Moral problems in the novel Eugene Onegin. What is the problem of the novel "Eugene Onegin"? Moral issues in the novel Eugene Onegin

Among the main problems of the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin, the following can be identified:
- search for the meaning of life;
- the purpose of human life in society;
- heroes of that time;
- assessment of the entire system of moral values ​​of that period.
The novel by A.S. Pushkin is largely autobiographical for the author, because he, like main character In the novel, Eugene Onegin became disillusioned with the old ideals and moral principles of that era. But the hero is unable to look for ways to change, to do something to make changes in his life; he is overcome by the eternal Russian blues, which in the novel is characterized by the fashionable English word “spleen.”
In his lines, A.S. Pushkin very confidentially tells the reader about his feelings and vision of the world. For him, family, family ties. the sacred home is of undeniable value, and this idea is conveyed in words main character Tatiana Larina:
“But I was given to someone else,
And I will be faithful to him forever!”
We can trace the entire path of growing up and developing the personalities of Evgeniy and Tatyana, the changes in their worldview.
The novel also touches on issues of the value of human life for society, a description of the characters of that time, and the influence of advanced ideas on the ideology of society.

When I was at school, we all studied A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.” The ending of this novel is very sad, and it does not meet all the “expectations” of the readers.
Throughout the entire novel, we all expect that Tatyana, a genius of pure beauty and a feminine ideal, will reciprocate Evgeniy’s feelings, and they will live happily ever after for many, many years. But it turns out that everything is completely wrong:
- I love you, why lie?
But, I was given to someone else, I will be faithful to him forever.
Tatyana rejects all of Evgeniy’s advances, and this becomes a complete surprise, and the main problem of the entire novel.
Perhaps Pushkin did not tell us everything, and in the lives of the main characters everything could have turned out differently, but many people find themselves in a similar situation in our time.
In Tatiana’s life, the opportunity arose to exchange one man for another, and she faced a difficult choice between the present and the future. Onegin did not have an “impeccable reputation.”
According to the novel, he was selfish, proud, unreliable, and he “regularly changed women,” and Tatyana perfectly understood the essence of things, she had no shortage of male attention, and many men from her “circle” would like to marry her. .
Tatyana, according to the novel, is a very reasonable woman, she respected her husband, who truly loved her and wanted her to be happy only with him. Could Eugene Onegin make her happy? And why, only three years later, did he realize how much he loved her?
Having rejected Evgeniy’s advances, Tatyana acted like a reasonable woman and did not change her existing family life, for a “light affair.”
In this case, reason triumphed over feelings.
We cannot blame Tatyana, because there are so many people, so many opinions, and the problem of this novel is choosing the right one. life path!

It seems to me that in his novel Pushkin contrasts, compares and looks for similarities and differences among two different “worlds” - the world of beautiful magnificent balls, the metropolitan nobility and the world of ordinary people of noble blood, living more solitary and modestly. The representative of the first world is the main character of the novel, Eugene Onegin, and the brightest representative of the second is Tatyana. Eugene is presented as a brilliant young man, educated, but mired in social life. But he is already bored with this life, and the author himself, as we see from the novel, is not delighted with it. It is full of senseless and merciless intrigues, flattery, betrayal, debauchery. Only from the outside does he seem attractive, beautiful and unusual. Those who find themselves inside it quickly lose their human dignity and strive for false values. And so Evgeniy, tired of this high society, goes to the village and meets there a completely different world, people of a different type. Tatyana is pure, she is educated and smart, she is close to the ideals of her ancestors - family comes first, the desire for harmony and perfection. But Eugene did not immediately warm up to such ideals, and then, when he realized his mistake, it was too late. So the main problem lies behind the relationship between these two main characters, as the main representatives of two classes of society.

"Eugene Onegin" is one of my favorite novels. While studying it at school, I probably re-read it 5 times. Then the novel was simple for me an interesting book, no more. Probably, at that age, no one thought deeply about the problems raised by Pushkin.
Now, I think, I look at the characters in the novel from a slightly different angle. The plot is based on the love of the main characters. Together with them, we live through the stages of their spiritual formation, the search for truth, they determine their place in this life. For each of the heroes, love is something personal. For Larina this is a huge spiritual work, for Lensky it is just a light romantic attribute, for Olga it is a lack of sentimentality and individuality, for Onegin it is the science of tender passion. Next to the problem of love goes deep the problem of friendship. Right now I understand that friendship without deep spiritual affection is impossible and temporary.
The problem of duty and happiness is especially important in the novel, since Tatyana Larina is a girl of conscience and honor and conscience are as important to her as love. As the novel progresses, she transforms into a holistic personality with her own moral principles and foundations, life values.
Also a huge problem described in the novel is the interconnection of different segments of the population.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is a Russian poet, prose writer and playwright of the 19th century. He is the founder of Russian realism. The great poet is considered one of the most authoritative figures of his time. Over the course of eight years, he created a novel in verse called “Eugene Onegin.” The problems presented to the reader in this work are still relevant today. In our article you can find not only a description of the problems and plot of the novel, but also the history of its creation, as well as a lot of other interesting and educational information.

The history of the creation of an innovative work

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin began writing “Eugene Onegin” in 1823, and finished only in 1831. Pushkin sometimes called his novel a feat. It is worth noting that “Eugene Onegin” is the first work in the poet’s repertoire that was written in the style of realism.

Initially, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin planned to include 9 chapters in the novel, but after finishing writing, he left only 8. The work describes the events of 1819 - 1825. The novel presents not only love line, but also the vices of society. It is for this reason that the work is still relevant today.

“Eugene Onegin” is an encyclopedia of Russian life, because the detail of everyday life and the depth of description of the characters’ characters allow readers to understand the peculiarities of the life of people of the 19th century. The novel “Eugene Onegin” was published in parts (chapters). Some excerpts were published in magazines. The publication of each chapter became an extraordinary event in society. The very first part was published in 1825.

Plot of the novel

Realism in Russian literature, as already mentioned, was first presented in an innovative work authored by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. The main character of the novel is Eugene Onegin. This is a young nobleman who was very educated and led a secular lifestyle. The main thing for him was visiting balls and theaters. Onegin also loved to have dinner with friends at the most popular establishments in St. Petersburg. But over time he gets bored similar image life, and the hero falls into the deepest depression.

Having learned about his uncle's fatal illness, Evgeny Onegin goes to the village. Upon arrival, he finds out that his relative is no longer alive. Since the main character was the only heir, all the property goes to him. Evgeny Onegin believes that the village is in dire need of transformation and reform. While these thoughts occupy the hero, he meets and begins to maintain a relationship with Lensky, a young landowner. The new comrade introduces Onegin to the Larin family, in which two sisters live. One of them is Tatyana, who had the misfortune of falling in love with young Evgeniy at first sight.

At the Larins' ball, a conflict arises between Lensky and Onegin, which goes too far and ends in a duel between former friends. After Onegin kills Lensky in a fight, he leaves on a journey in despair. At this time, Tatyana is married off.

At one of the balls, Onegin and Tatyana meet. The main character suddenly awakens to a belated love for a girl. Returning home, Evgeniy composes a love letter for Tatiana, to which she soon responds. The girl claims that she still loves the young nobleman, but cannot be with him, since she is already a married lady: “But I have been given to another and will be faithful to him forever.”

Characteristics of the main character of the work

Onegin's qualities are especially clearly revealed to the reader in the first and last chapter novel. The main character has a rather complex character. He has a heightened sense of self-esteem, but from time to time Evgeniy is forced to make concessions to society because he is afraid of not being accepted. In the novel, the author devotes several lines to the childhood of the protagonist, which to a certain extent explains his current behavior. From the first days of his life, Evgeniy was raised superficially. At first glance, Onegin’s childhood was fun and carefree, but in fact, everything familiar quickly caused him dissatisfaction.

The young nobleman lives. It is worth noting that Onegin acts and dresses as is customary in society - in this sense, he neglects his own desires. The image of the main character is quite complex and diverse. Refusal of personal claims deprives him of the opportunity to be himself.

Evgeny Onegin easily charmed any woman. He spent his free time surrounded by entertainment, which soon invariably bored him. Onegin does not value people. Confirmation of this is the duel with Lensky. Eugene easily kills a friend without a good reason. The positive traits of the main character appear before the reader at the end of the novel. Seeing Tatyana again, he realizes that nothing excites the heart more than sincerity. But, unfortunately, the hero realizes this truth too late.

Life and customs of the nobility

“We all learned a little something and somehow” - a quote from the novel “Eugene Onegin”, which is sometimes used today. Its meaning is a reflection of the superficial education of high society in times Patriotic War 1812. The nobility in Moscow and St. Petersburg were divided in their views into two groups: the first - older generation, and the second are young nobles. Most of them did not want to do anything or strive for anything. In those days, knowledge of French and the ability to bow and dance correctly were priorities. This is where the craving for knowledge, as a rule, ended. This is confirmed by a quote from the novel, which, due to its veracity, will never be superfluous to repeat: “We all learned a little something and somehow.”

Love and duty in the novel "Eugene Onegin"

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is a poet who worked in the last century, but his works are still relevant today. One of his most popular works is the novel “Eugene Onegin”. What problems does this work pose for readers?

Happiness and duty are one of the key problems that are presented in the novel “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. It concerns not only the main character and Tatyana, but also the girl’s parents. Tatiana's mother was supposed to marry another man, the one she loved. Having entered into a marriage with an unloved person, she cried and suffered, but over time she came to terms with it. Paradoxically, Tatyana repeated the fate of her mother. She loved Evgeniy Onegin with all her heart, but she married a completely different man. The girl puts duty above love and remains with her husband, for whom she has no feelings. Thus, upbringing takes its toll, and the heroine sacrifices her happiness in the name of the foundations instilled in childhood.

It is difficult to argue with the fact that one of Pushkin’s most popular and iconic works is “Eugene Onegin”. The problems described in the novel made the author's creation famous throughout the world.

The problem of identifying the main character in society

In the novel "Eugene Onegin" the hero is shown in interaction with society. It is interesting how the change in external status that occurs in Onegin’s life changes his habits and behavior. The main character behaves completely differently in a secular and rural environment. For example, in St. Petersburg Onegin demonstrates politeness and education, but in the village, on the contrary, he neglects the rules of etiquette. Based on this, we can conclude that the main character is no stranger to hypocrisy and lies.

The problem of searching for the meaning of life in A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”

On the path of life you meet different people. Some have willpower and are true to their worldviews, while others, on the contrary, make many mistakes and cannot find the true path. The novel “Eugene Onegin” leads readers to many thoughts. Problems associated with finding the meaning of life help you understand yourself.

The main characters of the novel are individuals who feel lonely in a secular environment. They are capable of both love and suffering. Onegin, for example, despises and this leads him to severe depression. Tatyana is the ideal of moral purity. Her main goal is to love and be loved, but the atmosphere that reigns around the heroine sometimes changes, as do the people around her. Despite this, Tatyana remains innocent and morally pure. But the main character eventually understands who he rejected, and this becomes the impetus for personal adjustments. Using the example of Onegin, the author of the work demonstrates how a person who comes into contact with the sincerity and spiritual beauty of another can change.

A unique Russian novel

In the 19th century, the novels of Byron and Walter Scott were very popular. From a thematic point of view, they were often associated with Pushkin’s poetic novel. The first published chapters of Eugene Onegin caused a stir in society. Reviews of the work differed significantly from each other.

In this innovative work, the author combines many genres and styles. In his novel, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin achieves integrity and harmony of style, ways of expressing artistic thought. "Eugene Onegin" is the first novel in Russia, which is written in poetic form. Modern critics have more than once tried to figure out what the social and literary roots of the main character of the work - the “superfluous” person in society - are. They often suggested that the creature was connected with Byron's Harold.

Features of Tatyana's image

Tatyana Larina is the main character of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”. It is noteworthy that the author in all his works describes the image of a beautiful Russian woman. Tatyana falls in love with Onegin at first sight and for the rest of her life, and is the first to confess her feelings to him. But in Evgeniy’s callous heart there was no room for pure love girls.

In the image of Tatyana, incompatible things are combined into one whole: the heroine likes to tell fortunes, reads novels and believes in omens, despite the fact that she is quite religious. Its rich inner world amazes those around him. It is for this reason that she feels comfortable in any society. She is not bored even in the village. And the heroine also loves to indulge in dreams.

Over time, having received declarations of love from Eugene Onegin, the girl acts wisely. Tatyana suppresses her feelings and decides to stay with her husband. After all, a relationship with Onegin would be disastrous for the heroine.

The author's moral ideal

As we said earlier, Tatyana Larina does the right thing at the end of the novel. She does not hide the fact that she still loves Eugene Onegin, but at the same time the heroine believes that she can only belong to her legal husband.

It is Tatyana who is the most positive and moral person in the work. She makes mistakes, but then draws the right conclusions and accepts the right decision. If you carefully read the lines of the novel, it becomes clear that Tatyana is the ideal of the author himself. On the contrary, using the example of Onegin, he demonstrates all the vices of society, since the main character of the novel is selfish and arrogant. It was individuals like Eugene who were prominent representatives of the noble class. Therefore, he appeared in the novel as a collective image of the high society of St. Petersburg.

Curious and moral choice heroes. The most striking example is the duel between Lensky and Onegin. The main character does not want to go to it, but submits to public opinion. As a result, Lensky dies, and this is a kind of turning point. It was after the sad event described that the novel changed its measured course.

Let's sum it up

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” is the first work in verse, which was written in the spirit of realism. The main characters are the young nobleman Onegin, the village girl Tatyana Larina and the landowner Lensky. The novel intertwines a large number storylines and images. This is one of the reasons that makes the work interesting and instructive. The novel also contains relevant issues of any time: it touches on man’s eternal search for the meaning of life and his place in society. The tragedy of the work is that it is very difficult to conform to the ideas of the environment, regardless of one’s desires and principles. This inevitably leads to duality and hypocrisy. In addition, feeling like a stranger in society, as the main character feels, is also psychologically difficult. And, of course, the topic invariably attracts readers. The work is written very vividly and interestingly, so anyone who decides to read the novel “Eugene Onegin” will not be mistaken. The problems that are demonstrated in the work will provoke reflection and show what passions raged in the distant 19th century.

The novel has its own inner literary time, and it clearly correlates with the real historical time. If you trace, focusing on the time of the novel, its events, connecting them with the history of Russia, you can make interesting observations about Pushkin’s plan and its implementation. It is also interesting to compare some dates in the life of Pushkin and his hero in order to verify the writer’s intention to create a historically accurate portrait of his contemporary. At the same time, the author does not liken the hero to himself, preserving his individuality and personality, noting in chapter one:

I'm always happy to notice the difference

Between Onegin and me.

Pushkin's goal is to describe the type of young Russian nobleman of the first quarter of the 19th century. Therefore, some events coincide or are comparable in time. Onegin was born, according to researchers, in 1795, therefore, like Pushkin, he can be considered the same age as the 19th century. Onegin's childhood years are spent in St. Petersburg near the embankment of the Moika River and the Summer Garden, where the boy's French teacher takes him for walks. After graduating from the Lyceum, Pushkin lived for some time in a house on the Moika, from the windows of which the Mikhailovsky Castle and the Summer Garden were visible. The cultural and everyday atmosphere of Onegin's growing up and his education are shown very accurately, for example, new trends in the education of young nobles and changes in education. Let us remember that the French tutor “slightly scolded” his ward for pranks or “taught him everything jokingly,” which speaks of punishments that had become unpopular and of the introduced manner of teaching children through play.

The next stage of Onegin’s life coincided with the victory in the war and the expulsion of Napoleon from Russia - Onegin entered high society. The young hero plunges headlong into the “motley” and “monotonous” carousel of secular amusements; the description of the days of his life is a historically accurate sketch of the pastime of young St. Petersburg nobles in 1819. Pushkin uses expressive artistic device, depicting the years of Onegin's social life (1812-1819) as one day, within which, as in a kaleidoscope, the same brilliant and boring events replace each other.

Onegin's departure to the village occurred in 1819 - in public life In Russia, this year was characterized by the intensification of the activities of secret political societies and the growth of tension in the state: the 1820s were approaching - the time of the Decembrist movement, uprising and subsequent political reaction. The years of Onegin's stay in the village were for his generation a time of choice of political orientation and civic position. Therefore, Pushkin introduces the twenty-five-year-old skeptic Onegin and the eighteen-year-old romantic poet Lensky to the village, as if checking which of these heroes will be more in demand in modern Russia.

In 1820, according to the internal chronology of the novel, Onegin and Tatyana met, the theme of love arises in the work, and thus historical theme modern man turns out to be inextricably linked with the ability of his soul to love. In January 1821, in the Epiphany frosts, a duel between Onegin and Lensky took place, the plot connections fell apart, and Onegin left the village. Onegin's wanderings around Russia, which were not included in the final version of the novel, were supposed to show the situation in the country before the tragic event - the Decembrist uprising.

Onegin returns to St. Petersburg in the fall of 1824. Happens in April next year final explanation Tatiana and Onegin, after which the heroes part forever. It is significant that Pushkin brings the narrative to 1825, leaving artistic rethinking historical events for the future. This explains why Pushkin, after writing the novel, makes an attempt to supplement it with the brightest facts of modernity and begins to write the so-called chapter ten, in which, judging by the remaining fragments, he plans to create a poetic history of Russia in the first quarter of the 19th century, but for a number of reasons, including and censorship, destroys what is written.

Problems of the novel "Eugene Onegin"

The main themes of the novel are the image of modern man, the theme of love and the theme of Russia. Various formulations have been used to characterize Onegin’s personality, but they far from exhaust the complexity of his personality. For example, Onegin is called a “suffering egoist,” they note his “premature old age of soul,” and the author’s words about a modern hero are applied to him:

With his immoral soul,

Selfish and dry,

Immensely devoted to a dream,

With his embittered mind

Seething in empty action.

This is, of course, a very true and subtle characterization of Onegin, but one must also discern in the hero the desire for a full life and the opportunity to be reborn to it.

The relationship between Tatiana and Onegin determines the entire development of the plot, and the theme of love is certainly the main one in the novel. Perhaps Onegin's wanderings did not become a separate chapter, because the absence of the image of Tatyana in it would have violated the integrity of the novel. Pushkin seems to want to say with this that love knows no break, and therefore the plot of love cannot be stopped for a while. The love between Tatiana and Onegin should not be in doubt. Even many years later, refusing Onegin, Tatyana says:

I love you (why lie?),

But I was given to another;

And I will be faithful to him forever.

The theme of Russia unites St. Petersburg, Moscow and the countryside; metropolitan and landed nobility; Russian nature. The main thing in the novel were the types of heroes, their characters - Pushkin depicts the images of two young nobles, Onegin and Lensky, trying to find perspective in them further development Russian society. The image of the local young lady, and later Princess Tatyana Larina, is the key to a healthy, moral feminine principle in the nation. The theme of the “Russian blues” became the main theme in the novel.

The theme of “Russian blues” in the novel “Eugene Onegin”

The theme of “Russian blues” appears in the novel in chapter one, runs through the entire novel and has its own composition.

Let us remember chapter one: Onegin lives, like the entire young generation of his time, in idleness and entertainment. It would seem that a young man should like such a fate, because he is rich, well accepted in society, and easily achieves success with women. However, the epigraph to chapter one, taken by Pushkin from Vyazemsky’s poem “First Snow,” indicates the main problem to which the chapter is devoted:

And he’s in a hurry to live, and he’s in a hurry to feel.

With the help of an epigraph, Pushkin raises an important vital and moral question: does Onegin lead a healthy lifestyle, does his soul manage to grow stronger amid the eternal haste and pursuit of pleasure? And as an answer to this question, a turn is planned in the plot of the novel: in the midst of pleasure and bliss, the hero experiences a terrible emptiness in his soul, apathy and disappointment.

Pushkin distinguishes between “English spleen” and “Russian blues”, wanting to say that Onegin’s illness is exclusively national character. In other words, the “Russian blues” is an individual, social and national phenomenon to which a significant part of the younger generation was susceptible at that time. Pushkin sees in her main problem Russian society: “Russian blues” is the lack of meaning and purpose of existence, the will to live. Of course, the appearance of the blues in Onegin was influenced by satiety with life, but this is not main reason. One can believe in the sincerity of Onegin’s condition, because he, it would seem, has no reason to be disappointed: he will always be rich, since he is “the heir of all his relatives,” he is favorably accepted in society, being, in the opinion of the world, “smart and very nice,” he is a “true genius” at love affairs.

The blues struck Onegin so strongly that any attempt to overcome it ended in failure: he could not pour it out by writing, could not learn anything about it by reading books, and he was content only with melancholy walks and conversations with the author. Onegin did not free himself from the blues even after moving to the village. Pushkin introduces two situations of testing the hero: the test of friendship and the test of love. In an episode on Tatiana's name day, Onegin thoughtlessly offended his friend, cowardly accepted the challenge to a duel and shot Lensky. An illustration of the theme of “Russian blues” in the novel was the epigraph to chapter six, taken from the work of the Italian poet Petrarch: “Where the days are cloudy and short, a tribe will be born that does not hurt to die.”

Meanwhile, this tragic outcome became the culmination of the theme of “Russian blues” in the novel, since the hero could not remain indifferent to the crime committed. The former indifference and apathy were replaced by anxiety and the inability to stay in one place for a long time and, as a result, leaving the village. The hero becomes a wanderer, thereby embodying the motif of wandering, so important in Russian literature. The denouement of the theme of “Russian blues” came in chapter eight, when Onegin’s soul opened up to love, and he began to transform as a person, coming to life again.

Of course, Onegin’s love was late, and Tatiana’s refusal is fair and moral. Pushkin leaves Onegin alone, because now only the hero himself can choose his path.

In the twenties of the 19th century, they were very popular among the Russian public. romantic novels Walter Scott and his many imitators. Byron was especially loved in Russia, whose sublime disappointment contrasted effectively with the stillness of Russian everyday life. Romantic works attracted people with their unusualness: the titanic characters of the heroes, passionate feelings, exotic pictures of nature excited the imagination. And it seemed that it was impossible to create a work based on the material of Russian everyday life that could interest the reader.

The appearance of the first chapters of Eugene Onegin caused a wide cultural resonance. Enthusiastic reviews alternated with caustic satirical articles; the ambiguity of assessments was caused by the unprecedented artistic experience undertaken by the poet. The very form of the work was unusual. The novel in the literary “table of ranks” was considered a work of a low genre in comparison with the poem; it was based on an everyday plot; as a rule, among its heroes there were no historical figures. Pushkin, aware of the complexity of the creative task, decided to combine various genre aesthetics, achieving the creation of an original art world. By synthesizing novel epicness with poetic rhythm, the author achieves harmonious integrity; numerous life collisions are subject to them psychological analysis, and various problems are resolved by moral and ethical assessments.

Pushkin's encyclopedism cannot be reduced only to the panoramic breadth of the image of reality. The principles of artistic typification and moral and philosophical conceptualization have opened up the opportunity not only to record the realities of everyday life or social life, but also to reveal the genesis of phenomena, ironically linking them with concepts and categories that collectively recreate the practical and mental contours of the national universe.

Space and time, social and individual consciousness are revealed by the artist in living, unfinished facts of reality, illuminated by a lyrical and sometimes ironic look. Pushkin is not characterized by moralizing. The reproduction of social life is free from didactics; secular customs, theater, balls, inhabitants of estates, details of everyday life - narrative material that does not pretend to be a poetic generalization - unexpectedly appears as a most interesting subject of research. The system of oppositions (St. Petersburg society - local nobility; patriarchal Moscow - Russian dandy; Onegin - Lensky; Tatyana - Olga, etc.) organizes the diversity of life reality, which initially denies any attempts at cataloging. Edification as a means of identification and declaration author's position disgusts the scale of Pushkin’s genius. Hidden and obvious irony shines through in the description of the landowner's existence. Admiration of the “dear old days”, the village that showed the feminine ideal to the national world, is inseparable from the mocking characteristics of the Larins’ neighbors. The world of everyday worries develops with pictures of fantastic dreams read from books, and the miracles of Christmas fortune-telling.

The scale and at the same time intimate nature of the plot, the unity of epic and lyrical characteristics allowed the author to give an original interpretation of life, its most dramatic conflicts, which were maximally embodied in the image of Eugene Onegin. Contemporary criticism of Pushkin more than once wondered about the literary and social roots of the image of the protagonist. The name of Byron's Childe Harold was often heard, but references to the domestic origins of the existential phenomenon were no less common.

Onegin’s Byronism and the character’s disappointment are confirmed by his literary preferences, character, and views: “What is he? Is it really an imitation, an insignificant ghost, or a Muscovite in Harold’s cloak...” – Tatyana discusses “the hero of her novel.” The determination of Pushkin's character by historical reality was noted by Russian thinkers. Herzen wrote that “in Pushkin they saw the successor of Byron,” but “by the end of their lives, Pushkin and Byron are completely moving away from each other,” which is expressed in the specifics of the characters they created: “Onegin is Russian, he is possible only in Russia: there he is necessary, and there you meet him at every step... The image of Onegin is so national that it is found in all novels and poems that receive any recognition in Russia, and not because they wanted to copy him, but because you constantly find him near oneself or in oneself.”

Reproduction with encyclopedic completeness of the essence of problems and characters relevant to the social reality of the 20s of the 19th century is achieved not only by the most detailed depiction of life conflicts, inclinations, sympathies, moral orientations, the spiritual world of contemporaries, but also by special aesthetic means and compositional solutions, the most significant of which are epigraphs. Quotes from familiar and authoritative artistic sources open up the opportunity for the author to create a multifaceted image designed for the organic perception of contextual meanings, acting as preliminary clarifications and a kind of exposition of Pushkin’s narrative. The poet entrusts the quotation from the precedent text with the role of a communicative intermediary, expanding the cultural space of interpretation of “Eugene Onegin”.

A fragment of Vyazemsky’s poem “The First Snow”, chosen as the ideological and thematic prologue of the first chapter, is aimed at creating an indirect characterization of the hero and also refers to a general picture of the worldview and moods inherent in “young ardor”: “And he is in a hurry to live and in a hurry to feel.” The hero’s pursuit of life and the transience of sincere feelings were allegorically read from the title of Vyazemsky’s sad meditation “The First Snow” (“One fleeting day, like a deceptive dream, like a ghost’s shadow, Flashing, you carry away an inhuman deception!” The ending of the poem is “And having exhausted your feelings, leaves a trace of a faded dream on our lonely hearts...” - correlates with the spiritual state of Onegin, who “no longer has any charms.”

In the ironic prelude of the second chapter “Oh rus!.. Oh Rus'!” bucolic motifs are developed European culture in the context of domestic patriarchal plots. The correlation of the classically exemplary Horace with the unchanging world of landowner estates introduces into the theme of the story about the Larins a feeling of eternal peace and stillness, which contrasts with the vital activity of the character, likened in the first chapter to the “first snow”, rapidly enveloping the earth and disappearing into memory.

The quote from Malfilatr “She was a girl, she was in love” becomes the theme of the third chapter, revealing Tatiana’s inner world. Pushkin offers a formula for the heroine’s emotional state, which will determine the basis for the love affairs of subsequent literature. The author depicts various manifestations of Tatiana's soul, explores the circumstances of the formation of the image, which later became a classical moral norm of culture, oppositional excessive passion, mental depravity and sleep of the soul. Pushkin's heroine opens a gallery of female characters in Russian literature, combining sincerity of feelings with special purity of thoughts, ideal ideas with the desire to embody themselves in the real world.

The fourth chapter opens with Necker’s maxim “Morality is in the nature of things.” Various interpretations of this saying, famous at the beginning of the 19th century, are possible. On the one hand, the moral maxim is an admonition for Tatyana’s decisive action, but it should also be taken into account that the heroine in the plot of the declaration of love repeats the pattern of behavior outlined romantic works. On the other hand, Necker’s ethical recommendation appears as an axiom of Onegin’s rebuke, who bears little resemblance to Grandison and Lovelace, but exhibits a no less original type of self-manifestation: he uses the plot of the date for teaching, being so carried away by edifying rhetoric that the likelihood of the girl’s love expectations being fulfilled is excluded. The symbolism of the situation of a love explanation lies in the fact that a special procedure for the behavior of the participants in the plot of the meeting is born, when the cultural competence of the reader turns out to be unnecessary and the events cease to correspond to the familiar literary ritual: sensuality, romantic vows, happy tears, silent consent expressed with the eyes, etc. deliberately rejected by the author due to the pretentious sentimentality and literary nature of the conflict. A lecture on moral and ethical topics seems more convincing to a person who has an understanding of the basics of the “nature of things.”

In the poetic structure of Eugene Onegin, Tatiana’s dream sets a special metaphorical scale for understanding and assessing the heroine’s inner world and the narrative itself. The author expands the space of the story to a mythopoetic allegory. Quoting Zhukovsky at the beginning of the fifth chapter - “Oh, you don’t know these terrible dreams, my Svetlana!” – clearly reveals the association with the work of his predecessor, prepares a dramatic plot. The poetic interpretation of the “wonderful dream” - a symbolic landscape, folklore emblems, baroque-sentimentalist allusions - unites the particular with the universal, the desired harmony with the feeling of life's chaos. The dramatic essence of existence, presented in the metaphors of prophetic vision, precedes the tragic immutability of the destruction of the world familiar to the heroine. The epigraph-warning, carrying out a symbolic allegory, outlines the limits of the rich spiritual content of the image. In the composition of the novel, based on the techniques of contrast and parallelism and ordered by mirror projections (Tatiana’s letter - Onegin’s letter; Tatiana’s explanation - Onegin’s explanation, etc.), there is no antinomic pair of the heroine’s dream. The “awake” Onegin is set in the plane of real social existence, his nature is freed from the associative and poetic context. And on the contrary, the nature of Tatyana’s soul is extended to the endless variety of everyday realities and mythological spheres of existence.

The epigraph-epitaph that opens the sixth chapter of the novel - “Where the days are cloudy and short, a tribe will be born that does not hurt to die” - integrates the pathos of Petrarch’s “On the Life of Madonna Laura” into the plot of the romantic Vladimir Lensky, alien to the objective objectivity of little things Russian life, who created a different world in the soul, the difference of which from those around him prepares the tragedy of the character. “The painlessness of death” is proposed as the idea of ​​​​accepting what was destined, regardless of when it comes true. The motives of Petrarch's poetry are necessary for the author to introduce the character to the developed Western culture philosophical tradition of stoic dying, interrupting the short-term life mission of the “singer of love.”

The triple epigraph to the seventh chapter creates preambles of the narrative that are varied in meaning and intonation (panegyric, ironic, satirical). Dmitriev, Baratynsky, Griboedov, united by statements about Moscow, represent the diversity of the spectrum of assessments of the national myth. Poetic characteristics ancient capital will be developed in the plot of the novel, outline the specifics of resolving conflicts, and determine the special nuances of the characters’ behavior. The couplet from Byron’s series of “Poems on Divorce,” chosen as the epigraph of the eighth chapter, is permeated with elegiac moods, metaphorically conveying the author’s sadness of farewell to the novel and characters, Onegin’s parting with Tatiana.

The aesthetics of epigraphs, along with other artistic decisions of Pushkin, forms the discussion-dialogical potential of the work, coloring precedent artistic phenomena with special semantic intonations, preparing a new scale of generalization classic images. The interpenetration of texts, the intersection of event episodes and emotional opinions form the basis of the dialogical dynamics of culture, that proportionality and proportionality that balances the inconsistency of the subjective aspirations of writers and poets in understanding the nature of artistic truth.

Issues:

A. S. Pushkin is one of greatest poets Russian and world literature. The personality of Pushkin, a poet and a citizen, was formed in the tenth years of the 19th century, when Russian officers returning from the War of 1812 were committed to decisive political changes and considered it necessary to abolish serfdom. This was the time of the rise of social thought, the active participation of progressive youth in the fate of their country, the Russian people. Under the influence of this era of free thought and progress, moral and moral ideals poet, his views on modern society.

Many of the most important issues and problems of that time were reflected in Pushkin’s works. The poet's legacy is extremely large and varied. These are poems, stories, and poems. All these works address issues national culture, education, reflects the searches of progressively minded people, the life of various strata of society.

His lyrical works are of great importance for revealing the poet’s ideals. This is love poetry, allowing one to understand the poet’s inner world, etc. freedom-loving lyrics showing the author’s attitude to issues of autocracy, oppression, and serfdom.

Meeting with members of the Northern Society of Decembrists, Pushkin shared the thoughts and sentiments of the noble revolutionaries. Under the impression of these meetings, disputes and thoughts about the fate of Russia, Pushkin wrote the most fiery poems: “Liberty”, “Village”, “To Chaadaev” and others. An image was created in them lyrical hero, striving for justice, freedom, brotherhood, the image of the poet is the herald of truth:

I want to sing Freedom to the world,

Smite vice on thrones.

For Pushkin, the ideal of a revolutionary fighter was always the Decembrists, who were capable of sacrificing their lives for the sake of a cause, for the sake of an idea. After the defeat of the December uprising, the poet remains true to his ideals. Unable to accept the current situation, he writes a message to his friends languishing in exile. It contains an attempt to support the spirit of the Decembrists, the conviction that their cause will not be forgotten:

Your sorrowful work will not be wasted

And I think about high aspiration.

But it will not be a mistake to say that the most sincere, most significant work of the poet is the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”. It was in this work that Pushkin’s views on modern society were most fully and clearly reflected, and the author’s moral ideals were revealed. According to V. G. Belinsky, the novel was “an encyclopedia of Russian life and to the highest degree folk work" The work was written over several years; during this period, much has changed in the life of Russia, in the life of the poet himself. All this is reflected in the images of the main characters of the work - Evgeny Onegin and Tatyana Larina. On the pages of the novel, in the characters of the characters, in their attitude to life, a new worldview of the poet himself is formed. The author very often compares himself with Onegin, reflecting in the image of the main character both the vices of society and positive features younger generation. The greatest convergence of the poet's personality with the image of Eugene occurs at the end of the novel, when the hero returns from his trip. The reader sees how much he has changed spiritual world Onegin, his moral qualities.

At the beginning of the work, Pushkin calls Evgeny “a good friend,” thereby expressing sympathy for the young man. But the poet shows that Onegin is still far from perfect: he loves comfort too much, is too selfish, and is not accustomed to systematic work. The author sneers at his superficial education and bitterly declares that very little is needed for recognition in secular society:

He's completely French

He could express himself and wrote,

I danced the mazurka easily

And he bowed casually...

This is enough: “...The world decided that he was smart and very nice.” And here the poet, one of the most educated people of his time, declares with a sly grin:

We all learned a little Something and somehow...

Yes, Onegin was corrupted by the world, yes, luxury, wealth, and idleness had too pernicious an influence. But why did the same environment give birth to Pushkin and Onegin, “the best people” and the Decembrists? There are also some internal factors that allow a person to resist vulgarity and stupidity. Onegin has a rare mind, the ability to think. And the novel shows how this man is trying to find the meaning of life, the use of his strengths and energy. Such a search, according to Pushkin, is one of the main features of a morally perfect person. The author compares himself and the hero in relation to art and love. If at the beginning of the novel love for Onegin seems to be just empty entertainment, an easy affair, then for the author this feeling is sacred, poetic, and necessary. And the hero himself is ultimately endowed with the ability to love sincerely and passionately, which is also an important feature of a real person. Having led his hero through a series of trials, the poet endows him with will, strength of soul, and the ability to compassion. It was in this Onegin that the poet’s moral ideals were reflected.

And, of course, Pushkin’s views on the ideal of a Russian woman were reflected in the image of Tatyana Larina. Tatyana is Pushkin's favorite heroine.

The girl, like Onegin, is of noble origin, and like him, she received a superficial home upbringing. But Tatyana is distinguished by sincerity and purity. Living “in the wilderness of a forgotten village,” she is far from falsehood and hypocrisy secular society. Russian nature, rural life with its rituals and traditions had a great influence on the formation of her personality. Reading had a certain meaning for Tatyana:

She liked novels early on;

They replaced everything for her;

She fell in love with deceptions

Both Richardson and Russo.

The integrity and spiritual beauty of this image, the ability for selfless love and moral purity are striking.

Like any young girl, Tatiana was waiting for a handsome and noble prince, therefore, when Eugene appeared in their village, Tatiana decided that this was the very hero whose image she had drawn for herself. With all sincerity and naturalness, the girl admits her feelings, without fear of gossip and condemnation. The poet admires such qualities of Tatyana’s soul.

Later, having found herself in high society, where hypocrisy and depravity reign, she does not change her principles and remains faithful to the ideals of her youth:

Now I'm glad to give it away

All this rags of a masquerade,

All this shine, and noise, and fumes

For a shelf of books, for a wild garden...

Tatyana still loves Evgeniy, but she is not one of those who build her happiness on the misfortune of her neighbor. The girl sacrifices herself, her feelings, obeying a sense of duty and responsibility. Pushkin considers loyalty and the ability to self-sacrifice a necessary trait of a real woman.

It was precisely such women, possessing a truly Russian character, who, after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, followed their husbands to Siberia, leaving behind luxury and comfort, without fear of hardships and hardships. If Pushkin had dedicated his novel to the Decembrists, his Volkonskaya or Trubetskaya would certainly have had the features of Tatyana Larina.

So, in the novel “Eugene Onegin” and in lyrical works the issues that worried the progressive people of the 19th century were reflected with the greatest clarity and completeness, and Pushkin’s moral ideals were revealed.

History of creation

Pushkin began writing the novel "Eugene Onegin" in 1823 year in Chisinau, during the period of southern exile. Work on the work was largely completed in 1830 in Boldin. IN 1831 year, Onegin’s letter to Tatyana was included in the novel. In subsequent years, some changes and additions were made to the text of Eugene Onegin.

Initially, Pushkin did not have a clear plan for the novel. In 1830, while preparing to publish the full text of the work, Pushkin sketched out a general plan for the publication. It was planned to publish nine chapters. However, the eighth chapter, which told about Onegin’s wanderings, was significantly shortened and was not included in the final text of the novel (excerpts from it were published separately, in the author’s notes to the novel). As a result, the ninth chapter ended up in the eighth place. Thus, the final text of the novel has eight chapters.

In addition, there is hypothesis what Pushkin wrote tenth chapter, where he spoke about the secret societies of the Decembrists. The poet burned the manuscript of the tenth chapter in 1830 in Boldin. Some fragments of it have reached us. Scientists are still arguing about whether the tenth chapter existed as such. It is possible that we are dealing with scattered fragments of the draft text of the work that did not form a separate chapter.

Time of action

Pushkin wrote: “In our novel, time is calculated according to the calendar.” According to Yu.M. Lotman, the beginning of events(Onegin goes to the village to visit his sick uncle) falls on summer 1820. The first chapter describes the St. Petersburg winter 1819-1820. Many researchers believe that the novel ends in the spring of 1825. However, there is a hypothesis that the last chapter talks about the post-December era.

Topics

The main theme of “Eugene Onegin” is life of the Russian nobility in the early 1820s.

In addition, Pushkin recreated in his work the most diverse aspects of life in Russia at that time. Yes, he reflected life not only the nobility, but also other classes, primarily the peasantry.

The novel is widely represented Russian and Western European literature and culture.

In addition, in his work Pushkin showed nature Russia, pictures of Russian life. That's why V.G. Belinsky called "Eugene Onegin" "encyclopedia of Russian life."

Issues

The central problem of the novel is time hero problem. This problem is raised primarily in connection with the image of Onegin, but also in connection with the images of Lensky and the author himself.

The problem of the hero of time correlates with another problem of the work - the problem individuals and society. What is the reason for Onegin's loneliness in society? What is the reason for the spiritual emptiness of Pushkin’s hero: in the imperfection of the surrounding society or in himself?

Let's call it the most important thing in the novel. problem of Russian national character. This problem is conceptualized by the author primarily in connection with the image of Tatiana (a striking example of the Russian national character), but also in connection with the images of Onegin and Lensky (heroes divorced from national roots).

The novel puts a number of moral and philosophical problems. This the meaning of life, freedom and happiness, honor and duty. The most important philosophical problem of the work is human and nature.

In addition, the poet puts in his work and aesthetic problems: life and poetry, author and hero, freedom of creativity and literary traditions.

Ideological orientation

Reflected in “Eugene Onegin” spiritual evolution of Pushkin: crisis of educational ideas (period of southern exile); awareness of values folk life(period of exile in Mikhailovskoye); doubts and mental anguish, the struggle between faith and unbelief (the period of wanderings).

Wherein humanistic ideals- personal freedom, “the inner beauty of man” (Belinsky), rejection of cruelty and selfishness - remain the main ones for the poet in all periods of the creation of the novel.

At the same time, the poet claims spiritual values ​​associated with national roots. This closeness of man to nature, following folk traditions, as well as such Christian virtues as selflessness, fidelity to marital duty. These values ​​are revealed primarily in Tatiana’s character.

Pushkin the poet states in his novel creative attitude to life.

At the same time, Pushkin’s novel was noted and satirical pathos: the poet denounces the conservative noble society, the serfdom that reigns there, vulgarity, and spiritual emptiness.

"Eugene Onegin" as a realistic work

"Eugene Onegin" - the first realistic novel in Russian literature.

Pushkin's work is distinguished by historicism: here we find a reflection of the era of the first half of the 1820s, the most important trends in the life of the Russian nobility of that time.

In his work, Pushkin showed bright typical characters. In the image of Onegin, Pushkin recreated the type of educated nobleman, who later received the name “ extra person" In the image of Lensky, the poet captured the type of romantic dreamer, also characteristic of that era.

In the person of Tatiana we see a type of Russian noblewoman. Olga is the type of ordinary provincial young lady. In the images of minor and episodic characters (Tatyana's mother, the Larins' guests, Zaretsky, Tatiana's nanny, the Larins' Moscow relatives, Tatiana's husband and others), Pushkin also presented the reader with vivid types of Russian life.

Unlike romantic poems, in "Eugene Onegin" the author is separated from the heroes, he portrays them objectively, from the outside. At the same time, the image of the author, for all its importance in the novel, does not have self-sufficient significance.

In "Eugene Onegin" we find realistic paintings of nature, numerous details of Russian life, which also indicates the realism of the novel.

Exactly real life(and not abstract romantic ideals) becomes for Pushkin a source of creative inspiration and a subject of poetic reflection. Belinsky wrote: “What was low for former poets was noble for Pushkin; what was prose for them was poetry for him.”

The novel has been written living spoken language. Pushkin often uses words and expressions of a “low” style in his work, thereby bringing the verbal fabric of the novel closer to the everyday language of his time.

Genre originality

As is known, novel- This an epic work in which the narrative focuses on the fate of an individual in the process of its formation and development. (In an epic, unlike a novel, the fate of an entire people is in the foreground.)

The uniqueness of the genre of “Eugene Onegin” is that it is not just a novel, but novel in verse. The genre definition of the work was given by Pushkin himself. in a letter to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky dated November 4, 1823: “I’m not writing a novel, but a novel in verse - a devilish difference.”

Belinsky was one of the first to characterize the features of the genre of Pushkin’s novel. Firstly, the critic noted as Pushkin’s greatest merit the creation of a novel in verse at a time when there were no significant prose novels in Russian literature.

Secondly, Belinsky compares Pushkin’s novel with Byron’s poems, revealing both the related features of the works of the two authors and Pushkin’s fundamental innovation.

Belinsky names some Byron's traditions in "Eugene Onegin". This poetic form, relaxed manner of storytelling, “a mixture of prose and poetry”, that is, a combination of everyday, prosaic phenomena and high objects, digressions, “the presence of the poet’s face in the work he created.”

At the same time, Belinsky notes innovation Pushkin, which the critic sees as follows. Firstly, this national identity Pushkin's work. Byron, according to Belinsky, “wrote about Europe for Europe... Pushkin wrote about Russia for Russia.” Secondly, this "fidelity to reality" Pushkin - a realist poet - in contrast to the “subjective spirit” of Byron - a romantic poet.

Finally, Pushkin's novel is distinguished by free form. Pushkin speaks about this feature of his work in his dedication to P.A. Pletnev: “Accept the collection of motley chapters...” At the end of “Eugene Onegin,” the poet mentions “the distance of a free novel.” This form of the novel is given by the unique voice of the author, whose inner world finds free, direct expression in the work. The author's digressions, written in a light, relaxed manner, are combined with strict symmetry in the arrangement of the central characters and the “mirroring” of the plot structure.

Composition: general construction works

As already noted, the final text of the novel consists of eight chapters.

The plot of “Eugene Onegin” is distinguished by “ specularity", character system - symmetry.

The first and second chapters can be considered as exposition to the main action of the work. In the first chapter, Pushkin introduces the reader to main character Evgeniy Onegin, talks about his upbringing, his life In Petersburg. In the second chapter the narrative moves to village. Here the reader is introduced to Lensky, Olga and Tatyana.

The third chapter contains the beginning of a love affair: Tatyana falls in love with Onegin and writes him a letter. Tatiana's letter to Onegin - the compositional center of the third chapter. Chapter Four, Beginning rebuke Onegin, contains a story about Tatyana's suffering from unrequited love and about Lensky's idyllic relationship with Olga. The fifth chapter talks about Christmas fortune telling, O Tatiana's dream, about her name day, O quarrel Onegin with Lensky.

Chapter six contains climax in the development of the plot - a story about duels Onegin and Lensky. Among the most important events seventh chapter note Tatyana's arrival in Moscow. The eighth chapter contains plot resolution. Here the heroes, in accordance with the principle " specularity", "switch places": now Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, writes to her letter and also receives rebuke, after which the author leaves his hero “at a moment that is evil for him.”

Important compositional role plays in "Eugene Onegin" scenery. Descriptions of nature help the author organize artistic time novel, “calculate” it according to the calendar.

In the composition of “Eugene Onegin” a special place is occupied by author's digressions. Thanks to them, a holistic picture emerges in the reader’s perception. author's image.

Pushkin's novel is written Onegin stanza, which also gives the work harmony, completeness, and integrity.

Characters. general review

The main characters the novel should be called Onegin And Tatyana.

Lensky and Olga are not among the main characters, but this is also central persons in the work. The fact is that these characters, along with Onegin and Tatyana, perform plot-forming function.

He himself plays an important role in Eugene Onegin. author, speaking sometimes as a character own work.

TO minor characters Let us include those persons who, although not plot-forming, still play some significant role in the development of the action. This Tatiana's mother, Tatiana's nanny, Zaretsky, Tatiana's husband.

Let's also call episodic characters who appear in separate scenes, episodes, or are only mentioned (these are, for example, guests at the Larins’ name day, Onegin’s servant the Frenchman Guillot, Olga’s fiancé Ulan, the Larins’ Moscow relatives, representatives of St. Petersburg society).

It is difficult to draw a clear line between minor, episodic characters and mentioned persons.

Onegin

Eugene Onegin–main character Pushkin's novel. In his image, Pushkin sought to recreate character and spiritual appearance of his contemporary- a representative of the educated part of the noble class.

Onegin is a young aristocrat, born and raised in St. Petersburg, a secular dandy.

This is a person with liberal views, as evidenced by some of the details noted by the author. So, he did not serve anywhere, which at that time was a sign of freethinking; was interested in the theory of Adam Smith; read Byron and other modern authors. He made life easier for the peasants on his estate by replacing the “yoke... of the ancient corvée” with an easy quitrent. Onegin is the face of Pushkin’s circle: he dines with Pushkin’s acquaintance Kaverin, is compared with Chaadaev, and becomes a “good friend” of the author himself, although he does not share his poetic view of the world.

Talking about his hero, Pushkin focuses the reader’s attention on some significant contradictions in his worldview and life principles.

Onegin – educated person, well-read, knowledgeable of the works of ancient and contemporary authors. At the same time, his Onegin's education is divorced from national origins, spiritual traditions. From here - skepticism hero, his indifference to matters of faith, ultimately - the deepest pessimism, loss of meaning in life.

Pushkin's hero - subtle, extraordinary nature. He is distinguished, as the poet notes, by “inimitable strangeness,” “a sharp, cool mind, and the ability to understand people. At the same time, the hero dried up his soul in secular hobbies and turned out to be unable to respond to Tatyana’s deep and sincere feeling.

Onegin, according to Pushkin, “ “good guy”: an honest, decent, noble person. Meanwhile, it is distinguished extreme selfishness, egocentrism, which manifested itself most clearly in the clash with Lensky.

Hero indifferent to secular society, is burdened by being in a secular crowd. However, the hero turns out to be slave of public opinion which prevents him from avoiding a duel and killing his friend.

All of these contradictions in the character and worldview of the hero are revealed throughout the action of the novel. Onegin passes tests of love and friendship. He can't stand any of them. Lensky dies tragically. At the end of the novel, Tatyana already rejects Onegin. She retained a feeling for the hero in her heart, but refused to share his passion.

Let's look at some artisticmeans of creating the image of Onegin.

Appearance description Onegin does not play any significant role in creating the image of the hero; it only emphasizes his belonging to the fashionable secular youth:

Haircut in the latest fashion,

Like a London dandy, dressed...

Plays a more important role in revealing Onegin’s character interior, in particular descriptions of the hero’s offices in the first and seventh chapters. First description characterizes Onegin as secular dandy. Let's note some substantive details here:

Amber on the pipes of Constantinople,

Porcelain and bronze on the table,

And, a joy to pampered feelings,

Perfume in cut crystal...

Looks different Onegin's village office, described in the seventh chapter:

And Lord Byron's portrait,

And a post with a cast iron doll,

Under a hat, with a cloudy brow,

With hands clenched in a cross.

The details of the second description characterize intellectual and spiritual life of the hero:“a pile of books”, “a portrait of Lord Byron”, “a column with a cast-iron doll” - a figurine depicting Napoleon. The last detail is extremely important; it recalls such a personality trait of Onegin as individualism.

Descriptions of nature, unlike the interior, are not so important for revealing the character of the hero. Onegin is surrounded by books and things. He is far from nature, does not feel its beauty.

Only in the eighth chapter, Onegin, in love with Tatiana, is able to feel the awakening power of spring, but this is only a moment in the hero’s mental life:

Spring lives him: for the first time

Your chambers are locked,

Where did he spend the winter like a groundhog?

Double windows, fireplace

He leaves on a clear morning,

Rushing along the Neva in a sleigh.

On blue, scarred ice

The sun is playing; dirty melts

The streets are covered in snow.

So, Onegin combines the typical features of a secular person and the originality of his nature.

Onegin is a hero who failed to find the meaning of life and happiness, doomed to a purposeless existence. He opens gallery of “extra people” in Russian literature: this is a hero,

Lensky

Vladimir Lensky – one of the central characters novel. This is young a poet-freethinker of a romantic nature. Let us note that among the opposition-minded noble youth of the first half of the 1820s there were both cold skeptics, like Onegin, and ardent romantics, like Lensky.

On the one hand, the image of Lensky sets off the image of the main character of the work. On the other hand, it has independent meaning in the novel.

We learn that Lensky studied at the University of Göttingen, one of the most liberal universities in Europe. The young poet was fascinated by the ideas of Kant, who was perceived in Russia as a freethinking philosopher. Lensky’s “freedom-loving dreams” are evidenced by his love for Schiller’s work. The hero received a good education for those times, but it, like Onegin’s education, was divorced from national origins.

Lensky is an honest, sincere, noble man, full of good intentions, but extremely emotional and completely incapable of living in the real world.

RomanticLensky opposed skepticOnegin. The main character of the novel looks at things realistically and judges them soberly. Lensky has his head in the clouds. Onegin, according to Belinsky, is “a real character”; Lensky is divorced from reality.

It is interesting to compare the characters of Lensky and Tatiana. Brings heroes together poetry nature At the same time, Tatyana’s personality is nourished, according to Pushkin’s plan, by deep national and folk roots. Lensky, with his German idealism, is alien to Russian reality; his romanticism is not related to national soil.

Lensky's choice of Olga as an object of worship is not accidental. Outwardly attractive, in reality Olga turns out to be very ordinary. The romantic Lensky idealizes his bride, attributing to her spiritual qualities that are absent in reality.

Lensky's fate– important a link not only in the love affair, but also in the plot of the work as a whole. The story of Lensky's love for Olga, which ended in a tragic ending, testifies to the hero's inability to behave soberly and calmly in critical situations. A very insignificant reason pushes Lensky to a duel, to a tragic death. The death of Lensky in the sixth chapter has symbolic meaning. Pushkin shows here the inconsistency of romantic illusions, the lifelessness of ideas divorced from reality. At the same time, Pushkin cherishes the poet’s lofty ideals, his service to “glory and freedom.”

Creating the image of Lensky, Pushkin uses and portrait details(“shoulder-length black curls”), and images of nature, and romantic ones at that:

He fell in love with dense groves,

Solitude, silence,

And the night, and the stars, and the moon...

An important means of creating the image of Lensky are hero poems, deliberately stylized “to resemble romanticism”:

Where, where have you gone,

Are the golden days of my spring?

So, Pushkin recreated in the image of Lensky the type of educated nobleman, no less characteristic of Pushkin’s time than the type of “superfluous man” of Onegin. This is a romantic poet.

Tatiana

Tatyana Larina – main character novel.

In her image, the poet realistically recreated the wonderful type of noblewoman. The author endowed the heroine with striking features of the Russian national character and showed her in the broad context of life in Russia in the 1820s. Belinsky saw the “feat of the poet” in the fact that “he was the first to poetically reproduce a Russian woman in the person of Tatyana.”

Tatyana combines the typical traits characteristic of noblewomen of Pushkin's time with the traits of an extraordinary personality. Pushkin notes in Tatyana the traits of a gifted nature, which distinguish the main character of the novel from her environment. Tatyana is characterized by a lively mind, depth of feelings, and poetic nature. According to the author, Tatyana

...gifted from heaven

With a rebellious imagination,

Alive in mind and will,

And wayward head,

And with a fiery and tender heart.

Like many noble girls, Tatyana was apparently raised by French governesses, hence her knowledge of the French language and her passion for novels by Western European authors, which the heroine read in French.

At the same time, life in the village, in the lap of nature, communication with simple peasants, especially with the nanny, introduced Tatyana to Russian folk culture. Unlike Onegin, the heroine was not divorced from national origins.

Hence those moral values, which were characteristic of Tatiana. This living faith in God(Tatiana “delighted with prayer / The melancholy of the worried soul”), mercy(“she helped the poor”), sincerity,chastity, no doubt about the sanctity of marriage. Moreover, this love for Russian nature, live connection with the people,knowledge of folk customs(“Tatyana believed the legends / of common folk antiquity”); indifference to social life:“The hateful tinsel of life” does not attract the heroine.

Consider Tatyana's place in the system of characters in the novel.

In contrastTatiana Olga The principle of symmetry in the arrangement of the central characters of the work clearly emerges. Olga's external beauty hides her ordinary and superficial nature and at the same time highlights the inner, spiritual beauty of Tatiana.

Tatiana opposed not only to sister Olga, but also mother - Praskovya Larina, an ordinary landowner.

It is also interesting to compare the characters Tatiana and Lensky. The heroes are brought together by the poetry of their natures. At the same time, Tatyana’s personality is nourished, according to Pushkin’s plan, by deep national and folk roots. Lensky, with his German idealism, is alien to Russian reality; his romanticism is not related to national soil.

It is important for Pushkin to emphasize such a personality trait of Tatyana as national identity. In this regard, the character system takes on special significance. Tatiana's nanny, shading the image of the main character.

Tatyana's personality is most clearly revealed in her correlation with the personality of Onegin. The main character and the main heroine of Pushkin's novel are in some ways close to each other, in some ways they are completely opposite.

Tatyana, like Onegin, is an extraordinary person. The heroes are brought together by intelligence, depth and subtlety of worldview. At the same time, Onegin is cold towards the world around him and does not feel its beauty. Tatiana, unlike Onegin, is characterized by a love of nature and the ability to feel the beauty of the world around her.

The main thing that distinguishes Tatiana from Onegin is the folk roots of her personality, dedication, and deep faith in God. Christian spiritual values ​​are alien to Onegin. He does not understand Tatyana’s views on marriage, family, and marital fidelity.

The love story of Tatiana and Onegin amounts to the main plot line of the novel. The finale of the work - Tatiana's rebuke to Onegin– allows the reader to clearly understand the spiritual foundations of the heroine’s personality. Tatyana retains a feeling for Onegin in her soul, but fidelity to marital duty is above all for her.

A special role in creating Tatiana’s image is played by pictures of nature: they accompany her throughout the entire action of the work.

Minor and episodic characters. Persons mentioned

As already noted, "Eugene Onegin", according to Belinsky, is "encyclopedia of Russian life". Hence the importance of not only the main, but also secondary and episodic characters. They allow the author of “Eugene Onegin” to reflect the most diverse aspects of Russian reality, to show the diversity of characters and types of Russian life. In addition, these characters shade the main characters of the novel and allow them to reveal their characters in a deeper and more multifaceted way.

Some minor characters in “Eugene Onegin” are covered in detail. They represent bright types of Russian life.

For example, Tatyana's mother Praskovya Larina- a typical serfdom lady. In her youth, she was a sentimental young lady, read novels, and was in love with a “glorious dandy.” However, after getting married and retiring to the village, she became an ordinary landowner:

She went to work

Pickled mushrooms for the winter,

She kept expenses, shaved her foreheads,

I went to the bathhouse on Saturdays,

She beat the maids in anger -

All this without asking my husband...

With images of Praskovya Larina and her late husband Dmitry, only mentioned in the work, is associated with the image of the patriarchal foundations of the provincial nobility:

They kept life peaceful

Habits of a dear old man;

At their Shrovetide

There were Russian pancakes...

In addition, the images of Tatyana’s parents allow us to better understand the character of the main character. Compared to her parents, sister Olga, and the entire provincial nobility, Tatyana looks like an extraordinary person.

Tatiana's nanny is a type of simple Russian peasant woman. Her image is inspired by the poet’s memories of his own nanny Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva, a wonderful Russian woman and a talented storyteller.

The poet puts into the nanny’s mouth a story about the difficult fate of a peasant woman: about early marriage, about a difficult life in someone else’s family:

“That’s it, Tanya! These summers

We haven't heard about love

Otherwise I would have driven you away from the world

My deceased mother-in-law." –

“How did you get married, nanny?” –

“So, apparently, God commanded. My Vanya

Was younger than me, my light,

And I was thirteen years old.

The matchmaker went around for two weeks

To my family, and finally

My father blessed me.

I cried bitterly out of fear;

They unraveled my braid while crying

Yes, they led me to church singing...”

“Tatyana’s conversation with the nanny is a miracle of artistic perfection,” wrote Belinsky.

The image of the nanny sets off the image of Tatiana, emphasizing the national identity of the main character, her connection with folk life.

Plays an important plot role in the work Zaretsky. The surname of this character also evokes a very specific literary association: the reader remembers Griboyedov’s Zagoretsky.

Pushkin characterizes his hero sharply negatively, in sarcastic tones:

Zaretsky, once a brawler,

Ataman of the gambling gang,

The head is a rake, a tavern tribune,

Now kind and simple

The father of the family is single,

Reliable friend, peaceful landowner

And even an honest person:

This is how our century is corrected!

From Pushkin’s characterization of Zaretsky, it becomes clear to the reader that this character is the embodiment of dishonesty and meanness. However, it is people like Zaretsky who rule public opinion. Onegin is most afraid of his gossip. Zaretsky in this case personifies those false ideas about honor, of which Onegin ultimately turns out to be a hostage.

At the end of the seventh chapter, “some important general” is mentioned for the first time - the future Tatiana's husband. In the eighth chapter, he is named by the author as Prince N. Pushkin does not give any detailed description of the heroine’s husband. However, from her words it is clear that this is an honored person; he was probably even a hero of the War of 1812. It is no coincidence that Tatyana tells Onegin that her husband was “mutilated in battle,” that is, he was seriously wounded in battle.

The antithesis “Tatiana’s husband is Onegin” is present in the novel primarily to emphasize Tatiana’s fidelity to marital duty and the ideals of Christian marriage.

Some people are mentioned only once in the novel. For example, Pushkin tells the reader some information about Onegin's teachers:

Eugene's fate kept:

At first Madame followed him,

Then Monsieur replaced her...

The mention of “Madame” and “Monsieur l’Abbé” indicates that aristocratic youths were educated in the French manner; their education was cut off from the national soil.

In the first chapter, the poet describes the morning of working St. Petersburg:

What about my Onegin? Half asleep,

He goes to bed from the ball,

And St. Petersburg is restless

Already awakened by the drum.

The merchant gets up, the peddler goes,

A cabman pulls to the stock exchange,

Okhtinka is in a hurry with the jug,

The morning snow crunches under it.

I woke up in the morning with a pleasant noise,

Shutters open, chimney smoke

Rising like a pillar of blue,

And the baker, a neat German,

In a paper cap, more than once

He was already opening his vasisdas.

Persons named here ( merchant, peddler, cab driver, ohtinka, German baker) are contrasted with idle aristocrats who spend their lives in secular entertainment.

In his work, Pushkin describes pictures of life peasantry. On the pages of the novel flash images of representatives of the people, details of folk life:

On the firewood he renews the path;

His horse smells the snow,

Trotting along somehow;

Fluffy reins exploding,

The daring carriage flies;

The coachman sits on the beam

In a sheepskin coat and a red sash.

Here is a yard boy running,

Having planted a bug in the sled,

Transforming himself into a horse;

The naughty man had already frozen his finger;

He's both hurt and funny

And his mother threatens him through the window...

Describing the guests at Tatyana’s name day, Pushkin creates, as Yu.M. Lotman noted, a special type literary background. It includes well-known heroes of Russian literature:

With his portly wife

Fat Pustyakov arrived;

Gvozdin, an excellent owner,

Owner of poor men;

The Skotinins, the gray-haired couple,

With children of all ages, counting

From thirty to two years;

District dandy Petushkov,

My cousin, Buyanov,

In down, in a cap with a visor

(As you know him, of course)

And retired adviser Flyanov,

Heavy gossip, old rogue,

Glutton, bribe-taker and buffoon.

Really, Gvozdin, “the owner of poor men,” reminds us of Captain Gvozdilov from “The Brigadier” by Fonvizin. Skotinin They bring to mind the characters of another Fonvizin comedy, “The Minor.” Buyanov- the hero of V.L. Pushkin’s poem “Dangerous Neighbor”.

One of the characters in the fifth chapter - Monsieur Triquet. The surname "Triquet" means "beaten with a stick" in French, that is, a swindler or petty sharper.

The introduction of such a literary background helps Pushkin create a vivid satirical picture of life in the Russian province.

In the sixth chapter, along with Zaretsky, Onegin’s hired servant, a Frenchman, is mentioned Monsieur Guillot.

In the seventh chapter of the novel, Pushkin draws vivid satirical images of representatives Moscow nobility. It's obvious here traditions of A.S. Griboyedov. Thus, the poet talks about the life of the Larins’ relatives and acquaintances:

But there is no change in them,

Everything about them is the same as the old model:

At Aunt Princess Elena's

Still the same tulle cap,

Everything is whitewashed Lukerya Lvovna,

Lyubov Petrovna lies all the same,

Ivan Petrovich is just as stupid

Semyon Petrovich is also stingy,

At Pelageya Nikolaevna's

Still the same friend Monsieur Finmouche,

And the same Spitz, and the same husband,

And he, still a good member of the club,

Still just as humble, just as deaf

And he also eats and drinks for two.

In the eighth chapter of the novel, Pushkin draws a satirical picture of the life of high society. So, he shows a social event:

Here, however, was the color of the capital,

And know, and fashion samples,

Faces you meet everywhere

Necessary fools...

Let's give another example:

Prolasov was here, who deserved

Fame for the baseness of the soul,

Dulled in all albums,

St.-Priest, your pencils...

There are many names on the pages of the novel real persons. These are Pushkin's friends Kaverin And Chaadaev. Their mention introduces Onegin into the social circle of Pushkin himself.

On the pages of "Eugene Onegin" we meet authors' names of various eras - from antiquity to the 1820s.

We are especially interested in references to Russian cultural figures. In the first chapter, in one of the author’s digressions, Pushkin talks about the history of Russian theater:

Magic land! There in the old days,

Satire is a brave ruler,

Fonvizin, friend of freedom, shone,

And the overbearing 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.

As you can see, the playwrights are named here D.I.Fonvizin, Ya.B.Knyazhnin, V.A.Ozerov, P.A.Katenin, A.A.Shakhovskoy, tragic actress Ekaterina Semenova, choreographer S. Didelot; a little later the ballerina mentions Avdotya Istomina.

On the pages of “Eugene Onegin” there are the names of famous Russian poets. Pushkin remembers G.R. Derzhavin:

Old man Derzhavin noticed us

And, going into the grave, he blessed.

The fifth chapter, which tells about Tatyana’s dream, is preceded by an epigraph from V.A. Zhukovsky:

Oh, don't know these terrible dreams

You, my Svetlana!

Repeatedly mentioned E.A. Boratynsky- “singer of feasts and languid sadness”, “singer of a young Finnish woman”. Pushkin addresses the author of wonderful elegies N.M. Yazykov: “So you, inspired Yazykov...”

Pushkin's friend prince P.A. Vyazemsky appears in the novel both as the author of the epigraph to the first chapter (“And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel”), and as a character who met Tatyana in the seventh chapter.

The novel also mentions ancient authors(For example, Homer, Theocritus, Juvenal, Ovid). Pushkin calls Western European writers and poets, political figures. So, Schiller And Goethe are mentioned in connection with the characteristics of Lensky and his “German” education. Richardson and Rousseau named like the authors of novels that Tatyana was fond of. Byron And Napoleon reflect Onegin’s passions (in his village office there hung a portrait of Byron and a statuette of Napoleon).

On the pages of the novel they are called and fictional persons, among them literary heroes And mythological characters. Many literary heroes are mentioned in Eugene Onegin. This Lyudmila And Ruslan, characters from Pushkin himself. These are the heroes of other authors ( Child Harold, Gyaur, Juan- Byron's heroes Grandison- Richardson's hero, Julia- heroine of Rousseau, Griboyedovsky Chatsky,Svetlana Zhukovsky).

Pushkin also names mythological characters. This Venus, Apollo, Terpsichore, Melpomene.

In Tatyana's wonderful dream they appear Russian folklore characters, confirming the fact that “Tatiana believed the legends / of the common people of old times...”

All the indicated characters and real and fictitious persons mentioned on the pages of the novel push the spatial and temporal boundaries of the work.

Analysis of individual chapters, episodes and other elements of the composition of the work

First chapter contains exposition of the image of Onegin; here the reader also gets acquainted with by the author novel. All this happens against the background pictures of life in St. Petersburg.

Epigraph The first chapter is accompanied by a quote from P.A. Vyazemsky’s poem “The First Snow”: “And he is in a hurry to live, and he is in a hurry to feel.” The epigraph sets a cheerful, life-affirming tone for the story.

In the first chapter, Pushkin tells about the upbringing, education, reading range of the main character, his interests, lifestyle. Using the example of Onegin's education, Pushkin shows the peculiarities of educating secular youth. Education there were mostly young nobles at that time homemade. It was carried out tutors-French and it was divorced from the values ​​of Russian national culture. Pushkin writes about Onegin:

Eugene's fate kept:

At first Madame followed him,

Then Monsieur replaced her.

The superficial nature of Onegin’s education can be judged by those qualities that he needed in social life. Pushkin writes ironically about his hero:

He's completely French

He could express himself and wrote,

I danced the mazurka easily

And he bowed casually.

What do you want more? The light has decided

That he is smart and very nice.

In the first chapter, Pushkin also describes day of a secular young man. First, the author talks about waking up late Onegin:

Sometimes he was still in bed,

They bring notes to him.

What? Invitations? Indeed,

While in morning dress,

Putting on a wide bolivar,

Onegin goes to the boulevard

And there he walks in the open space,

While the watchful Breget

Dinner won't ring his bell.

After the walk Onegin Dining at Talon's, owner of a fashionable restaurant:

He rushed to Talon: he is sure

What is Kaverin waiting for him there?

After lunch follows visiting the theater. Pushkin remarks here with irony:

The theater is an evil legislator,

Fickle Adorer

Charming actresses

Honorary Citizen of the Backstage,

Onegin flew to the theater.

Onegin ends his day at the ball:

Has entered. The hall is full of people;

The music is already tired of thundering;

The crowd is busy with the mazurka;

There is noise and cramped conditions all around...

Onegin returns home in the morning, when working Petersburg is already getting up to get to work:

What about my Onegin? Half asleep,

He goes to bed from the ball,

And St. Petersburg is restless

Already awakened by the drum...

Talking about Onegin, the poet emphasizes the emptiness and monotony of social life. Pushkin writes about his hero:

Wake up at noon, and again

Until the morning his life is ready,

Monotonous and colorful.

And tomorrow is the same as yesterday.

Last topic narratives in the first chapter–Onegin's acquaintance and friendship with the author. The poet gives a remarkable psychological description of the hero, comparing his personality traits and peculiarities of his worldview with his own view of the world:

Having overthrown the burden of the conditions of light,

How does he, having fallen behind the bustle,

I became friends with him at that time.

I liked his features

Involuntary devotion to dreams,

Inimitable strangeness

And a sharp, chilled mind.

I was embittered, he was gloomy;

We both knew the game of passion:

Life tormented both of us;

The heat died down in both hearts;

Anger awaited both

Blind Fortune and People

In the very morning of our days.

In that psychological portrait Onegin is being glimpsed features of Pushkin himself, who was experiencing a severe mental crisis at the time of writing the first chapter (end of 1823). Meanwhile, the author does not forget to emphasize “ difference"between himself and the hero: despite disappointment in previous ideals, the author did not lose his poetic view of the world, did not change his love for nature, did not abandon the poetic creativity dear to his heart. The crisis of 1823-1824 was only a stage in Pushkin’s spiritual evolution, and unlike skeptic Onegin, the author of the novel remains in the deepest foundations of his own personality optimist.

In the second chapter the narrative is transferred to the village.Double epigraph – “Oh rus!” (“Oh village!”) from Horace and “O Rus'!” – connects the topic village life with the theme Russian national identity, reveals problem of Russian national character as one of the leading characters in the work.

The second chapter introduces the reader to Lensky, Olga and Tatyana.

In the sixth stanza it is given exposition of Lensky's image:

To my village at the same time

The new landowner galloped up

And equally strict analysis

In the neighborhood there was a reason,

Named Vladimir Lensky,

With a soul straight from Göttingen,

Handsome man, in full bloom,

Kant's admirer and poet.

He's from foggy Germany

He brought the fruits of learning:

Freedom-loving dreams

The spirit is ardent and rather strange,

Always an enthusiastic speech

And shoulder-length black curls.

Lensky, like Onegin, aroused a feeling of mistrust among the neighboring landowners with his liberal sentiments. The hero’s “freedom-loving dreams” were clearly alien to them.

Here, in the second chapter, it is outlined Line Lensky – Olga, the artistic role of which is to reveal the characters of these heroes and, most importantly, to highlight the love story of Tatiana and Onegin.

Finally, the second chapter gives exposure of the imageTatiana. The author draws attention to Name« Tatiana”, which in Pushkin’s time many considered common people. The poet deliberately calls his heroine this way:

For the first time with such a name

Tender pages of the novel

We willfully sanctify.

Talking about Tatyana, Pushkin compares his heroine with her sister Olga:

Not your sister's beauty,

Nor the freshness of her ruddy

She wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

In contrast to Tatiana, Olga clearly emerges symmetry principle in the arrangement of the central characters of the work. Olga's external beauty hides her ordinary and superficial nature and at the same time highlights the inner, spiritual beauty of Tatiana.

Here, in the second chapter, Pushkin outlines such character traits of the heroine as daydreaming,love of nature,penchant for reading novels.

So, Pushkin talks about his heroine:

Thoughtfulness, her friend

From the most lullabies of days,

The flow of rural leisure

Decorated her with dreams.

The poet emphasizes Tatiana's closeness to nature:

She loved on the balcony

She liked novels early on;

They replaced everything for her.

She fell in love with deceptions

Both Richardson and Russo.

As already noted, the plot of the work is built on the principle "mirroring".Tatiana falls in love with Onegin, writes to him letter and as a result gets rebuke. At the end of the work, the characters “switch places”: now Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, writes to her letter and also receives rebuke.

Chapter Three the novel contains the beginning of a love story. Not by chance epigraph to the third chapter is taken from the French author (“Elle était fille, elle était amoureuse” 1, Malfilâtre). Pushkin reminds the reader about the heroine’s upbringing in the French manner, about her reading novels, and about the fact that Tatyana’s very thoughts about Onegin are inspired by her romantic ideas about literary heroes.

Onegin appears in the imagination of the lover Tatyana hero of the books she read:

Lover of Julia Volmar,

Malek-Adele and de Linard,

And Werther, the rebellious martyr,

And the incomparable Grandison,

Which makes us sleep, -

Everything for the tender dreamer

They have clothed themselves in a single image,

Merged into one Onegin.

Tatyana also thinks about herself heroine of the novel:

Imagining a heroine

Your beloved creators,

Clarissa, Julia, Delphine,

Tatyana in the silence of the forests

One wanders around with a dangerous book...

Tatiana's letter–compositional center of the third chapter. According to researchers, for example Yu.M. Lotman, the heroine’s letter is distinguished by its genuine sincerity,sincerity. It is from this letter that we learn about the innermost secrets of Tatyana’s soul - O her sincere faith in God, about the joy of prayer, about compassion for the poor, about loneliness among the people around her.

However, the letter contains turns of phrase, gleaned from Pushkin’s heroine from what I read by her books. Tatyana, like many of her noblewomen of the same age, had little command of written language in her native language, and chose French to declare her love.

As already noted, national identity of Tatiana's nature emphasized by her image nannies. From this point of view, to understand the character of the main character, such an element of composition as Tatyana's conversation with the nanny, filled, according to Belinsky, with true nationality.

Important episode fourth chapter–Onegin's rebuke.Ironic the author’s attitude towards this hero’s monologue is already given epigraph: “Lamoraleestdanslanaturedeschoses” 1 (Necker). The meaning of a rebuke much deeper than Onegin’s formal explanation of the reasons for his refusal to respond to Tatyana’s feelings. As we know, Onegin declared to the heroine that he was not worthy of her love, and most importantly, that he was “not created for bliss,” that is, he was not ready for family life. Onegin was partly sincere: in fact, his soul became shallow, dried up in secular intrigues, and his excellent mastery of the “science of tender passion” turned into spiritual devastation for him. There was, however, another, main reason, which Onegin will remember later, in his own letter to Tatyana: “I didn’t want to lose my hateful freedom.” Selfishness, thoughts only about his own freedom kept the hero from taking a decisive step.

Against the backdrop of the spiritual sorrows of the rejected Tatiana, idyllic paintings Lensky's courtship of his bride. There seems to be no sign of trouble.

The fifth chapter tells about Christmas fortune telling, O Tatiana's dream, about her name day, O Onegin's quarrel with Lensky.

Epigraph from V.A. Zhukovsky’s ballad “Svetlana” (“Oh, don’t know these terrible dreams / You, my Svetlana!”) immerses the reader in the element of folk beliefs. Svetlana is mentioned more than once in Pushkin’s novel, and this is no coincidence. Pushkin’s contemporaries already perceived Zhukovsky’s heroine as Tatyana’s literary predecessor, and her dream as a prototype of Tatyana’s dream. Romantic image of Svetlana, created by Pushkin’s literary mentor, his older brother in writing, was associated with deep national roots and marked the invasion of the folk poetic element into Russian poetry. Pushkin generously multiplied the traditions of Zhukovsky - in realistic image of Tatiana, connected not only with folk beliefs and legends, but also with the specific historical realities of Russian life in the twenties of the 19th century.

Tatiana's dream occupies a special place in the composition of the work. On the one hand, the dream reveals deep folk foundations of Tatiana’s character, connection between the heroine’s worldview and folk culture.

On the other hand, Tatyana's dream has prophetic meaning: It predicts the tragic events of the sixth chapter.

Scenes from Tatiana's name day represent a wonderful a picture of the morals of the provincial nobility, once again emphasizing such a property of Pushkin’s work as encyclopedic.

The fifth chapter contains an important plot twist: It tells about Onegin's courtship of Olga, about Lensky's anger and his decision to challenge Onegin to a duel.

Chapter Six contains the climax of the plot. It tells about the duel between Onegin and Lensky.Epigraph the sixth chapter was inspired by the words of Petrarch: “La,sottoigiorninubilosiebrevi, /Nasceunagenteacuil’morirnondole” 1.

IN duel situations clearly revealed the inconsistency of the moral structure of Onegin’s soul.

On the one hand, Onegin is a “kind fellow”, sincerely attached to his young comrade. Onegin appreciates Lensky's education, the sublime impulses of youth, and treats his poems condescendingly.

However, “loving the young man with all my heart,” Onegin cannot suppress the desire to take revenge on Lensky for an invitation to a boring holiday with the Larins and takes care of Olga, which angers the ardent and impressionable young man. Onegin is also unable to challenge the impressionable secular prejudices; He afraid of public opinion, does not dare refuse the duel. The result is its inevitability, tragic death of Lensky and serious Onegin's mental anguish.

Onegin's murder of Lensky in a duel - the climax in the development of the plot. This tragic event finally separates Onegin from Tatiana. The hero, torn by mental anguish, cannot remain in the village any longer.

At the same time, the duel shows “lifelessness” of Lensky’s character, the hero's isolation from reality.

Reflecting on the possible future of Lensky (if he had not died in a duel), Pushkin outlines two paths for his hero. Lensky could become outstanding poet:

Perhaps he is for the good of the world

Or at least was born for glory;

His silent lyre

Loud, continuous ringing

In centuries I could lift...

However, Lensky could have expected life is vulgar and ordinary:

Or maybe even that: a poet

The ordinary one was waiting for his destiny.

The youthful summers would pass,

The ardor of his soul would cool.

He would change in many ways

I would part with the muses, get married,

In the village, happy and horny,

I would wear a quilted robe;

I would really know life...

Death of Lensky in a duel has and symbolic meaning for the poet himself. Saying goodbye to Lensky at the end of the sixth chapter, the author of the novel says goodbye with your own youth, marked by romantic dreams.

But so be it: let’s say goodbye together,

Oh my easy youth! –

exclaims the poet.

Duel Onegin and Lensky - a turning point in the development of the plot. From the seventh chapter we learn that Onegin leaves the village, Olga marries a lancer, and Tatyana is taken to Moscow to the “bride fair.”

Among the most important events seventh chapter note Tatyana's visit to Onegin's house and reading his books. Belinsky called this event an “act of consciousness” in Tatiana’s soul. The meaning of Tatyana's reading of Onegin's books is that she understands the hero's character more deeply and tries to comprehend his contradictory nature.

The Central Theme of Chapter Seven novel - Moscow. Its importance is evidenced three epigraphs, taken from the works of various authors - Pushkin’s contemporaries.

Moscow, Russia's beloved daughter,

Where can I find someone equal to you? –

solemnly asks I.I. Dmitriev.

How can you not love your native Moscow? –

E.A.B asks the question with love, but at the same time with irony O Ratynsky

An excerpt from “Woe from Wit” reminds us of Griboyedov’s satire on the Moscow nobility:

Persecution of Moscow! What does it mean to see the light!

Where is it better?

Where we are not.

Epigraphs convey the poet's ambiguous attitude towards the ancient capital.

On the one side, Moscow–homelandpoet. Pushkin recalls his meeting with her after his exile in Mikhailovskoye in the following lines:

When churches and bell towers

Gardens, palace semicircle

Suddenly opened up before me!

In my wandering destiny,

Moscow, I was thinking about you!

For the Russian heart it has merged!

How much resonated with him!

Moscow for Pushkin it was also symbol of Russia's victory over Napoleon in the War of 1812:

Napoleon waited in vain

Intoxicated with the last happiness,

Moscow kneeling

With the keys of the old Kremlin:

No, my Moscow did not go

To him with a guilty head.

Not a holiday, not a receiving gift,

She was preparing a fire

To the impatient hero...

On the other hand, Pushkin satirically depicts life Moscow nobility. Here it is especially obvious traditions of Griboyedov,reminiscences from “Woe from Wit” (“But no change is visible in them...”).

Pushkin's critical attitude towards the Moscow world is not accidental. Pushkin finished the seventh chapter, like the eighth, after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising. Returning to Moscow after exile, Pushkin did not meet many of his former friends. It is characteristic that in the seventh chapter, Vyazemsky alone “managed” to “occupy” Tatyana’s soul. Although this chapter takes place before 1825, "glow" of the post-December era obvious here.

Chapter Eight contains plot resolution And words of farewell the author with the characters and with the reader. The motive of farewell is also present in the epigraph from Byron: “Fare thee well, and if for ever, still for ever, fare thee well” 1.

In the eighth chapter, the action of the novel is again transferred to Petersburg.Satirical pathosin the image of high society Petersburg in this chapter is strikingly different from the soft irony that dominates the first chapter. The fact is that here, as in the seventh chapter, which tells about Moscow, there is a “glimmer” of the era after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising: those comrades to whom the poet read the first stanzas of the novel “in a friendly meeting” have already passed away or ended up in hard labor . From here the sad mood of the author in the last chapter his creations.

Talking about Onegin in the eighth chapter, Pushkin conveys the hero's difficult mental state after the murder of Lensky:

He was overcome with anxiety

Wanderlust

(A very painful property,

Few voluntary cross).

He left his village

Forests and fields solitude,

Where is the bloody shadow

Appeared to him every day

And he began wandering without a goal...

The mental anguish of the protagonist is most clearly reflected in the dream-memory 2, which makes up the contents of the XXXVI and XXXVII stanzas of the eighth chapter:

So what? His eyes read

But my thoughts were far away;

Dreams, desires, sorrows

They pressed deep into the soul.

It's between the printed lines

Read with spiritual eyes

Other lines. He's in them

Was completely deep.

Those were secret legends

Heartfelt, dark antiquity,

Unrelated dreams

Threats, rumors, predictions,

Or a long fairy tale is living nonsense,

Or letters from a young maiden.

And gradually into a sleep

And he falls into feelings and thoughts,

And before him is imagination

The motley pharaoh sweeps his mosque.

That's what he sees: on the melted snow,

As if sleeping for the night,

Then he sees forgotten enemies,

Slanderers and evil cowards,

And a swarm of young traitors,

And the circle of despised comrades,

That's a rural house - and at the window

She sits... and that's it!

The culminating event of the entire work - the tragic death of Lensky - is emphasized in this way in the last, eighth chapter, becoming, along with the outbreak of passion for Tatyana, the most important component of the inner life of the protagonist. Onegin's dream clearly enhances the effect of " specularity"compositions of the novel. Onegin's Dream retrospectively recreates the same tragic event (the murder of Lensky) that was predicted in prophetic Tatiana's dream.

In addition, Onegin's dream contains images, directly referring the reader to state of mind Tatiana in the middle chapters of the novel (“secret legends of the heartfelt, dark antiquity”, “predictions”, “living nonsense fairy tales”, “letters from a young maiden”).

At the same time, the fairy-tale images from Tatiana’s dream, which are based on folklore roots and emphasize Tatiana’s living connection with the elements of folk life, can be contrasted with a metaphorical image of pharaoh 1 from Onegin’s dream (“before him, in his imagination, the motley mosque of Pharaoh”). As you know, Pharaoh is the name of a gambling card game, symbolizing in Pushkin’s works the power of demonic forces over the human soul (remember “The Queen of Spades”). Onegin's soul was completely at the mercy of these forces, and the ominous image of the pharaoh gives the hero's dream a gloomy flavor. The world of evil that dominates Onegin’s dream includes “forgotten enemies”, and “slanderers”, and “evil cowards”, and “a swarm of young traitors”, and “a circle of despised comrades”. These faces from Onegin's past, like the image of the pharaoh, become a symbol of undue existence hero.

In the eighth chapter, in accordance with the principle “ specularity", the heroes change places. Now already passion flares up in Onegin's soul. In Onegin’s feelings for Tatyana one can see not only a life-giving force that cleanses the hero’s soul. Rather it's "passion is a dead trail" according to the figurative definition of the poet. This passion could not heal Onegin’s soul; it only intensified his mental anguish caused by the murder of his friend.

Onegin's letter to Tatiana–the most important ideological center the entire novel. In his letter, Onegin exclaims bitterly:

I thought: freedom and peace

Substitute for happiness. My God!

How wrong I was, how I was punished...

The meaning of the denouement the novel is that Tatyana rejects Onegin:

I love you (why lie?),

But I was given to someone else

I will be faithful to him forever.

The denouement allows the reader to clearly understand not only the meaning of the moral crisis experienced by the hero, but also the spiritual foundations of the heroine’s personality. Tatyana retains a feeling for Onegin in her soul, but fidelity to marital duty is above all for her. Tatyana contrasts Onegin's unbridled passion Christian submission to fate(“my fate is already decided”) and moral strength.

It is significant that Pushkin shows his heroes in his novel in spiritual evolution.

Tatyana turns from a dreamy village girl into a brilliant society lady. At the same time, she retains in her soul those deep moral values ​​that were embedded in her in her youth. The heroine tells Onegin about her attitude towards social life:

And to me, Onegin, this pomp,

Life's hateful tinsel,

My successes are in a whirlwind of light,

My fashionable house and evenings, -

What's in them? Now I'm glad to give it away

All this rags of a masquerade,

All this shine, and noise, and fumes

For a shelf of books, for a wild garden,

For our poor home,

For those places where for the first time,

Onegin, I saw you,

Yes for the humble cemetery,

Where is the cross and the shadow of the branches today?

Over my poor nanny...

Having not fallen in love with the St. Petersburg society, Tatyana nevertheless patiently bears her cross, remaining a devoted wife and fulfilling the role of a high society lady that she dislikes.

The changes that occur in Onegin’s soul throughout the novel are also obvious. At the beginning of the work, Onegin appears before us as a frivolous secular dandy. Then - a skeptic, disappointed in social life, obsessed with despondency, melancholy. At the end of the novel we see a man who has lost the meaning of life.

At the end of the work, the author leaves Onegin “at a moment that is evil for him.” What will happen to the hero next is unknown. denouement, carrying an element understatement,incompleteness, –innovative trait compositions of Pushkin's novel.

Nature in the novel

Images of nature occupy a large place in the work, constituting the most important facet of the “encyclopedia of Russian life.” In addition, the landscape serves several other essential functions.

As noted above, descriptions of nature help the author organize the artistic time of the novel. The action of the work begins in the summer. Onegin flies “in the dust at the post office” to the village to visit his sick uncle. In the second chapter, Pushkin paints a picture of rural nature:

The master's house is secluded,

Protected from the winds by a mountain,

He stood over the river. In the distance

Before him they dazzled and bloomed

Golden meadows and fields...

Summer gives way to autumn:

The sky was already breathing in autumn,

The sun shone less often,

The day was getting shorter;

Mysterious forest canopy

With a sad noise she was naked...

Finally, winter comes:

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...

At the beginning of the seventh chapter, Pushkin describes the awakening of spring:

Driven by spring rays,

There is already snow from the surrounding mountains

Escaped through muddy streams

To the sunken meadows...

In addition, in the descriptions of nature we observe the creative evolution of the author, his path from romanticism to the “poetry of reality”.

As you know, Pushkin began to write his work in southern exile, during the romantic period of his creativity. In the first chapter we meet romantic images of nature:

Adriatic waves,

Oh Brenta! No, I'll see you

And, full of inspiration again,

I will hear your magical voice!

However, in general the novel is dominated by realistic paintings of nature, often containing details of Russian life. As an example, here is a description of the Russian winter in the fifth chapter of the work:

Winter!.. The peasant, triumphant,

On the firewood he renews the path...

Pushkin himself comments on such paintings as follows:

But maybe this kind

Pictures will not attract you;

All this is low nature;

There's a little grace here.

At the same time, the reader understands that it was in the pictures of simple Russian nature that the author knew how to find true poetry. “What was low for former poets was noble for Pushkin; What was prose for them, was poetry for him,” wrote Belinsky.

Pushkin draws in his work and cityscape. The image of the white nights in St. Petersburg in the first chapter is presented in romantic key. The poet talks about how he walked with Onegin along the embankments of the Neva, “when it is transparent and light / The night sky over the Neva / And the cheerful glass of water / Does not reflect the face of Diana...” Cityscape in the eighth chapter emphasized realistic, even prosaic: “On the blue, carved ice / The sun plays; It’s dirty melting / The snow is dug up in the streets.”

Your creative evolution from romanticism to realism Pushkin comprehends in Onegin's Travels.

First, the poet writes about the romantic images of nature that excited him in his youth:

At that time I seemed to need

Deserts, edges of pearly waves,

I need other paintings:

I love the sandy slope,

There are two rowan trees in front of the hut,

A gate, a broken fence...

Besides, images of nature in the novel are the most important means of characterizing heroes; in addition, they help to understand the author’s own worldview.

Two days seemed new to him

Lonely fields

The coolness of the gloomy oak tree,

The babbling of a quiet stream;

On the third grove, hill and field

He was no longer occupied;

For village silence:

More vivid creative dreams.

As for Lensky, he sees nature in romantic outlines:

He fell in love with dense groves,

Solitude, silence,

And the night, and the stars, and the moon...

She loved on the balcony

To warn the dawn of the rising, -

Pushkin writes about Tatyana in the second chapter. In the fifth chapter, the poet tells how Tatyana meets winter:

Waking up early

Tatiana saw through the window

In the morning the yard turned white...

In Tatyana’s love for the Russian winter, the poet sees a vivid manifestation of the original Russian soul:

Tatiana (Russian soul,

Without knowing why)

With her cold beauty,

I loved Russian winter...

The poet touchingly describes Tatyana's farewell to nature, to village life in the seventh chapter of the novel:

Sorry, peaceful valleys,

And you, familiar mountain peaks,

And you, familiar forests;

Sorry, heavenly beauty,

Sorry, cheerful nature,

Changing the sweet, quiet light

To the noise of brilliant vanities...

Finally, nature in the novel is also a source of the author’s philosophical reflections on the transience of life, the continuity of generations, and the connection of times. Thus, the poet reflects on the change of generations at the end of the second chapter:

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,

And our grandchildren in good time

They will push us out of the world too!

Describing the awakening of spring in the seventh chapter, the poet again returns to thoughts about passing youth, about the transience of life:

How sad your appearance is to me,

Spring, spring! It's time for love!

What languid excitement

In my soul, in my blood!

With what heavy tenderness

I enjoy the breeze

Spring blowing in my face

In the lap of rural silence!

Or, not happy about the return

Dead leaves in autumn,

We remember the bitter loss

Listening to the new noise of the forests;

Or with nature alive

We bring together the confused thought

We are the fading of our years,

Which cannot be reborn?

Thus, the artistic role of images of nature in Eugene Onegin is multifaceted. The landscape performs a compositional function, helping the author organize artistic time in the novel; descriptions of nature reflect the creative evolution of the author, his path from romanticism to the “poetry of reality”; landscape is a means of characterizing characters, a way of self-expression of the author; finally, nature in Pushkin's work- the source of the poet’s philosophical reflections on life, on fate, on the continuity of generations, on the connection of times.

In the eighth article from the series “Works of Alexander Pushkin,” Belinsky wrote: “'Onegin' is Pushkin's most sincere work, the most beloved child of his imagination, and one can point to too few works in which the poet's personality would be reflected with such completeness, light and it is clear how Pushkin’s personality was reflected in Onegin. Here is all his life, all his soul, all his love; here are his feelings, concepts, ideals. To evaluate such a work means to evaluate the poet himself in the entire scope of his creative activity.”

As you know, “Eugene Onegin” is a work of an unusual genre. In a letter to Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, Pushkin noted: “I am not writing a novel, but a novel in verse: a devilish difference.”

A novel in verse - a lyric epic work, in which not only are important author's narration about events and heroes, but also lyrical digressions, in which the poet’s inner world finds free, direct expression.

In "Eugene Onegin" we find various types of derogations:autobiographical, morally descriptive, historical, journalistic, philosophical.

Let us briefly describe the topic of the digressions. Most of the digressions in the novel are of autobiographical content: the author tells the reader about his life, starting from his lyceum years and ending with his arrival in Moscow, and then in St. Petersburg after exile to Mikhailovskoye.

In the digressions we also find the author’s philosophical reflections on the transience of life and the change of generations. The poet shares with the reader his thoughts about love and friendship, about duels and murder in a duel, while expressing a sharp rejection of individualism and selfishness (“We all look like Napoleons...”).

The poet's opinions about Russian and Western European literature and culture are interesting. Here we should, in particular, note the digressions about theater in the first chapter, about literary heroes in the third, about the poetic genres of elegy and ode in the fourth.

The poet expresses his opinions about contemporary poets (about Yazykov, Boratynsky), about the Russian language, about the albums of district young ladies and metropolitan ladies, about modern youth, their education, about the tastes and morals of Pushkin’s contemporary society, about social entertainment, about balls, about cuisine of that time, even about the types of wines!

Among the journalistic digressions, we will mention the poet’s reflections in the seventh chapter about roads in Russia and the future of the country. We especially note the historical digression about Moscow in the seventh chapter, where Pushkin admires the feat of the inhabitants of the ancient capital in the war of 1812 (“Napoleon waited in vain...”).

The author’s thoughts about his own novel are also interesting: the poet talks about the plan of the work, about the characters, introduces readers to them; says that the “fifth notebook” of the novel needs to be “cleared of digressions”; Finally, he says goodbye to the reader and the characters.

Author's digressions serve several functions. Let's name the main ones. Firstly, they help the poet create an “encyclopedia of Russian life” (Belinsky). Secondly, they reveal to the reader the personality of the author himself.

The image of the author of “Eugene Onegin” is multifaceted. The author appears before us in several of his guises: autobiographer,creator of the novel, commentator on his own work, hero of the novel, philosopher, poet.

In “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin introduces the reader to the facts of his biography. He describes his own life in most detail and creative path in the digression on the Muse at the beginning of the eighth chapter.

First, the poet recalls his lyceum years:

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 spring, when l ikah ​​swan,

Near the waters shining in silence,

The Muse began to appear to me.

The poet recalls his first successes, the lyceum exam, which was attended by G.R. Derzhavin. The poet speaks about himself and his Muse:

And the light greeted her with a smile,

Success inspired us for the first time,

Old man Derzhavin noticed us

I brought the playful Muse

To the noise of feasts and violent disputes...

It is known that at this time the poet participated not only in friendly feasts, but also in bold discussions among radical youth.

How often on the rocks of the Caucasus

She is Lenora, in the moonlight,

And here she is in my garden

She appeared as a district young lady,

With a sad thought in my eyes,

With a French book in hand.

At the end of the digression about the Muse, the poet recalls how she reappeared in St. Petersburg:

She likes order and slender

oligarchic conversations,

And the coldness of calm pride,

And this mixture of ranks and years.

Autobiographical digressions are also present in other chapters of the novel. For example, in the first chapter, the poet remembers St. Petersburg at a time when he himself is in southern exile:

I once walked there too,

But the north is bad for me.

Will the hour of my freedom come?

"It's time, it's time!" - I appeal to her;

I'm wandering over the sea, waiting for the weather,

Manyu sailed the ships.

Here the poet hints at his plan to escape abroad. Here, in the first chapter, he recalls his youthful infatuation with Maria Raevskaya:

I remember the sea before the storm:

How I envied the waves

Running in a stormy line

Lay down with love at her feet!

But in the fourth chapter, Pushkin talks about his life in Mikhailovsky:

But I am the fruit of my dreams

And harmonic undertakings

I read only to the old nanny,

A friend of my youth...

The poet had a vivid impression of his new meeting with Moscow, where he arrived after exile:

Ah, brothers! How pleased I was

When churches and bell towers

Gardens, palace semicircle

Suddenly opened up before me!

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!

As mentioned above, the author appears in the work both as the creator of the novel, and as a commentator on his own work (remember that Pushkin himself wrote notes to it), and as a philosopher reflecting on the transience of human life, on the change of generations (“Alas! On life’s reins...").

The poet also appears before us as the hero of his own novel. In the first chapter, he talks about how he walks with his “good friend” Onegin along the embankments of the Neva, in the third - about Tatyana’s letter, which he keeps in his possession:

Tatiana's letter is in front of me,

I cherish it sacredly...

Finally, let’s define the main, most significant facet of the author’s image. The author appears in the novel as a poet.

It is as a poet that he contrasts himself with Onegin, who could not distinguish an iambic from a trochee and to whom “persistent work” “was sick.” But the point is not only that Onegin, unlike the author, did not know how to write poetry.

Onegin is a skeptic. He cannot fully appreciate the beauty of the world around him. The author has a special, poetic attitude towards life. Even in the ordinary, he knew how to see beauty. As Belinsky noted about Pushkin, “he contemplated nature and reality from a special angle, and this angle was exclusively poetic.”

Onegin is indifferent to nature. This is what Pushkin writes about Onegin’s first impressions in the village (“Two days seemed new to him / The solitary fields...”).

I was born for a peaceful life

For village silence:

Creative dreams come alive...

On days of fun and desires

I was crazy about balls...

So, Onegin’s indifference to life is contrasted with the poetic view of the world of the author of the novel.

He sang separation and sadness,

And something, and the foggy distance,

And romantic roses...

And this is no coincidence. Romanticism for Pushkin is a passed stage in his own creative biography. And at the same time, Lensky - an exalted, poetic nature - is in many ways closer to the author than the skeptic Onegin. Lensky's spiritual image is connected with memories dear to Pushkin of his own romantic youth, her freedom-loving dreams, unfulfilled hopes, and lofty ideals. Pushkin’s thoughts about Russian romantic poets, friends of the author of Eugene Onegin, are also connected with Lensky. It is no coincidence that in the digression at the end of the sixth chapter, where the author says goodbye to Lensky, who died in a duel, he says goodbye to his own youth: “But so be it: let’s say goodbye together, / O my easy youth!”).

Tatiana, dear Tatiana!

With you now I shed tears, -

writes Pushkin in the third chapter, talking about how Tatyana fell in love with Onegin.

Why is Tatyana more guilty?

Because in sweet simplicity

She knows no deception

And believes in his chosen dream?

Forgive me: I love you so much

The author-poet appears on the pages of the novel in his creative And spiritualevolution. As you know, Pushkin began writing his work in 1823, during the period of southern exile, at the time of the heyday of romanticism in his own work. It is no coincidence that in the first chapter of the novel we find romantic images (“Adriatic waves...”).

At that time I seemed to need

Deserts, edges of pearly waves,

And the noise of the sea, and piles of rocks,

And the ideal of a proud maiden...

Romantic illusions are a thing of the past, and they have been replaced by a different view of the world (“I need different pictures...”).

The pages of the novel reflect not only the creative, but also the spiritual evolution of the poet.

Pushkin began writing his work in 1823 in southern exile, while still a very young man. The poet was keenly agitated by passions; he still yearned for balls, the theater, and other social entertainments that he had left behind in St. Petersburg. At the same time, the poet was experiencing an ideological crisis associated with disappointment in the educational ideas that he had previously shared with his friends - the future Decembrists.

The subsequent chapters were written by Pushkin in Mikhailovsky, where the poet began to develop new life guidelines for him (the beauty of Russian nature, the spiritual values ​​of the common people). Hence the author’s special interest in the spiritual appearance of Tatyana, who became the poet’s “sweet ideal.”

The seventh and eighth chapters were written by Pushkin during a period of wanderings, everyday disorder and painful spiritual quest.

It is important to note the fact that the poet completed the novel after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, when Pushkin’s beloved friends ended up in hard labor. Hence the “glow” of the post-December era that we observe in the last chapters of the work. The last stanza of “Eugene Onegin” is significant in this regard:

But those who in a friendly meeting

I read the first verses...

There are no others, and those are far away,

As Sadi once said.

Without them, Onegin was completed...

Let's draw conclusions. In a work of such a genre as a novel in verse, the role of the author's digressions and the image of the author is extremely important. Digressions, written in a light, relaxed manner, organically accompany the narrative. The author's “I” becomes the most important prerequisite for the artistic unity of the novel in verse.

Digressions perform two important functions: with their help, an “encyclopedia of Russian life” is created and revealed multifaceted image the author himself - the creator of the novel, his commentator, hero, philosopher, autobiographer, and finally, the poet who appears before the reader in creative and spiritual evolution.

Onegin stanza

Pushkin's novel is written in Onegin's stanza, which also gives the work harmony, completeness, and integrity. The Onegin stanza consists of fourteen verses of iambic tetrameter, connected by a certain sequence of rhymes. Let's imagine the rhyme system in the Onegin stanza using the following scheme, where capital letters indicate female rhymes, lowercase letters indicate male rhymes: AbAbVVggDeeJj.

The first four lines are connected by cross rhyme. The next four lines have adjacent (paired) rhymes. Lines nine through twelve are connected by a girdle (enveloping, ring) rhyme. The last two lines are connected by pair rhyme.

Most of the stanzas in Eugene Onegin represent a complete artistic whole. Typically, the first four lines contain exposition, an introduction to the topic. In the following lines the theme develops and reaches its climax. Finally, the final couplet often contains a spectacular, aphoristic ending.

The entire text of the novel is written in the Onegin stanza, except for the letters of the heroes in the third and eighth chapters, as well as the songs of the girls at the end of the third chapter, which emphasizes the originality of these elements of the literary text.

Questions and tasks

1. Where and when did Pushkin begin work on “Eugene Onegin”? When did he basically complete the novel? When was Onegin's letter to Tatiana written? How did the plan of the novel change during its creation? How many chapters are there in the final text of the work? How did Pushkin publish fragments from Onegin's Travels?

2. Why could Pushkin claim that in his novel time is “calculated according to the calendar”? What is the chronological framework of the events that make up the plot of the work?

3. Outline the range of topics covered in Eugene Onegin. Why did Belinsky call Pushkin’s work “an encyclopedia of Russian life”?

4. Formulate the central problem of Pushkin’s novel. What other socio-historical problems are raised in Eugene Onegin? Highlight the range of moral, philosophical and aesthetic problems of the work.

5. How did the evolution of Pushkin’s worldview in the 1820s affect the ideological orientation of “Eugene Onegin”? What universal human values ​​does Pushkin affirm in his novel? How are the ideas of the work related to national roots? What life principles does Pushkin the poet affirm? Can we say that “Eugene Onegin” is also marked by satirical pathos?

6. What realistic principles can you note in Pushkin’s novel? What is the difference between a realistic novel in verse and romantic poems?

7. What genre definition did Pushkin himself give to “Eugene Onegin”? What traditions of Byron did Belinsky note in Pushkin’s novel? What, according to the critic, is Pushkin’s fundamental innovation compared to Byron? How did Pushkin himself characterize the form of “Eugene Onegin”?

8. What distinctive features characterize the plot of “Eugene Onegin” and the arrangement of the central characters? Briefly describe the exposition, plot, climax, and denouement of the novel. What elements of the work, in addition to the plot structure, play an important role?

9. Which of the novel’s heroes can be called main, secondary, episodic? Which characters are central to the plot? Can the author be considered one of the characters in the novel?

10. Why can Onegin be called a hero of time? Describe the character’s social status, his views, interests. What brings Onegin closer to opposition-minded youth? Why can we say that Onegin is the face of Pushkin’s circle? What contradictions distinguish the hero’s worldview and character? Why is Onegin called the “superfluous man”? Note some artistic means of creating his image.

11. What type of Pushkin’s era is recreated in the image of Lensky? Tell us about the hero’s education, about his personality. Why does the death of Lensky become so important in the novel? symbolic meaning? Briefly describe the artistic means of creating his image.

12. Why did Belinsky define the creation of the image of Tatyana as a feat of Pushkin? What features of the Russian national character were combined in Tatyana? What is the uniqueness of her nature? How do other characters in the novel set off Tatiana? What is Tatiana's role in the plot of the work? Why does the author call Tatyana a “sweet ideal”?

13. Review the minor and episodic characters of Eugene Onegin. What role do they play in creating the “encyclopedia of Russian life”? What real historical figures, literary heroes and mythological characters are mentioned on the pages of Pushkin's novel? What is their significance in the work?

14. Describe the compositional functions of individual chapters of Eugene Onegin. Identify the meaning of epigraphs, the main events that make up the plot of the work. Pay special attention to such elements of the composition as letters from characters, Tatiana’s dream, a duel episode, Onegin’s dream-vision, last explanation heroes. What has changed in the worldview of Onegin and Tatiana over the course of the novel? How does the “understatement” of the work’s denouement manifest itself?

15. Tell us about the main functions of images of nature in the work. How does landscape help the author organize artistic time in a novel and reveal the characters’ characters? How is the author’s worldview and his creative evolution revealed through images of nature?

16. Name the main types and themes of the author’s digressions in “Eugene Onegin”. Give examples of deviations of a different nature. What facets of the author's image are revealed on the pages of the novel? Characterize them by identifying the relationship between the author’s image and the characters’ images. How do the pages of the work reflect the poet’s life path, creative and spiritual evolution?

17. What is the Onegin stanza? What is its construction? What elements of the text of “Eugene Onegin” are not written in Onegin’s stanza?

18. Make an outline and prepare an oral report on the topic: “Eugene Onegin as an encyclopedia of Russian life.”

19. Write an essay on the topic: “Moscow in A.S. Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” and in A.S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.”