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    Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse
    Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse
    Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse
    Ebook218 pages2 hours

    Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse

    By Alexander Pushkin and Mary Hobson

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    About this ebook

    A powerful love story set in the class-conscious Tsarist Russia of the early 19th century. It embraces every level of that society – serf, provincial, aristocrat – in verse which is by turns beautiful, witty, wickedly perceptive and always readable.

    This is essential reading for anyone with a love of Russian literature, because this is where it all began. There is little pre-history to that golden age of 19th century novels. Lomonosov, a fisherman’s son turned scholar, took church Slavonic, peasant Russian, mixed in a few ‘Loan translations’ and gave a French-speaking aristocracy a literary language; Pushkin was the first truly great poet to use it; Yevgeny Onegin is his greatest work.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnthem Press
    Release dateJun 28, 2016
    ISBN9781783084593
    Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse

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    Reviews for Eugene Onegin

    4/5

    777 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Fan-bloody-tastic. A novel in verse with a translation that maintained the original rhyme scheme. So good on the truth of young love, so light and so funny. The duel is genuinely shocking and the ending abrupt and sad.

      I hadn't realized that this would be a novel in sonnets. What a treat to find out that this translation was the inspiration for Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate which I read 20 years ago. I kinda feel that I should seek out Nabokov's non-rhymed translation for comparison.
    • 5/5
      Pushkin's verse novel shows him as the masterful powerhouse of language, weaving together an intricate web of characters to create an affecting story full of wit and beauty. A testament to love and the power of the Muse and of ennui. Falen's translation is musical and readable, making the experience of this novel in verse a highly pleasant one for the modern reader.
    • 2/5
      Read it, didn't hate it, but for me the translation just didn't work. I think, though, that it's probably difficult to translate something like this in an all-around satisfactory way - I shall have to read the original now, I think.
    • 5/5
      I read the Roger Clarke translation-one this is in prose. There are a number of other translations in English that are poetry. Which translation is best, well the original (Russian one) of course. But this classic literature is brilliant even in English. It is a book to be read many times so I plan to read a new translation each time.
      Regarding the work itself (not the translations which all must fall short) Pushkin's Eugene Onegin is a work of genius. It is truly genius, but written over many, many years so indeed a work. I found it absolutely hilarious at times. The humor stands out in my mind. So read this edition or any other. If you have not read it you are missing out.
    • 3/5
      Duidelijk romantisch geïnspireerd: gevoelens zijn sterker dan we denken. De structuur mangelt, vooral op het einde, de overgang van Tatjana komt niet helemaal geloofwaardig over. De korte versmaat werkt in het begin het lichtvoetige sterk in de hand (het zijn meer puntdichten). Opvallend is de bijna voortdurende commentaar van de auteur.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this translation by Charles Johnston of "Evgeny Onegin". Johnston, unlike Nabokov, translated it as a novel in verse and was enjoyable to read. I've read "Eugene Onegin" in Russian and various translations, and though none of the translations come close to the ease, the wit, the sheer joy of expression as the original, Johnston's translation was certainly adequate. The plot is simple. The hero is a bored, rich young man who is out of sync emotionally. He acts out in ways that destroy those who would in other circumstances be his closest friends or faithful lover. The digressions, however, are the best thing about the tale. Here we find a second story about creativity, writing, inspiration, memory and love. Lovely.
    • 4/5
      This is a classic poem from the early romantic tradition in Russian literature. The romantic intrigue involved in the story of Tatyana, Lensky and Onegin has inspired readers and artists alike for more than a century. I found this verse translation very satisfying reading.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful novel from early 19th century Russia, translated into clear and readable English prose in this edition. The narrator is a minor character and keeps us entertained throughout, with a great variety of tone and digression, but always coming back to the main story. The story is intensely Russian - vastness of sky and countryside, contrast between country and city, country customs, fashionable society in town, ways to avoid boredom or to succumb to it, family entertainments, love-hate relations with France and the French, memorable characters, even the minor ones - and packs a wonderful story into less than 150 pages. Amid all this, the central love story, between Onegin and Tatiana, is told with delicacy, beauty and psychological insight. Definitely one to re-read.
    • 5/5
      Lyrical, tragic, comical, romantic. Russian lit at its best.
    • 5/5
      Holy crap, this thing is good. It's amazing. And it's only around 200 pages, so it's not as much of a commitment as, y'know, those other Russian assholes who can't stop writing.

      It's a "novel in verse," which means epic poem, wtf, in iambic tetrameter. It's organized in stanzas that are almost sonnets, but far enough off to kindof fuck with your head, or mine anyway. The scheme is abab, ccdd, effe, gg, so he's switching it up in each quatrain, which leaves me constantly off-balance. But in a good way! Tetrameter has a dangerous tendency to sound sing-songy to me, and this helps counterbalance that somehow.

      It also makes a tough challenge for a translator, and for a long time Onegin was considered untranslatable. My boy Stanley Mitchell has done what feels like an admirable job; I'm sure if I knew Russian I'd say he brutalized the thing, but one takes what one can get and this version felt readable and elegant. He's no Mos Def, but he's pretty good with the rhymes.

      The story ends abruptly at Chapter VIII; Pushkin had to do some last-minute rearranging, by which I mean burning most of a chapter that was critical of the government, which really throws the pace off there. The version I have includes some fragments after VIII - stuff that survived the flames for whatever reason - but it's really not enough to be more than a curiosity.

      Tolstoy called this the major influence for Anna Karenina, and you can see it. He kinda took this story and said what if, at a crucial moment, things had gone differently? So if you read these two together it's basically like a really long Choose Your Own Adventure with only one choice. Rad!

      And as an added bonus, Pushkin includes what I can only assume must be the most beautiful ode to foot fetishes ever written. It's five stanzas long, so that's 70 lines of foot fetishing. I almost wish I had a foot fetish so I could've really gotten into that bit.

      Here's a stanza that's not about feet, so you can get a feel for how good this shit is:

      Let me glance back. Farewell, you arbours
      Where, in the backwoods, I recall
      Days filled with indolence and ardours
      And dreaming of a pensive soul.
      And you, my youthful inspiration,
      Keep stirring my imagination,
      My heart's inertia vivify,
      More often to my corner fly.
      Let not a poet's soul be frozen,
      Made rough and hard, reduced to bone
      And finally be turned to stone
      In that benumbing world he goes in,
      In that intoxicating slough
      Where, friends, we bathe together now.

      And if that doesn't kick your ass, you're no friend of mine.

      Frankly, even if it does we're probably not friends. But we could be, if you want.
    • 5/5
      I've read it when I was 11, at school, and liked it. Re-read it as an adult and loved it. Re-read again. Absolutely admired it... It becomes better every time.
    • 5/5
      I've read another translation before in proper verse, and while I understand that the story's not the same without the rhymes, Nabokov's rendering is, I think, as close to perfection as I will come until I can read the original.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book. The flow and rhythm of the poetry is very good and makes the book very readable. Very impressed with the translation. I would like to read another translation for comparison. Here is a great example of the poetry:

      Suppose your pistol-shot has ended
      A comrade's promising career,
      One who, by a rash glance offended,
      Or by an accidental sneer,
      During a drunken conversation
      Or in a fit of bind vexation
      Was bold enough to challenge you -
      Will not your soul be filled with rue
      When on the ground you see him, stricken,
      Upon his brow the mark of death,
      And watch the failing of his breath,
      And know that heart will never quicken?
      Say, now, my friend, what will you feel
      When he lies deaf to your appeal?
    • 3/5
      The high school I went to had a very different curriculum from most. The overwhelming number of choices we had for classes was amazing, and for an English and history loving geek like me, the best thing ever. I took elective classes like 20th Century Wars, an Asian history class, the Hero in Literature, Literary Outcasts, and Russian-Soviet Life. The latter class was a cross-departmental english and history class and we read some of the great Russian and Soviet authors. I still have my copy of The Complete Prose Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin on my shelves. But as the title suggests, we never did read Pushkin's poetry, not even his most famous work, the novel in verse, Eugene Onegin. But because I have long been susceptible to buying all the works I can find by an author I enjoy, said novel in verse has been sitting on my shelves unread for literally decades. Note I said I acquire the books, not actually read them. Although in this case, I did finally tackle this most Russian of poems. And it was surprisingly accessible.

      Eugene Onegin's eponymous main character is a young man who enjoyed the social whirl and was a hit with women but he became jaded and tired of this life, retreating to his country estate and a fairly hermetic life there until Vladimir Lensky, a young poet moves into the area and the two men strike up a friendship. Lensky takes Onegin to dinner with his love Olga's family where Olga's older sister Tatyana falls for the experienced Onegin. She writes him an impassioned letter and is coldly and effectively rebuffed. After a disastrous evening at a country ball where Onegin unthinkingly flirts with Olga, Lensky calls him out and a duel ensues. Our hero flees the countryside, wandering for a couple of years, during which time Tatyana goes to St. Petersburg and marries, becoming a cosmopolitan young woman. And now Onegin falls head over heels in love with her, now that she is unavailable.

      I expected this to a tough read for a couple of reasons. I am (too many to count) years out of school and so not liable to find anyone willing to discuss this with me to help tease out meaning. I have never been a wild poetry fan and the thought of an entire novel in verse was daunting (Sharon Creech's lovely middle grade book Love That Dog being my only other attempt at it and while charming, that one is hardly in the same league as this one). I have to be in the proper mood for the dour Russians (which is why a class for moody high schoolers was genius, I tell you, genius). But I was pleasantly surprised. While tragedy and frustrated love abound here, the mood of the poem is not bleak and unremitting. There is much playfulness and light in it. The depictions of Russian society are detailed and wonderful as are the contrasting depictions of the regular Russian. I know much has been made of the difficulty of translating this poem in particular given the unnaturalness of the rhyme in English but I hardly noticed the oddness of the Pushkin stanza and since my own Russian was never very good, I'm unlikely to ever read it in the original to make an unflattering comparison. In any case, this Johnston translation captures the romance and the heartbreak of this long but engaging work. Those not too intimidated by poetry who want a less dense entry into Russian classics would be smart to start here.
    • 5/5
      Essential reading for anyone who loves the masters of Russia's golden age of literature; as Yarmolinsky says in the introduction to this volume, "Indeed, the accuracy with which the Russian scene in the post-Napoleonic era is delineated, the realistic concern with contemporary manners, makes this poem something of a social document. It opens that imaginative history of Russian society that may be constructed from the richly humorous tales of Gogol, the neat fictions of Turgenev, the substantial narratives of Goncharov, Doestoevsky's tortured inventions, Tolstoy's broad canvases."

      Tatyana is a fascinating character, and it's ironic reading Onegin duel with Lensky in light of Pushkin's own death at age 38 from a duel with his wife's alleged lover.

      Quotes:
      On unrequited love:
      "It was for you that I neglected
      The call of fame, for you forgot
      My country, and an exile’s lot –
      All thoughts, but those of you, rejected.
      Brief as your footprints on the grass,
      The happiness of youth must pass."

      "One who has lived and thought, grows scornful,
      Disdain sits silent in his eye;
      One who has felt, is often mournful,
      Disturbed by ghosts of days gone by."

      On the transience of life:
      "Alas! by God’s strange will we must
      Behold each generation flourish,
      And watch life’s furrows briefly nourish
      The perishable human crop,
      Which ripens fairly, but to drop;
      And where one falls, another surges…
      The race of men recks nothing, save
      Its reckless growth: into the grave
      The grandfathers it promptly urges.
      Our time will come when it is due,
      Our grandchildren evict us too."

      "But at the late and sterile season,
      At the sad turning of the years,
      The tread of passion augurs tears:
      Thus autumn gusts deal death and treason."

      "But oh, how deeply we must rue it,
      That youth was given us in vain,
      That we were hourly faithless to it,
      And that it cheated us again;
      That our bright pristine hopes grew battered,
      Our freshest dreams grew sear, and scattered
      Like leaves that in wet autumn stray,
      Wind-tossed, and all too soon decay."

      On youth:
      "Youth’s fever is its own excuse
      For ravings that it may induce."

      On youth and the human condition:
      "And you, oh youthful inspiration,
      Come, rouse anew imagination –
      Upon the dull mind’s slumbers break,
      My little nook do not forsake;
      Let not the poet’s heart know capture
      By sullen time, and soon grow wry
      And hard and cold, and petrify
      Here in the world’s benumbing rapture,
      This pool we bathe in, friends, this muck
      In which, God help us, we are stuck."

    Book preview

    Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin

    1

    He hurries to live, he hastens to feel.

    Prince Viazemskii

    I

    My uncle, honest fellow, seeing

    That he was now a dying man,

    Required my last respects, this being

    His best, indeed, his only plan.

    The plan may be worth imitating;

    The boredom is excruciating.

    Sit by a sick-bed night and day

    And never move a step away.

    With what low cunning one tries madly

    To amuse a man who’s half alive,

    Adjust his pillows, and contrive

    To bring his medicine to him sadly,

    Then sigh, while proffering the spoon,

    ‘Let’s hope the devil takes you soon.’

    II

    Thus thought the young rake, flying there

    By dusty post-chaise, to the fate

    Willed by the Most-High Zeus; sole heir

    To all his family estate.

    Friends of Liudmila, you who glory

    In Ruslan, here’s another story.

    Without delay, without excuse

    Permit me, please, to introduce

    Onegin, my good friend from Peter,

    Conceived and born on Neva’s shore,

    Where you, perhaps, were born too, or

    Shone in the service, my dear reader.

    I lived and loved there once, you see:

    But our North is not good for me.

    III

    His father made a fine career

    And lived in debt – as nobles can.

    He always gave three balls a year

    And was, at last, a ruined man.

    Fate saved Evgenii in this drama.

    First he was spoiled by his ‘Madame’,

    Then by ‘Monsieur’. It would appear

    The boy was lively, but a dear.

    Poor lame Monsieur l’Abbé thought teaching

    Should not torment a little child;

    His style was humorous and mild,

    Unburdened by stern moral preaching.

    He’d gently scold, as gently pardon,

    Then take him to the Summer Garden.

    IV

    But when the time came for the folly

    Of youth’s rebellion, time to play

    At hope and tender melancholy,

    The good Monsieur was sent away.

    So – here’s Onegin, full of passion,

    His hair cut in the latest fashion,

    Dressed like a London dandy. Free

    To enter high society.

    His French required no improvement;

    Evgenii could converse and write.

    He’d dance mazurkas half the night

    And bow with easy grace of movement.

    What more d’you want? – T’was seen at once

    That he was charming – and no dunce.

    V

    We all acquire, in moderation,

    Something, somehow – the general line,

    So that, thank God, in education

    It isn’t hard for us to shine.

    And many thought Onegin clever.

    (Some of the sternest judges ever)

    But he’s a pedant, they would say.

    He had a very happy way

    Of touching on each subject lightly,

    Without constraint, which made him seem

    An expert. On a hard-fought theme

    He’d stand in silence, most politely,

    Then fire off epigrams in style,

    A knack which made the ladies smile.

    VI

    We leave our Latin to the crammer:

    To tell the truth, he knew enough

    Of Latin verse and Latin grammar

    To make sense of an epigraph,

    Quote Juvenal – and to his betters –

    Put ‘vale’ at the end of letters,

    Recalled the Aenid, could recite

    A couplet – sometimes got it right.

    He would have thought it most unpleasant

    To burrow in the dusty ground

    Of dry chronology; but found

    That stories of the past and present,

    From Romulus to our own day,

    He could remember and relay.

    VII

    His ear was a touch prosaic

    For verse. He regularly failed

    To tell iambic from trochaic

    No matter how we poets railed.

    Homer, Theocritus were slated,

    But Adam Smith was highly rated.

    Evgenii the economist

    Interpreted the points we missed,

    Knew how a nation could be wealthy

    And why it had no need of gold;

    The ‘simple product’, we were told,

    Would keep the economy quite healthy.

    His father failed to understand

    And was obliged to mortgage land.

    VIII

    What else he knew – quite as ingenious –

    I’ve not the leisure to recall.

    But where he was in truth a genius,

    The science that he knew best of all,

    What constituted, from his boyhood,

    His work, his pain, his source of joy, would

    Absorb each hour of every day

    Spent in his yearning, idle way,

    Was that science of the tender passion

    Sung by Ovid, who paid at last

    For his rebellious, brilliant past,

    Exiled by Rome in cruel fashion,

    Deprived of land and liberty,

    Far from his native Italy.

    IX, X

    How soon he learned to feign confusion,

    To hide his hopes, show jealousy,

    Inspire belief or disillusion,

    Seem gloomy, pine and languish, be

    Now fiercely proud and now obedient,

    Attentive, cold – as was expedient.

    What smouldering, sensuous silences,

    What passionate eloquence were his.

    In love letters how he took chances!

    He breathed by, loved one thing alone;

    To turn a head or lose his own.

    How swift and tender were his glances,

    How shy or bold. His eyes could fill

    With tears, summoned up at will.

    XI

    How he assumed the latest air,

    Made jokes that shocked young innocents,

    Quite frightened them with his despair,

    Amused them with his compliments,

    Or seized the moment of emotion.

    How he’d oppose each naïf notion

    With passion and intelligence,

    Expect unwilling sentiments,

    Beseech – demand – a declaration,

    Then, hearing how her heart beat fast,

    Pursue his love, until at last

    He’d win a secret assignation

    And, quietly drawing her apart,

    Give lessons in the gentle art.

    XII

    How soon he could disturb the heart of

    The most inveterate coquette!

    How he employed the wounding art of

    Malicious words. What traps he set,

    What cunning pitfalls he prepared

    To see his hapless rivals snared.

    But husbands, you most blest of men,

    Remained his good friends, even then.

    The crafty spouse received him kindly,

    He’d learned from Faublas, as one can,

    And the suspicious older man,

    And he who wore his horns more blindly,

    Pleased with himself, his way of life,

    His own good dinner – and his wife.

    XIII, XIV, XV

    As usual, he will still be resting

    When notes are brought with morning tea.

    What? Invitations? Three – requesting

    The pleasure of his company.

    A ball, perhaps? A children’s soirée?

    To which one will my scapegrace hurry?

    Where should he start? It makes no odds.

    Lord, punctuality’s for clods.

    Meanwhile, dressed for a morning’s pleasure,

    Wearing his broad-brimmed Bolivar,

    Onegin strolls to the Boulevard,

    And there he saunters at his leisure

    Till, ever watchful, his Bréguet

    Reminds him he must dine today.

    XVI

    It’s dark: he takes the sleigh. ‘Get going!

    Giddyup!’ the cry rings out. Now just

    His beaver collar, softly glowing,

    Is silvered with a frosty dust.

    Off to Talon: the night’s before him.

    Kaverin will be waiting for him.

    He enters. The champagne corks fly,

    A stream of wine spurts comet-high.

    Roast beef is served, à l9anglaise, rare,

    With truffles, which for young men mean

    The finest flower of French cuisine.

    The eternal Strasburg pie is there,

    The Limburg cheese, a touch mature,

    The golden pineapple’s allure.

    XVII

    Their thirst requires a few more glasses

    To cool hot cutlets, crisply done,

    But Bréguet chimes, the hour passes,

    The new ballet has just begun.

    Malicious arbiter of drama

    And faithless worshipper – a charmer

    Of charming actresses, which means

    An honoured guest behind the scenes,

    Onegin flies to the theatre

    Where all young freedom-loving men

    Applaud an entrechat, and then

    Hiss Phèdre, Cleopatre or, better,

    Call for Moina (only so

    That they’ll be heard by those who know).

    XVIII

    Enchanted spot! There, in the old days,

    Fonvizin’s satire ruled the scene,

    That friend of freedom, one whose bold ways

    Were imitated by Kniazhnin.

    There Ozerov would win the cheers,

    The applause, the involuntary tears

    With young Semënova; and there

    Our own Katenin sought to share

    The genius of Corneille. To shame us,

    The sharp tongued Shakhovskoi gave his

    Great noisy swarm of comedies.

    There Didlo, too, was rightly famous,

    And there, behind the scenes, in truth,

    There in the wings I spent my youth.

    XIX

    My Goddesses, are you still there?

    Heed my sad voice: have you not changed?

    You took the place of those less fair,

    Have you, in turn, not been exchanged?

    Say, will I hear your song once more?

    See how the Russian soul can soar,

    Terpsichore in seeming flight?

    Will my sad gaze no longer light

    On friends, but find some tedious theatre

    Where, disillusioned, my lorgnette

    Meets only strangers on the set.

    Will I, indifferent spectator

    Of gaiety, yawn silently,

    Remembering what used to be?

    XX

    The house is full; the boxes blazing;

    The stalls and circle mill around.

    The gods grow restless. Now they’re raising

    The curtain with its creaking sound.

    Radiant, half-air and all-obeying

    The violin’s enchanted playing,

    Surrounded by her nymphs, the fair

    Istomina is standing there.

    Poised on one foot, with lazy ease

    The other circles, starts to rise,

    And suddenly – a leap –she flies

    Like down on some Aeolian breeze,

    Spins and unspins, her figure flexed,

    Beats one swift foot against the next.

    XXI

    General applause. Onegin passes

    A row of legs to reach his seat;

    Squints upwards through his opera-glasses –

    No woman-friend whom he should greet.

    He gazes round the other tiers,

    But what he sees confirms his fears;

    No face or fashion to his taste.

    He bows without the slightest haste

    To every side, then casts a mere

    Perfunctory glance at the ballet

    And, idly yawning, turns away.

    ‘It’s time we had some changes here.

    I’ve borne these ballets long enough.

    They’re tedious – even Didlo’s stuff.’

    XXII

    Snakes, cupids, devils are still leaping

    Their noisy way to curtain fall.

    The weary lackeys are still sleeping

    On fur coats in the entrance hall.

    The audience hasn’t ceased its cheering,

    Its sneezing, coughing, hissing, jeering.

    Inside and outside, everywhere,

    A thousand flickering lamps still flare.

    A restless horse kicks at the stands,

    Half-frozen, harnessed up for hire,

    And coachmen, huddled round the fire,

    Curse masters, swing their stiff, numb hands.

    Onegin leaves before the press;

    He’s going home again to dress.

    XXIII

    Shall I give you a faithful picture

    Of his secluded room? Explain

    How, schooled in fashion’s every stricture,

    He’s dressed, undressed, and dressed again?

    All that punctilious London offers

    Those with extensive whims – and

    Enjoying the preview?
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