult for them; he wants to help them live - and us too; with an open soul, he gives us the wealth that he has accumulated throughout his life: the wisdom and purity of his heart...
In those days when in the gardens of the Lyceum
I blossomed serenely
I read Apuleius willingly,
But I haven’t read Cicero,
In those days, in the mysterious valleys,
In the spring, with the cries of swan,
Near the waters shining in silence,
The muse began to appear to me.
My student cell
Suddenly it dawned on me: the muse is in her
Opened a feast of young ideas,
Sang children's joys,
And the glory of our antiquity,
And trembling dreams of hearts.
(Chapter XVIII, stanzas I-II)
2) Critical-journalistic digressions (conversation with the reader about literary examples, styles, genres). The poet comments on his novel as he writes it and, as it were, shares with the reader his thoughts on how best to write it. The general semantic dominant of these digressions is the idea of searching for a new style, a new manner of writing, offering greater objectivity and concreteness in the depiction of life:
I was already thinking about the form of the plan
And I’ll call him a hero;
For now, in my novel
I finished the first chapter;
Reviewed all this strictly;
There are a lot of contradictions
But I don’t want to correct them;
I will pay my debt to censorship
And for journalists to eat
I will give the fruits of my labors;
Go to the banks of the Neva,
Newborn creation
And earn me a tribute of glory:
Crooked talk, noise and swearing!
(Chapter I, stanza LX)
3) Retreats philosophical nature(about the flow of life, about nature, about the continuity of generations, about one’s own immortality). It is here that for the first time throughout Chapter II, Pushkin himself openly appears before the reader, as if picking up Lensky’s sad thoughts:
Alas! On the reins of life
Instant generational harvest
By the secret will of providence,
They rise, mature and fall;
Others are following them...
So our windy tribe
Growing, worried, seething
And he presses towards the grave of his great-grandfathers.
Our time will come, our time will come...
Pushkin writes these lines when he is about to turn twenty-five years old: it seemed too early to think about death, about the change of generations, about leaving this life. But Pushkin was wise even in his youth, he knew how to give people something that would take their breath away and make them want to live:
Our time will come, our time will come.
And our grandchildren in good time
They will push us out of the world too!
(Chapter II, stanza XXXVIII)
Nicely cheeky epigram
Enrage a mistaken enemy;
It's nice to see how stubborn he is
Bowing my eager horns,
Involuntarily looks in the mirror
And he is ashamed to recognize himself;
It’s more pleasant if he, friends,
Howls foolishly: it’s me!
It's even more pleasant in silence
Prepare an honest coffin for him
And quietly aim at the pale forehead
At a noble distance;
But send him to his fathers
It will hardly be pleasant for you.
(Chapter VI, stanza XXXIII)
He finished the sixth chapter of Onegin in mid-1826 and, although he promised readers to return to his hero, he did not return to him for a long time - it was a difficult time. This is why Chapter VII begins so sadly; Bitter philosophical thoughts came to his mind when he saw the awakening spring:
Or with nature alive
We bring together the confused thought
We are the fading of our years,
Which cannot be reborn?
Perhaps it comes to our minds
In the midst of a poetic dream
Another, old spring...
(Chapter VII, stanzas II-III)
Philosophical reflections about the destinies and future of Russia are interspersed with everyday irony over eternal Russian problems. Russian roads, which tormented the poet a lot, have not changed since the time of Nightingale the Robber and - so Pushkin thinks - if they change, then “in five hundred years.” Then bliss will come:
The Russian highway is here and here,
Having connected, they will cross.
Cast iron bridges over water
They step in a wide arc,
Let's move mountains, underwater
Let's break through the daring vaults,
And he will lead the baptized world
There is a tavern at each station.
This is not a mockery - about the tavern, this is the groan of a man who has traveled a lot around the country, where:
There are no taverns. In a cold hut
Pompous but hungry
For appearances the price list is hanging
And the vain teases the appetite.
(Chapter VII, stanzas XXXIII-XXXIV)
4) Digressions on everyday topics (“a novel requires chatter”). We are talking about love, family, marriage, modern tastes and fashions, friendship, education, etc. Here the poet can appear in a variety of guises: we see either a convinced epicurean mocking the boredom of life, or a Byronic hero disillusioned with life, either a feuilletonist of everyday life, or a peaceful landowner accustomed to living in the village:
We all learned a little bit
Something and somehow
So upbringing, thank God,
It's no wonder for us to shine.
(Chapter I, stanza V)
Intervening in small talk about Onegin, Pushkin laughs bitterly at the ideal that “important people” have created for themselves. Mediocrity, self-loving insignificance - that’s who is happy, that’s who doesn’t cause surprise or dissatisfaction:
Blessed is he who was young from his youth,
Blessed is he who is ripe in time,
Who gradually life is cold
He knew how to endure over the years;
Who hasn't indulged in strange dreams,
Who has not shunned the secular mob...
(Chapter VIII, stanzas X-XI)
Friendship for Pushkin is not only one of the main joys of life, but also a duty and obligation. He knows how to take friendship and friends seriously, responsibly, knows how to think about human relationships, and his thoughts are not always cheerful:
But there is no friendship between us either.
Having destroyed all prejudices,
We respect everyone as zeros,
And in units - yourself.
(Chapter II, stanza XIV)
Author's digressions about love are invaluable. Love attributes, behind which there is really love and real feeling, and at the same time, the external manifestation of these feelings, which in fact do not exist, are masterfully depicted by Pushkin:
The less we love a woman.
The easier it is for her to like us
And the more likely we destroy her
Among seductive networks.
Debauchery used to be cold-blooded,
Science was famous for love,
Trumpeting about myself everywhere
And enjoying without loving...
(Chapter IV, stanzas VII-VIII)
All ages are submissive to love;
But to young, virgin hearts
Her impulses are beneficial,
Like spring storms across the fields...
(Chapter VIII, stanza XXIX)
This also includes numerous digressions about women’s legs, wine, cuisine, albums, which accurately and correctly interpret the events and customs of that time:
On days of fun and desires
I was crazy about balls:
Or rather, there is no room for confessions
And to deliver the letter...
(Chapter I, stanza XXIX)
Of course, you've seen it more than once
District young lady's album,
That all the girlfriends got dirty
From the end, from the beginning and all around.
(Chapter IV, stanzas XXVIII-XXX)
5) The image of the lyrical, on the one hand, is kaleidoscopic and changeable, on the other hand, it remains holistic and harmoniously complete. This includes the author's digressions about the culture of Pushkin's time, about literary heroes, about poetic genres:
Magic land! there, in the old days,
Satire is a brave ruler,
Fonvizin, friend of freedom, shone,
And the enterprising Prince;
There Ozerov involuntary tributes
People's tears, applause
Shared with young Semyonova;
There our Katenin was resurrected
Corneille is a majestic genius;
There the prickly Shakhovskoy brought out
A noisy swarm of their comedies,
There Didelot was crowned with glory,
There, there, under the canopy of the scenes
My younger days were rushing by.
(Chapter I, stanza XVIII)
Pushkin again, without hiding or hiding, talks with the reader about books, about literature, about the work of a poet, about what worries him most:
Your own syllable in an important mood,
Used to be a fiery creator
He showed us his hero
Like a sample of perfection.
He gave away his favorite object,
Always unjustly persecuted
Sensitive soul, mind
And an attractive face.
(Chapter III, stanzas XI-XIII)
Can I imagine them?
With “Well-Intentioned” in your hands!
I swear at you, my poets;
Isn't it true, lovely things,
Who, for their sins,
You wrote poems in secret,
To whom you dedicated your heart,
Isn't that all, in Russian?
Possessing weakly and with difficulty,
He was so cutely distorted
And in their mouths a foreign language
Didn't you turn to your native?
How rosy lips are without a smile
No grammatical error
I don't like Russian speech.
(Chapter III, stanzas XXVII-XXVIII)
Landscape digressions are also included in the lyrical digressions. More often, nature is shown through the prism of the poet’s lyrical perception, his inner world, and mood. At the same time, some landscapes are shown through the eyes of the characters:
That year the weather was autumn
I stood in the yard for a long time,
Winter was waiting, nature was waiting.
Snow only fell in January...
(Chapter V, stanza I)
6) Retreats to civil issue(about the heroic Moscow of 1812). Pushkin knew how to separate the ceremonial, official patriotism of the tsar’s manifestos and social events from that popular patriotism that lives in the soul of everyone honest man. It is his attitude towards Moscow that he shows through solemn and sublime lines:
How often in sorrowful separation,
In my wandering destiny,
Moscow, I was thinking about you!
Moscow... so much in this sound
For the Russian heart it has merged!
How much resonated with him!
(Chapter VII, stanza XXXVII)
V.G. Belinsky called “Eugene Onegin” “an encyclopedia of Russian life”, since the author’s digressions reveal contradictions, trends and patterns of the era, which at first glance are not directly related to the plot outline of the novel, but clearly demonstrate Pushkin’s attitude towards them.
According to the definition, lyrical digressions are some statements of the author's thoughts and feelings related to what is depicted in the work. They help to better understand the ideological intent of the creator and take a fresh look at the text. The writer, intruding into the narrative, slows down the development of the action, disrupts the unity of the images, however, such insertions enter the texts naturally, since they arise in connection with what is depicted and are imbued with the same feeling as the images.
Lyrical digressions in the novel "Eugene Onegin" play a huge role, as you will see after reading this article. It is devoted to their themes, functions and meaning.
Features of the novel "Eugene Onegin"
The novel about which we're talking about, A.S. Pushkin wrote for more than 8 years - from 1823 to 1831. He wrote to Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky at the very beginning of work on the work that he was not creating a novel, but rather a “novel in verse,” and this is a “diabolical difference.”
Indeed, thanks poetic form"Eugene Onegin" is very different from traditional genre novel, because it expresses the feelings and thoughts of the author much more strongly. What adds originality to the work is the constant participation and commentary of the author himself, about whom we can say that he is one of the main characters. In the first chapter of the novel, Alexander Sergeevich calls Onegin “a good friend.”
Lyrical digressions and biography of the author
Lyrical digressions are a means used by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, in particular, to help us get acquainted with the personality of the creator of the work, his biography. From the first chapter we learn that the narrator left Russia and sighs for it “under the sky of Africa,” which refers to the poet’s southern exile. The narrator writes clearly about his melancholy and suffering. In the sixth chapter, he regrets his youth and wonders where the times of his youth have gone, what the “coming day” has in store for him. Lyrical digressions in the novel also help to revive Alexander Sergeevich’s bright memories of those days when the muse began to appear to him in the gardens of the Lyceum. They, thus, give the right to judge the work as the history of the development of the personality of Pushkin himself.
Description of nature in digressions
Lyrical digressions are not only the biographical information of the author. Many of them are devoted to the description of nature. Descriptions of her are found throughout the novel. All seasons of the year are represented: winter, when boys joyfully cut ice with skates, snow falls, and northern summer, which Pushkin calls a caricature of southern winters, and the time of love - spring, and, of course, autumn, beloved by Alexander Sergeevich. The poet often describes different times days, the most beautiful of which is the night. However, he does not at all strive to depict extraordinary, exceptional paintings. On the contrary, everything is ordinary, simple, but at the same time beautiful.
Nature and inner world of heroes
Nature is closely connected with the heroes of the novel. Thanks to her description, we better understand what is going on in the souls of the characters. The author often notes the spiritual closeness with the nature of the main female image- Tatyana - and reflects on this, thereby characterizing moral qualities his heroine. The landscape often appears before us through the eyes of this particular girl. She loved to watch the sunrise on the balcony or suddenly see a white courtyard in the window in the morning.
Encyclopedic nature of the work
V.G. Belinsky, the famous critic, called Pushkin's novel "an encyclopedia of Russian life." And one cannot but agree with this. After all, an encyclopedia is a kind of systematic overview that is revealed sequentially from A to Z. A novel is exactly like this if you carefully look at all the lyrical digressions present in Onegin. We note then that the thematic range of the work unfolds encyclopedically, from A to Z.
"Free Romance"
Alexander Sergeevich calls his work in the eighth chapter " free romance". This freedom is expressed, first of all, in a relaxed author's conversation with the reader through lyrical digressions expressing feelings and thoughts on his behalf. This form allowed Pushkin to depict a picture of the life of his contemporary society. We learn about education younger generation, about how young people spend their time, about balls and fashion during the times of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
The lyrical digressions of the novel "Eugene Onegin" also cover the theater. Speaking about this amazing “magical land,” he remembers both Knyazhin and Fonvizin, but his attention is especially drawn to Istomin, who flies like a feather, touching the floor with one foot.
Lyrical digressions about literature
Lyrical digressions are also an opportunity to speak about contemporary literature and its problems. This is the subject of many of Alexander Sergeevich’s arguments in the text of the novel “Eugene Onegin.” In these lyrical digressions, the narrator argues about language, the use of various foreign words in it, which are sometimes simply necessary in order to describe certain things (for example, a tailcoat, trousers, a vest). Pushkin argues with a strict critic who calls for throwing off the wretched wreath of elegy poets.
Author and reader
The novel "Eugene Onegin" is at the same time the story of its creation. The narrator talks to the reader through lyrical digressions.
The text is created as if right before our eyes. It contains plans and drafts, as well as the author's personal assessment of the novel. Alexander Sergeevich encourages the attentive reader to co-create. When the latter is waiting for the rhyme “rose,” Pushkin writes: “Take it quickly.” The poet himself sometimes acts as a reader and strictly revises his work. Lyrical digressions introduce authorial freedom into the text, thanks to which the narrative moves in many directions. The image of Alexander Sergeevich has many faces - he is both a hero and a storyteller at the same time.
If all the other heroes of the novel (Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky and others) are fictional, then the creator of this entire artistic world is real. He evaluates his heroes, their actions, and either agrees with them or does not approve, arguing again in lyrical digressions. Thus, built on an appeal to the reader, the novel tells about the fictionality of what is happening, creating the impression that this is just a dream, similar to life.
Features of lyrical digressions
Often lyrical digressions in Eugene Onegin appear before climaxes narrative, forcing the reader to be in suspense, waiting for further development of the plot. Thus, the author’s monologues occur before the explanation of Onegin and Tatiana, before her sleep and the duel in which Eugene Onegin participates.
The role of lyrical digressions, however, is not limited to this. They are also used so that the reader can better understand the essence of certain characters. That is, they not only introduce art world new layers of “reality”, but also create a unique author’s image, which is an intermediary between the space in which the characters live and real world, of which the reader is a representative.
Lyrical digressions in "Eugene Onegin", thus, are very diverse in theme and purpose of their inclusion in the text of the narrative. They give Pushkin’s creation a special depth, versatility, and scale. This suggests that the role of lyrical digressions in the work is very great.
The novel, based on the author’s appeal to the reader, was a new phenomenon in the history of Russian literature of the 19th century. As time has shown, this innovation did not pass without a trace; it was noticed and appreciated both by the contemporaries of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and his descendants. "Eugene Onegin" still remains one of the most famous works Russian literature not only in our country, but also abroad.
