Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was extremely attentive to determining the genre of each of his works. The world famous “Eugene Onegi” was no exception. The genre of Pushkin's work is a novel in verse. And this, first of all, is Pushkin’s innovation. After all, in the nineteenth century there were only two ways of writing work of art. The Russian poet invented the third. The history of writing, structure and genre of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is the topic of the article.
Pushkin called the work on creating the novel a feat. Besides “Eugene Onegin,” the author gave such a high assessment of his own creation only to “Boris Godunov.”
History of writing
It took Pushkin eight years to create the novel in verse. Pushkin began work on “Eugene Onegin” in 1923. Then the writer was in Chisinau. Initially, the author abandoned romanticism and decided to tell readers about his new hero in a realistic spirit. It is also worth saying that Pushkin planned to divide the work into nine chapters. But in the process of work, he changed the structure, creating eight.
The story about Onegin's journey, according to the original plan, was supposed to become part of the main text. But later the poet included this fragment of the plot in one of his lyrical digressions. In the first version of the novel, the author raised rather pressing political issues. But since the creation of “Eugene Onegin” took place during years of exile, the poet decided not to aggravate his already difficult situation. Therefore, he removed dangerous pages from the manuscript and burned them.
Composition of the novel
The work was published over several years in separate chapters. Pushkin admitted that he wrote it without any clear plan. Nevertheless, the composition of “Eugene Onegin” is distinguished by its clarity. Each chapter is logically completed.
The main literary device that the poet used when creating his imperishable work is mirror symmetry. As the plot progresses, the characters seem to change places. First, Tatiana falls in love with Evgeniy. Onegin is indifferent to the love of a girl. He responds to her letter coldly. But later, after the protagonist’s duel with Lensky, an event that interrupts the love line, Onegin and Larina change places. He writes her a letter of confession. She rejects him. The peculiarity of the composition of the work is its ring structure. It is thanks to this technique that “Eugene Onegin” is perceived as a completed novel.
Main characters
Why did the author use the ring composition? With the help of this technique, Pushkin revealed changes in the character of the heroes. At the beginning of the work, Onegin leaves high society. The poet speaks not without irony about his hero, emphasizing that Eugene’s education was superficial, which was enough to be considered smart among the representatives of the capital’s aristocracy.
In the first chapters, Onegin is a secular slacker, unable to fill his leisure time with creativity or even reading. But later he appears in the role of a thinking, deep personality. Another trait lost by Eugene is richness in life. Pushkin's hero is initially indifferent to those around him. He is not even touched by the feelings that Tatyana has for him - an intelligent girl who compares favorably with other representatives of provincial society.
At the end of the novel, Onegin is an ardent lover. Tatyana, on the contrary, is reserved and cold. However, it is worth saying that despite all the external changes, both Onegin and Larina are still the same at heart. He is an arrogant aristocrat. She is a simple-minded and sincere village girl. After the disappointment that befell the heroine, she is forced to hide her feelings. As for Evgeny, his love is most likely explained by the external brilliance of Tatiana, now a society lady.
Epic
There are many heroes in Eugene Onegin. The works cover a significant period of time. How about metropolitan life, and “Eugene Onegin” tells about the life of the village nobility. A genre that has these features is the novel. It is the most common type today epic literature. What are the specifics classic novel? Which of its features are present in the work “Eugene Onegin”?
A long-form genre in which the narrative is focused on the fates of different characters is called a novel in literary studies. Its other features are a significant time period, a smoothly constructed series of events, and a considerable number of characters involved in the plot.
How is Eugene Onegin depicted by the author? The genre of this work, according to Pushkin’s definition, is a novel. Remembering characteristic features This type of epic, we can say that Onegin is not a lyrical hero. It cannot be called either positive or negative character. The poet is extremely objective in creating his portrait. Evgeny Onegin is quite contradictory and complex. The peculiarities of the genre of Pushkin’s work lie in the presence of not only an epic beginning.
Lyricism
The work about which we're talking about in this article has no analogues in world literature. The structure and genre of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is unique. It has both realism and historicity. Pushkin also endowed his work with features typical of a social novel. "Eugene Onegin", the genre of which is at the junction of two types of literature, contains both objective characteristics of the heroes and many lyrical digressions. But that's not all.
The genre and composition of “Eugene Onegin” have become the topic of numerous works on literary criticism. WITH light hand Byron came into fashion in the nineteenth century epic poem, which are individual chapters in verse. In Pushkin's work, the description of the lyrical hero and his experiences is harmoniously combined with an objective, realistic depiction of events.
Retreats
The author's voice is heard in numerous lyrical inserts. In each of them, the poet talks about himself and shares with the reader his views on literature and culture. At the same time, Pushkin is not distracted from the main action. In one of the chapters, the poet recalls the days in which his creativity flourished, and his forced exile. The structure and genre of the work “Eugene Onegin” can be determined as follows: a novel in verse, which is a “collection of motley chapters.”
The themes of lyrical digressions in Pushkin’s work are very diverse. First, the reader learns about the morals of secular youth. Then love motives come to the fore. And finally, important in the development of the plot are landscape sketches. The novel depicts all seasons of the year in verse: sad summer, golden autumn, winter with bitter frosts. The poet called spring “the morning of the year.” The landscape in Eugene Onegin is sometimes depicted through the perception of the characters.
Another theme of lyrical digressions in the novel is historical events. Thus, in the work “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin remembered the Patriotic War of 1812.
The novel in verse covers many events. There are many heroes in it. Nevertheless, Eugene Onegin represents a deeply lyrical work. The reader, after reading it, learns no less about the author than about his heroes. In one work, Pushkin amazingly managed to connect the epic and the lyrical into a single whole.
Reflection of the Pushkin era
From this work the reader has the opportunity to learn almost everything about the time in which the poet lived. How did people dress? What was in fashion? What did Pushkin's contemporaries value most of all? The reader receives answers to all these questions after reading the novel in verse. The poet truthfully depicted the environment in which Onegin and Larina live. He reproduced the atmosphere of both noble salons and modest provincial evenings.
In art
Onegin - shining example the so-called " extra person", a character who appeared in literature in the first third of the eighteenth century. This hero is not capable of the feat that the Decembrists accomplished. But he cannot be classified as a typical representative of high society. Mental dissatisfaction and inability to change anything in one’s life are characteristic features of Onegin. And if we add to this the epic nature, variety of images, and extraordinary poetry of Pushkin’s work, it becomes clear why it was so often reflected in art.
“Eugene Onegin” was filmed several times by domestic and foreign filmmakers. Based on Pushkin's novel, four operas were created, the music for which was written by such outstanding composers, like Tchaikovsky, Shchedrin, Prokofiev.
“Eugene Onegin” reflected the entire life of Russian society early XIX century. However, two centuries later, this work is interesting not only in historical and literary terms, but also in terms of the relevance of the questions that Pushkin posed to the reading public. Everyone, opening the novel, found something of their own in it, empathized with the characters, noted the lightness and mastery of the style. And quotes from this work have long become aphorisms, they are pronounced even by those who have not read the book itself.
A.S. Pushkin created this work for about 8 years (1823-1831). The history of the creation of “Eugene Onegin” began in Chisinau in 1823. It reflected the experience of “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, but the subject of the image was not historical and folklore characters, but modern heroes and the author himself. The poet also begins to work in line with realism, gradually abandoning romanticism. During the period of Mikhailovsky exile, he continued to work on the book, and completed it during his forced imprisonment in the village of Boldino (Pushkin was detained by cholera). Thus, creative history The work absorbed the most “fertile” years of the creator, when his skill evolved at breakneck speed. So his novel reflected everything that he learned during this time, everything that he knew and felt. Perhaps the work owes its depth to this circumstance.
The author himself calls his novel “a collection of motley chapters,” each of the 8 chapters has relative independence, because the writing of “Eugene Onegin” took a long time, and each episode opened a certain stage in Pushkin’s life. The book was published in parts, each release becoming an event in the world of literature. The complete edition was published only in 1837.
Genre and composition
A.S. Pushkin defined his work as a novel in verse, emphasizing that it is lyrical-epic: a storyline expressed love story heroes (epic beginning), adjacent to digressions and author’s reflections (lyrical beginning). This is why the genre of Eugene Onegin is called a “novel.”
"Eugene Onegin" consists of 8 chapters. In the first chapters, readers are introduced to central character Evgeniy, they move with him to the village and meet their future friend - Vladimir Lensky. Further, the drama of the story increases due to the appearance of the Larin family, especially Tatyana. The sixth chapter is the culmination of the relationship between Lensky and Onegin and the escape of the main character. And at the end of the work there is a denouement storyline Evgeniy and Tatiana.
Lyrical digressions are related to the narrative, but it is also a dialogue with the reader; they emphasize the “free” form, the closeness to an intimate conversation. The same factor can explain the incompleteness and openness of the ending of each chapter and the novel as a whole.
About what?
A young nobleman, already disillusioned with life, inherits an estate in the village and goes there, hoping to dispel his blues. It begins with the fact that he was forced to sit with his sick uncle, who left his family nest to his nephew. However, the hero soon becomes bored with rural life; his existence would become unbearable if not for his acquaintance with the poet Vladimir Lensky. Friends are “ice and fire,” but differences did not interfere with friendly relations. will help you figure this out.
Lensky introduces his friend to the Larin family: the old mother, sisters Olga and Tatyana. The poet has long been in love with Olga, a flighty coquette. Much more serious and integral is the character of Tatyana, who herself falls in love with Evgeniy. Her imagination had been picturing a hero for a long time; all that remained was for someone to appear. The girl suffers, is tormented, writes a romantic letter. Onegin is flattered, but understands that he cannot respond to such a passionate feeling, so he gives a harsh rebuke to the heroine. This circumstance plunges her into depression, she anticipates trouble. And trouble really came. Onegin decides to take revenge on Lensky because of an accidental disagreement, but chooses a terrible means: he flirts with Olga. The poet is offended and challenges yesterday's friend to a duel. But the culprit kills the “slave of honor” and leaves forever. The essence of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is not even to show all this. The main thing worth paying attention to is the description of Russian life and the psychologism of the characters, which develops under the influence of the depicted atmosphere.
However, the relationship between Tatiana and Evgeniy is not over. They meet at a social evening, where the hero sees not a naive girl, but a mature woman in full splendor. And he falls in love. He is also tormented and writes a message. And he meets with the same rebuke. Yes, the beauty did not forget anything, but it’s too late, she was “given to someone else”: . The failed lover is left with nothing.
The main characters and their characteristics
The images of the heroes of “Eugene Onegin” are not a random selection characters. This is a miniature Russian society of that time, where all the known types of noble people are scrupulously listed: the poor landowner Larin, his secular but degenerate wife in the village, the exalted and insolvent poet Lensky, his flighty and frivolous passion, etc. All of them represent Imperial Russia during its heyday. No less interesting and original. Below is a description of the main characters:
- Evgeny Onegin - main character novel. It carries within itself dissatisfaction with life, fatigue from it. Pushkin talks in detail about the environment in which the young man grew up, about how the environment shaped his character. Onegin's upbringing is typical of the nobles of those years: a superficial education aimed at being successful in decent society. He was not prepared for the present case, but exclusively for social entertainment. Therefore, from a young age I was tired of the empty glitter of balls. He has “direct nobility of soul” (he feels a friendly attachment to Lensky, does not seduce Tatyana, taking advantage of her love). The hero is capable of deep feelings, but is afraid of losing freedom. But, despite his nobility, he is an egoist, and narcissism underlies all his feelings. The essay contains the most detailed characteristics character.
- Very different from Tatyana Larina, this image appears ideal: an integral, wise, devoted nature, ready to do anything for love. She grew up in a healthy environment, in nature, and not in the light, so real feelings are strong in her: kindness, faith, dignity. The girl loves to read, and in books she drew a special, romantic image, shrouded in mystery. It was this image that was embodied in Evgenia. And Tatyana gave herself up to this feeling with all passion, truthfulness and purity. She did not seduce, did not flirt, but took upon herself the courage to confess. This brave and honest act did not find a response in Onegin’s heart. He fell in love with her seven years later, when she shone in the world. Fame and wealth did not bring happiness to the woman; she married someone she didn’t love, but Eugene’s courtship is impossible, family vows are sacred to her. More about this in the essay.
- Tatyana's sister Olga is not of great interest, there is not a single sharp corner in her, everything is round, it is not for nothing that Onegin compares her to the moon. The girl accepts Lensky's advances. And any other person, because why not accept, she is flirtatious and empty. There is immediately a huge difference between the Larin sisters. The youngest daughter took after her mother, a flighty socialite who was forcibly imprisoned in the village.
- However, it was the flirtatious Olga that the poet Vladimir Lensky fell in love with. Probably because it’s easy to fill the emptiness with your own content in dreams. The hero still burned with a hidden fire, felt subtly and analyzed little. He has high moral concepts, so he is alien to the light and is not poisoned by it. If Onegin talked and danced with Olga only out of boredom, then Lensky saw this as a betrayal, ex-friend became an insidious tempter of a sinless girl. In Vladimir’s maximalist perception, this is immediately a break in relations and a duel. The poet lost in it. The author poses the question, what could await the character if the outcome is favorable? The conclusion is disappointing: Lensky would have married Olga, become an ordinary landowner and become vulgar in routine vegetation. You may also need .
Topics
- The main theme of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is extensive - this is Russian life. The book shows life and upbringing in the world, in the capital, village life, customs and activities, typical and at the same time unique portraits of characters are drawn. Almost two centuries later, the heroes contain features inherent in modern people; these images are deeply national.
- The theme of friendship is also reflected in Eugene Onegin. The main character and Vladimir Lensky were in close friendship. But can it be considered real? They got together by chance, out of boredom. Evgeniy sincerely became attached to Vladimir, who warmed the hero’s cold heart with his spiritual fire. However, just as quickly he is ready to insult a friend by flirting with his beloved, who is happy about it. Evgeny thinks only about himself, the feelings of other people are absolutely unimportant to him, so he could not save his comrade.
- Love too important topic works. Almost all writers talk about it. Pushkin was no exception. In the image of Tatiana it is expressed true love. It can develop against all odds and remain for life. Nobody loved and will love Onegin as much as main character. If you miss this, you remain unhappy for the rest of your life. Unlike the sacrificial, all-forgiving feelings of the girl, Onegin’s emotions are self-love. He was afraid of a timid girl who had fallen in love for the first time, for whose sake he would have to give up the disgusting but familiar light. But Evgeny was captivated by the cold, secular beauty, with whom visiting was already an honor, let alone loving her.
- Theme of the extra person. The trend of realism appears in Pushkin’s works. It was the environment that raised Onegin to be so disappointed. It was precisely this that preferred to see superficiality in the nobles, the focus of all their efforts on creating secular splendor. And nothing else is needed. On the contrary, education in folk traditions, society ordinary people made the soul healthy and the nature whole, like Tatyana’s.
- Theme of devotion. Faithful to your first and most strong love Tatiana, and Olga is frivolous, changeable and ordinary. Larina's sisters are completely opposite. Olga reflects a typical secular girl, for whom the main thing is herself, her attitude towards her, and therefore she can change if there is a better option. As soon as Onegin said a couple of pleasant words, she forgot about Lensky, whose affection was much stronger. Tatiana’s heart is faithful to Evgeniy all her life. Even when he trampled on her feelings, she waited a long time and could not find another (again, unlike Olga, who was quickly consoled after Lensky's death). The heroine had to get married, but in her soul she continued to be faithful to Onegin, although love had ceased to be possible.
Problems
The problematics in the novel “Eugene Onegin” are very indicative. It reveals not only psychological and social, but also political shortcomings and even entire tragedies of the system. For example, the outdated, but no less creepy, drama of Tatyana’s mother is shocking. The woman was forced into marriage, and she broke under the pressure of circumstances, becoming an evil and despotic mistress of a hated estate. Here's what current problems raised
- The main problem that is raised throughout realism in general, and by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin in particular, is the destructive influence of secular society on the human soul. A hypocritical and greedy environment poisons the personality. It imposes external requirements of decency: a young man must know a little French, read a little fashionable literature, be decently and expensively dressed, that is, make an impression, seem, and not be. And all the feelings here are also false, they only seem. That's why secular society It takes away the best from people, it cools the brightest flame with its cold deception.
- Handra Evgenia – another one problematic issue. Why does the main character become depressed? Not just because he was spoiled by society. The main reason is that he does not find the answer to the question: why is all this? Why does he live? To go to theaters, balls and receptions? The absence of a vector, direction of movement, awareness of the meaninglessness of existence - these are the feelings that overcome Onegin. Here we are faced with the eternal problem of the meaning of life, which is so difficult to find.
- The problem of selfishness is reflected in the image of the main character. Realizing that no one would love him in a cold and indifferent world, Eugene began to love himself more than anyone else in the world. Therefore, he doesn’t care about Lensky (he only relieves boredom), about Tatyana (she can take away his freedom), he thinks only about himself, but for this he is punished: he remains completely alone and is rejected by Tatyana.
Idea
The main idea of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is a criticism of the existing order of life, which dooms more or less extraordinary natures to loneliness and death. After all, there is so much potential in Evgenia, but there is no business, only social intrigue. There is so much spiritual fire in Vladimir, and besides death, only vulgarization in a feudal, suffocating environment can await him. There is so much spiritual beauty and intelligence in Tatyana, and she can only be the hostess of social evenings, dress up and carry on empty conversations.
People who do not think, do not reflect, do not suffer - these are the ones for whom it is suitable existing reality. This is a consumer society that lives at the expense of others, which shines while those “others” vegetate in poverty and filth. The thoughts that Pushkin thought about deserve attention to this day and remain important and pressing.
Another meaning of “Eugene Onegin”, which Pushkin laid down in his work, is to show how important it is to preserve individuality and virtue when temptations and fashions are rampant around, subjugating more than one generation of people. While Evgeny was chasing new trends and playing the cold and disappointed hero Byron, Tatyana listened to the voice of her heart and remained true to herself. Therefore, she finds happiness in love, albeit unrequited, and he finds only boredom in everything and everyone.
Features of the novel
The novel “Eugene Onegin” is a fundamentally new phenomenon in the literature of the early 19th century. He has a special composition - it is a “novel in verse”, a lyric-epic work of large volume. IN lyrical digressions the image of the author, his thoughts, feelings and ideas that he wants to convey to readers emerges.
Pushkin amazes with the ease and melodiousness of his language. His literary style devoid of heaviness and didacticism, the author knows how to talk about complex and important things simply and clearly. Of course, a lot needs to be read between the lines, since harsh censorship was merciless even towards geniuses, but the poet is also not a natural person, so he was able to tell in the elegance of verse about the socio-political problems of his state, which were successfully hushed up in the press. It is important to understand that before Alexander Sergeevich, Russian poetry was different; he made a kind of “revolution of the game.”
The peculiarity also lies in the image system. Evgeny Onegin is the first in the gallery of “superfluous people”, who contain enormous potential that cannot be realized. Tatyana Larina “raised” female images from the place “the main character needs to love someone” to an independent and complete portrait of a Russian woman. Tatyana is one of the first heroines who looks stronger and more significant than the main character, and does not hide in his shadow. This is how the direction of the novel “Eugene Onegin” manifests itself - realism, which will more than once open the topic of the superfluous person and touch upon the difficult woman's destiny. By the way, we also described this feature in the essay “”.
Realism in the novel "Eugene Onegin"
"Eugene Onegin" marks Pushkin's transition to realism. In this novel, the author first raises the topic of man and society. A personality is not perceived separately, it is part of a society that educates, leaves a certain imprint or completely shapes people.
The main characters are typical, but at the same time unique. Eugene is an authentic secular nobleman: disappointed, superficially educated, but at the same time not like those around him - noble, intelligent, observant. Tatyana is an ordinary provincial young lady: she was brought up on French novels, filled with the sweet dreams of these works, but at the same time she is “Russian in soul,” wise, virtuous, loving, harmonious in nature.
It is precisely in the fact that for two centuries readers see themselves and their acquaintances in the heroes, it is precisely in the inescapable relevance of the novel that its realistic orientation is expressed.
Criticism
The novel “Eugene Onegin” evoked a great response from readers and critics. According to E.A. Baratynsky: “Everyone interprets them in their own way: some praise them, others scold them, and everyone reads them.” Contemporaries criticized Pushkin for the “labyrinth of digressions”, for the insufficiently defined character of the main character, and careless language. The reviewer Thaddeus Bulgarin, who supported the government and conservative literature, especially distinguished himself.
However, V.G. understood the novel best. Belinsky, who called it “an encyclopedia of Russian life,” a historical work, despite the lack historical characters. Indeed, a modern amateur belles lettres can study "Eugene Onegin" from this point of view to learn more about noble society beginning of the 19th century.
And a century later, the comprehension of the novel in verse continued. Yu.M. Lotman saw complexity and paradox in the work. This is not just a collection of quotes familiar from childhood, it is an “organic world.” All this proves the relevance of the work and its significance for Russian national culture.
What does it teach?
Pushkin showed the life of young people and how their fate could turn out. Of course, fate depends not only on the environment, but also on the heroes themselves, but the influence of society is undeniable. The poet showed the main enemy that affects young nobles: idleness, aimlessness of existence. Alexander Sergeevich’s conclusion is simple: the creator calls not to limit oneself to secular conventions, stupid rules, but to live life to the fullest, guided by moral and spiritual components.
These ideas remain relevant today, before modern people Often a choice arises: to live in harmony with oneself or to break oneself for the sake of some benefits or public recognition. By choosing the second path, chasing illusory dreams, you can lose yourself and discover with horror that your life is over and nothing has been done. This is what you need to fear most.
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1. What is romanticism?
2. The reasons for the emergence of romanticism.
3. The main conflict of romanticism.
4. The era of romanticism.
5. Pushkin is the pioneer of new paths for Russian literature.
6. “Eugene Onegin” - a depiction of modern reality.
7. Conclusion
Romanticism (from French Romantisme) – ideological and artistic direction which appears at the end X VII I century in European and American culture and continues until the 40s XIX century. Reflecting disappointment in the results of the Great french revolution, in the ideology of the Enlightenment and bourgeois progress, romanticism contrasted utilitarianism and the leveling of the individual with the aspiration for boundless freedom and the “infinite,” the thirst for perfection and renewal, the pathos of the individual and civil independence.
The painful disintegration of the ideal and social reality is the basis of the romantic worldview and art. The affirmation of the intrinsic value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the depiction of strong passions, spiritualized and healing nature, is adjacent to the motives of “worldly sorrow”, “worldly evil”, the “night” side of the soul. Interest in the national past (often its idealization), the traditions of folklore and culture of one’s own and other peoples, the desire to publish a universal picture of the world (primarily history and literature) found expression in the ideology and practice of Romanticism.
Romanticism is observed in literature, fine arts, architecture, behavior, clothing and human psychology.
REASONS FOR THE ARISE OF ROMANTICISM.
The immediate cause of the emergence of romanticism was the Great French bourgeois revolution. How did this become possible?
Before the revolution, the world was orderly, there was a clear hierarchy in it, each person took his place. The revolution overturned the “pyramid” of society; a new one had not yet been created, so individual person there was a feeling of loneliness. Life is a flow, life is a game in which some are lucky and others are not. In literature, images of players appear - people who play with fate. You can recall such works of European writers as “The Gambler” by Hoffmann, “Red and Black” by Stendhal (and red and black are the colors of roulette!), and in Russian literature these are “The Queen of Spades” by Pushkin, “The Gamblers” by Gogol, “Masquerade” Lermontov.
THE BASIC CONFLICT OF ROMANTICISM
The main one is the conflict between man and the world. A psychology of rebellious personality emerges, which was most deeply reflected by Lord Byron in his work “Childe Harold’s Travels.” The popularity of this work was so great that a whole phenomenon arose - “Byronism”, and entire generations of young people tried to imitate it (for example, Pechorin in Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”).
Romantic heroes are united by a sense of their own exclusivity. “I” is recognized as the highest value, hence egocentrism romantic hero. But by focusing on oneself, a person comes into conflict with reality.
REALITY is a strange, fantastic, extraordinary world, as in Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Nutcracker,” or ugly, as in his fairy tale “Little Tsakhes.” In these tales, strange events occur, objects come to life and enter into lengthy conversations, the main theme of which is the deep gap between ideals and reality. And this gap becomes the main THEME of the lyrics of romanticism.
THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM
For the writers of the early 19th century, whose work took shape after the Great French Revolution, life presented different tasks than for their predecessors. They were to discover and artistically shape a new continent for the first time.
The thinking and feeling man of the new century had behind him a long and instructive experience of previous generations, he was endowed with a deep and complex inner world, images of the heroes of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, national liberation movements, images of the poetry of Goethe and Byron hovered before his eyes. In Russia Patriotic War 1812 played in the spiritual and moral development society the role of the most important historical milestone, profoundly changing the cultural and historical appearance of Russian society. In terms of its significance for national culture, it can be compared with the period of the 18th century revolution in the West.
And in this era of revolutionary storms, military upheavals and national liberation movements, the question arises whether, on the basis of a new historical reality, a new literature can arise that is not inferior in its artistic perfection to the greatest phenomena of literature ancient world and the Renaissance? And could its further development be based on “ modern man”, a man of the people? But a man from the people who participated in the French Revolution or on whose shoulders fell the burden of the struggle against Napoleon could not be depicted in literature using the means of novelists and poets of the previous century - he required other methods for his poetic embodiment.
PUSHKIN – THE PROGRAMMER OF ROMANTICISM
Only Pushkin was the first in Russian literature of the 19th century to be able, in both poetry and prose, to find adequate means for embodying the versatile spiritual world, the historical appearance and behavior of that new, deeply thinking and feeling hero of Russian life who occupied it central place after 1812 and especially after the Decembrist uprising.
In his Lyceum poems, Pushkin could not yet, and did not dare, make him the hero of his lyrics. real person new generation with all its inherent internal psychological complexity. Pushkin’s poem seemed to represent the resultant of two forces: the poet’s personal experience and the conventional, “ready-made”, traditional poetic formula-scheme, according to the internal laws of which this experience was formed and developed.
However, gradually the poet frees himself from the power of the canons and in his poems we no longer see a young “philosopher”-epicurean, an inhabitant of a conventional “town,” but a man of the new century, with his rich and intense intellectual and emotional inner life.
A similar process occurs in Pushkin’s work in any genre, where conventional images of characters, already sanctified by tradition, give way to figures of living people with their complex, varied actions and psychological motives. At first it is the somewhat distracted Prisoner or Aleko. But soon they are replaced by the very real Onegin, Lensky, young Dubrovsky, German, Charsky. And finally, the most complete expression of the new type of personality will be the lyrical “I” of Pushkin, the poet himself, spiritual world which represents the most profound, rich and complex expression of burning moral and intellectual questions time.
One of the conditions for the historical revolution that Pushkin made in the development of Russian poetry, drama and narrative prose was his fundamental break with the educational-rationalistic, ahistorical idea of the “nature” of man, the laws of human thinking and feeling.
A complex and contradictory soul “ young man” of the beginning of the 19th century in “Caucasian Prisoner”, “Gypsies”, “Eugene Onegin” became for Pushkin an object of artistic and psychological observation and study in its special, specific and unique historical quality. Each time placing his hero in certain conditions, depicting him in different circumstances, in new relationships with people, exploring his psychology from different sides and using for this each time a new system of artistic “mirrors”, Pushkin in his lyrics, southern poems and Onegin ” strives from various sides to approach the understanding of his soul, and through it, further to the understanding of the patterns of contemporary social life reflected in this soul. historical life.
The historical understanding of man and human psychology began to emerge with Pushkin in the late 1810s and early 1820s. We find its first clear expression in the historical elegies of this time (“The daylight has gone out...” (1820), “To Ovid” (1821), etc.) and in the poem “ Caucasian prisoner”, the main character of which was conceived by Pushkin, by the poet’s own admission, as a bearer of feelings and moods characteristic of the youth of the 19th century with its “indifference to life” and “premature old age of the soul” (from a letter to V.P. Gorchakov, October- November 1822)
“EVGENY ONEGIN” – a depiction of modern reality
Having first emerged during the period of southern poems, Pushkin’s historical approach to understanding the “laws” of the soul and heart of man - past and modern - will soon receive consistent expression in “Eugene Onegin” and “Boris Godunov”. The comparison of the social, everyday and moral-psychological appearance of two generations carried out by Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin” - Onegin with his father and uncle, Tatyana with her parents - is evidence of an exceptionally deep, subtle understanding of the dependence of human psychology on the everyday and cultural-historical atmosphere of the time . Unlike the main characters in the works of his predecessors and older contemporaries, including the heroes of Karamzin and Zhukovsky, Onegin and Tatyana are people whose entire psychological and moral image is permeated with reflections of intellectual and moral life from time.
As Pushkin perfectly understands, Onegin’s father and Larina’s mother, finding themselves in the position of Evgeny and Tatyana, behaved differently, since their time was characterized by other ideals and other moral ideas, and at the same time, a different system of feeling, a different rhythm of life. A young man who grew up in St. Petersburg, was raised by a French tutor and read Adam Smith, thinks differently than his narrow-minded father, brought up in the morals of the last century, who “nobly” served and wasted money. The generation whose idols were ladies' men and grandsons felt differently than the generation that read Byron, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël. Comparing the characters of Onegin and Tatyana with the characters of people of the previous generation, Pushkin shows how new, historically unique properties of the soul are formed in the real process of life people XIX century. These properties determine the special features of all life - external and internal - younger generation, fundamentally, qualitatively different from the life of the “fathers,” fraught with new, complex moral and psychological problems unknown to previous literature.
Tatiana meets Onegin. In the genre of a sentimental story, such a meeting would be described as a meeting of two sublime hearts, in a romantic poem - two chosen, although different in their makeup, lofty, poetic natures, contrasted by the poet with the surrounding reality and superior to other, ordinary people in the strength of their feelings and aspirations . We see something else in Pushkin. Both Tatyana and Onegin are presented by Pushkin not as variations of ready-made, repeating types, but as dialectically complex human characters, each of which bears the imprint of the conditions of his life, his own special spiritual experience. The dissimilar circumstances of the development of the novel's heroes also determine the nature of the psychological refraction that the image of each of them receives when reflected in the consciousness of the other.
As Pushkin shows the reader, Tatiana’s love is a psychological reflection (and expression) of her entire previous life (material and spiritual factors): Russian nature, communication with her nanny, perception of national life. And, finally, the whole coloring of Tatyana’s love feeling for Onegin would have been different if she had not passed his image through the prism of her heroes and plots romance novels, did not associate him with them.
Pushkin’s depiction of Onegin and Tatyana’s childhood and adulthood, their attitude to nature, people, and the everyday objects around them are interconnected moments of a single process of social, everyday and psychological development of the heroes, turning into each other. And the characteristics of Onegin’s father, his uncle, teachers, and the description of his lifestyle in St. Petersburg create a vivid picture of Russian noble life at the beginning of the 19th century. Familiarity with the upbringing and lifestyle of the main character before meeting Tatyana explains to the reader his reaction to meeting the heroine and not her letter. And the description of this reaction is a new further stage in the reader’s more in-depth acquaintance with the hero, gives new material for insight into the character and psychology of the “young man” of the 19th century.
Thus, all the individual episodes in the novel turn out to be not indifferent to each other, but internally connected with each other. Moreover, not only the environment and external factors of life help to explain and understand inner world characters, but this world itself acquires enormous, exceptional significance in depicting the modern reality of that time.
The historical understanding of not only the external environment and conditions in which people live and act, but also the very structure of their feelings and moral life is no less clearly expressed in Pushkin's prose– from “Arap Peter the Great” to “ Queen of Spades”, “The captain's daughter” and “Egyptian Nights”.
In Pushkin’s works, along with the change in the “spirit of the times,” not only social mores, characters and fashions change, but also the relationships that develop between people: the love of a medieval paladin or “poor knight” is fundamentally, qualitatively different from the love of young people of the 19th century. Therefore in XVIII literature centuries, the “poor knight” was supplanted by the gentleman Phoblas, and half a century later the “Phoblases’ glory fell into disrepair,” and their place was taken by Onegin and Childe Harold.
CONCLUSION
The peculiarity of every work of art and literature is that it does not die with its creator and its era, but continues to live later, and in the process of this later life historically naturally enters into new relationships with history. And these relationships can illuminate the work for contemporaries with a new light, can enrich it with new, previously unnoticed semantic facets, bring from its depth to the surface such important, but not yet recognized by previous generations, moments of psychological and moral content, the meaning of which for the first time could be realized. - truly appreciated only in the conditions of the next, more mature era. This happened with Pushkin’s work. The experience of the historical life of the 19th and 20th centuries and the work of the great poet’s heirs revealed new important philosophical and artistic meanings in his works, often still inaccessible to either Pushkin’s contemporaries or his first closest, immediate successors, including Belinsky. But just as the work of Pushkin’s students and heirs helps today to better understand the works of the great poet and appreciate all the hidden seeds in them that were developed in the future, so the analysis of Pushkin’s artistic discoveries allows literary science to penetrate deeper into the subsequent discoveries of Russian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. centuries. This emphasizes the deep, organic connection between the new paths laid out in art by Pushkin and the entire later development of Russian literature right up to the present day.
Literature
1. “Literature in the Movement of Time”, Friedlander G.M.
2. “The life and work of A.S. Pushkin”, Kuleshov V.I.
3. “Pushkin’s prose: Paths of evolution”, Tomashevsky B.V.
Love in the understanding of Onegin and Tatiana.
(according to A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”)
In my essay I want to understand and understand what love means for Onegin and Tatyana. I would like to understand why Evgeniy and Tatyana did not stay together, and, in general, whether this is possible.
Evgeny Onegin is an extraordinary figure. He is successful in society, popular with ladies, but, nevertheless, he felt bored and left for the village. In this complex spiritual phenomenon called Eugene Onegin, there are two main centers. One of them is indifference, coolness, the other center is described in the first chapter “but what was his true genius” - and this is followed by a description of Eugene as a “genius of love”. At the beginning, it can be mistaken for irony, a grin, or the hero’s philandering. We see a free, fashionable, ardent rake, a renegade of fashionable pleasures, an enemy and a waste of order.
He sees no meaning in anything, is indifferent to everything except self-esteem and independence. The feeling of love is alien to him, only the “science of tender passion” is familiar. It is difficult to imagine that in a few years this callous character will comprehend a selfless, spontaneous, poetic feeling. Well, for now he sees in the girls only potential brides planning how to spend his fortune after the wedding. He perceived Olga and Tatyana in exactly the same way. He was surprised to learn that his friend (Lensky) was in love with Olga:
If only I were like you, poet
Olga has no life in her features
Exactly like Vandyk's Madonna
She's round and red-faced,
Like this stupid moon
On this stupid sky.
He admitted that if he were a poet, he would choose Tatyana. He is not a poet, but he notices the individuality and unusualness of the heroine. She attracted his interest with her mystery, elusiveness, spirituality, and depth. But he only singled her out from the two sisters, nothing more. The girl did not arouse any other interest in him. But his soul, incapable of deep feelings, was touched by Tatyana’s letter:
But, having received Tanya’s message,
Onegin was deeply touched:
The language of girlish dreams
He was disturbed by a swarm of thoughts.
After reading the letter, Onegin felt an excitement in his soul; he had long, and perhaps never known, a real deep feeling that worried him so much. “Perhaps the old ardor of feelings took possession of him for a minute,” but Eugene returned from the clouds to the ground, overcoming his feelings, decided that they were not suitable for each other, and did not dare to tempt fate. The hero is endowed with intelligence, therefore he acts intelligently, consciously, but love and intelligence are different things. There are times when you need to “throw aside” your calculations, your head, and live with your heart. Eugene’s heart is “shackled in chains” and it is very difficult to break them.
After Lensky's death, we do not see the hero, he leaves, and returns completely different, the opposite. We don’t know what happened to the hero during his journey, what he thought about, what he understood, why he “removed the shackles from his heart,” but we see another person capable of feeling and loving, worrying and suffering. Perhaps he realized that he did the wrong thing by rejecting Tatyana, that in vain he decided not to try to live the fabulous, ethereal life that Lensky admired so much, but nothing can be returned, and the image of Tanya “melts” in Onegin’s memory.
His meeting with Tatyana in St. Petersburg was a surprise for him:
“Can it really be,” Eugene thinks, “is she really?..” both heroes have changed over these 2 years. Tatyana follows Evgeniy’s advice:
“Learn to control yourself,
not everyone will understand you like I do,
inexperience leads to disaster.”
Evgeny becomes sensual and vulnerable. He falls in love: he counts the hours until he meets Tanya; when he sees her, he is speechless. The hero is overwhelmed with feelings, he is gloomy, awkward, but this does not touch Tatyana’s soul:
He's barely awkward
The head answers her
He is full of gloomy thoughts.
He looks gloomily. She
sits, calm and free.
Inexperience is visible in all of Evgeniy’s actions; he never loved as much as he did now. He lived his youth - the time of love - as an adult, strict, indifferent man. Now that this time has passed, and the time has come for the real adult life, love makes him a boy, inexperienced and crazy.
In the anguish of loving thoughts
He spends both day and night.
He's happy if he throws it at her
Fluffy boa on the shoulder,
Or touches hotly
Her hands, or spread
Before her is a motley regiment of liveries,
Or he will lift the scarf for her.
Onegin rejoices at every minute of his life spent next to Tatyana. Does not pay attention to his appearance, painful state:
Onegin begins to turn pale:
She either can’t see it or isn’t sorry,
Onegin dries - and barely
He's no longer suffering from consumption.
With every action, Evgeniy wants to earn Tatyana’s attention and tender gaze, but she is insensitive and cold. She hid all her feelings far, far away, she “chained her heart with chains,” as Onegin once did. Present life Tani is a masquerade. There is a mask on her face that looks quite natural, but not for Evgeniy. He saw her in a way that no one else around her now did. He knows tender and romantic, naive and in love, sensitive and vulnerable Tanya. The hero hopes that all this could not disappear without a trace, that under this mask the real face of the girl is hidden - village Tatiana, who grew up reading French novels and dreams of a big and pure love. For Evgeny, all this was very important, but gradually hope faded, and the hero decided to leave. On last explanation with Tatyana he “looks like a dead man.” His passion is similar to Tanya’s suffering in chapter 4. When the young man came to her house, he saw the real Tanya without a mask and pretense:
...A simple maiden
with dreams, the heart of former days,
now she has risen again in her.
We all see that village Tanya is alive, and her behavior is just an image, a cruel role. Now let's move to the village and try to understand what love means to Tanya at the beginning and at the end of the novel.
Tatyana, like Onegin, was a stranger in the family. She did not like noisy games, feasts, and was never affectionate towards her parents. Tanya lived in another parallel world, the world of books and dreams.
She liked novels early on;
They replaced everything for her:
She fell in love with deceptions
And Richardson and Russo.
from those around her, deep concentration on the internal movements of the soul makes love more powerful for Tatyana. In Onegin she saw everything best sides literary heroes, she fell in love with the image created by writers, society and Tatyana herself. She lives the dream, believes in a happy ending to the romance called life. But the dreams dissipate when Evgeniy answers her letter, flirts with Olga, and kills his friend. Then Tatyana understands that dreams and reality are different things. The hero of her dreams is far from humanity. The world of books and the world of people cannot exist together, they need to be separated. After all these events, Tatyana does not suffer, she does not try to forget her lover, she wants to understand him. To do this, the girl visits Eugene’s house, in which she learns other, secret sides of Onegin. Only now Tanya begins to understand and comprehend the actions of the hero. But she understood him too late, he left, and it is unknown whether they will see each other again. Perhaps the girl would have lived with dreams of meeting, studying his soul, spending time in his house. But an event happened that changed Tanya’s life. She was taken to St. Petersburg, married, separated from native nature, books, the village world with the stories and fairy tales of the nanny, with her warmth, naivety, cordiality. Everything that she was separated from constituted the heroine’s favorite circle of life. In St. Petersburg, no one needs her; her provincial views seem strange and naively funny there. Therefore, Tanya decides that the best in in this case will hide under a mask. She hides her affections, becomes a model of “impeccable taste,” a true snapshot of nobility and sophistication. But I am sure that Tanya constantly remembers that serene life, full of hopes and dreams. She remembers her beloved quiet nature, she remembers Evgeniy. She does not try to “bury” the village Tanya, but simply does not show her to others. We see that internally Tanya has not changed at all, but now she has a husband, and she cannot recklessly surrender to love.
Reflecting on what love means for Tatyana at the end of the novel (since we already understood that at the beginning love played a big role in the heroine’s life), I came to this conclusion. Tanya has remained the same, so sometimes she allows herself to think and dream about a different life, full of love and tenderness. But she, who grew up in the spirit of the patriarchal nobility, cannot break the bonds of marriage, cannot build her happiness on the misfortune of her husband. Therefore, she surrenders to the will of fate, rejects love and lives in a world full of lies and pretense.
At the beginning of the novel, when the happiness of the heroes seems so close, Onegin rejects Tatyana. Why? Simply because he is not only cruel, but also noble. He understands that happiness will be short-lived and decides to reject Tanya immediately rather than gradually torment her. He sees the hopelessness of their relationship, so he decides to break up without starting. At the end of the novel, the situation changes, the hero lives with his love, it means a lot to him. But now the heroine has the final say. But she also refuses the relationship. Again, why? The girl was raised according to ancient customs. It is impossible for her to cheat on her husband or leave him. For this act, everyone would condemn her: family, society, and, first of all, herself. We see different characters, upbringing, worldviews, different attitudes towards love. To connect them, we need to change all these qualities, all these data, but then we will see not Evgeny Onegin and Tatyana Larina, but completely different heroes, with different qualities. But who can guarantee that these people will be drawn to each other, like our heroes?
