#eugene onegin

[supercantaloupe]

[russian-blob]

Where my Eugene Onegin gang at I’ve always liked it so much but the fandom is nonexistent 😭

I’m gonna do the tags thing: Tragic romance, Byronic hero, young love, guilt, major character death

and here’s a quote

I just need someone to yap to ugh EVERYONE GO READ IT RN

[muykrik]

Начала пересматривать мюзикл и нарисовала акварелью Онегина :∆

/ I started rewatching the musical and drew Onegin in watercolors :∆

/ Eugene Onegin (musical "Onegin's Demon", ru)

[wildhoneyvalancy]

I am dazzled by Valancy’s courage in proposing to Barney but Tatyana in Eugene Onegin (another favorite of mine) was almost as courageous.

Tatyana’s love confession to Eugene and his rejection:

(Nabokov’s translation)

Valancy’s love confession to Barney and his acceptance:

[sad-fire]

okay, fuck it, today max reviews Eugene Onegin, and in a really inflammatory way at that. did anyone of my followers read it? no idea. will it be comprehensible to someone who didn’t? dunno. maybe not this time.

Onegin is a novel in verse that reads like a postmodernist text despite being written in, y’know, first half of the XIX century. there is some stuff that happens in it textually, which we will discuss below, but many will say that its main point is metatextual. it comments on classicism and romanticism, on pervasive usage of French in Russian literature of the time, and on a bunch of other stuff that was partially lost on me because it is very contextual to Pushkin’s social circle. I’ve been told that metatextual stuff is what makes it work, which — maybe? but I’m of the opinion that even — especially — if you’re trying to tell a metatextual story, you don’t get to ignore the text. the work of a postmodernist is twice as hard: you need to tell a good story on both levels.

I had a feeling while reading, which I don’t think a lot of people share, that Onegin is a story that actively does not want you to read it. its narrative is really erratic: it jumps from point to point, goes on long-winded sidetracks, and kinda refuses to let you engage with anything being told. did you become invested in the character and his story? good, now forget about the character, for the next couple pages we will talk about Pushkin’s appreciation for women’s feet. the tone is very playful, but it makes for a miserable reading experience, at least for me. maybe I just lack whimsy. (“but max, it makes a metatextual point! writing a book this way was scandalous, Pushkin is fighting against canons here!” — when you’re fighting against canons and the result is that your text is barely readable, the only message you get across is that the canons were right).

but, like, whatever. I’m a postmodernism enjoyer, I’ve read a bunch of barely readable stuff in my life. let’s talk about the text. textually, Onegin is a very dark story, although I’m not sure Pushkin would characterize it as one. for me, the story says that the world will fucking eat you.

there’re three primary characters in the text: Onegin, Lenski and Tattiana. at the end of the story, every one of them is broken in some way: Lenski is dead (duh), Onegin is heartbroken, without any friends or loved ones, without any prospects, rejected for the final time by Tattiana, and Tattiana suffers the most cruel fate of them all. throughout the text, Pushkin speaks with contempt about the world of high society, especially highlighted in Tattiana’s dream. when Tattiana is depressed after Onegin killed Lenski, she is basically forced into loveless marriage with some random general. when she is first introduced into the high society, it’s shown as empty and meaningless. then there’s an huge gap in time, and then she’s shown fully a part of this world, one highly esteemed in it. dead, broken, or consumed by the empty glimmer of society — the world will fucking eat you. you can’t remain a person. you’re doomed. Tattiana even highlights this in her speech to Onegin: “I was younger then, and better, if I judge aright”. under the exterior of playful language, Eugene Onegin is a dark, hopeless text.

it was pointed out to me that we with Pushkin might have some philosophical differences which might partially explain why my understanding of the text is darker than might have been intended: in another text, he writes: “there is no happiness on earth, but there’s peace and there’s freedom” (here the world “peace” is to be taken as “calm”, not as an antonym for war). if you judge Tattiana’s fate by that metric — well, she’s certainly peaceful, and she’s relatively free by the standards of the time. could you ask for more?

well, I could. I think Eugene Onegin is a dark and somewhat cruel text, I think its metatext doesn’t excuse its erraticness or pacing issues, and I don’t like it. I didn’t like it when I first had to read it for school, and now I read it again and am able to dislike it properly, while articulating my reasons.

fight me.

[theenglishnook]

Alexander Pushkin influenced English literature through narrative poetry, psychological realism, and literary innovation, enriching modern storytelling through translation.

Birth of Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) — Influencing English Literature Through Modern Narrative and Psychological Realism

[parmandil]

opera's MAGICAL babey!!!!!!!!!!!

[parmandil]