Eugene Onegin

Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin. It is a classic of Russian literature, and its eponymous protagonist has served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes. It was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832. The first complete edition was published in 1833, and the edition on which the current accepted version is based was published in 1837. It also places Russian literature firmly in the European literary universe. Life in Petersburg is presented as a flood of foreign influences, both material (Evgeny's personal gentleman's accoutrements from London) and cultural (English and French novels of bourgeois sentiment – Richardson, for example – and above all the Romantic school epitomized by Byron, whose sardonically satirical style and real-life and literary celebration of sensuality were so close to Pushkin's own). At the same time, these foreign influences act as yeast fermenting Russia's deeply rural and earth-bound culture – as the punning epigraph of Chapter 2 indicates: "O rus! O Rus'!", where Horace's "O country (life)!" is equated with Pushkin's "O Russia!" – which hints that the whole nation is the quintessence of rural existence - and ironically compares Rome with St. Petersburg. The working people of St. Petersburg (such as the coachmen sleeping in the cold courtyard while their masters dance the night away) and the simple country landowners who are Onegin's neighbors represent this traditional Russian way of life. Almost the entire work is made up of 389 stanzas of iambic tetrameter with the unusual rhyme scheme "AbAbCCddEffEgg", where the uppercase letters represent feminine rhymes while the lowercase letters represent masculine rhymes. This form has come to be known as the "Onegin stanza" or "Pushkin sonnet. " The rhythm, the variety of the rhyme, the natural tone and diction, and the transparency and economy of presentation have the virtuosity which have given Pushkin his place as the undisputed master of Russian poetry. The story is told by a narrator (a lightly fictionalized version of Pushkin's public image), whose tone is educated, worldly, and intimate. The narrator digresses at times, usually to fill out aspects of the social and intellectual world. This serves to flesh out the characters and bring out the dramatic impact of the relatively straightforward plot of the novel. The book is loved for its narrative art as well as for its conflicts of convention and passion, and its exploration of life, death, love and ennui. It is partly because of the narrator's prominent presence and familiar tone that the book has been compared, rather superficially, to Tristram Shandy.