2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
It's no secret that literary works belong to certain genres and types of literature. And if literary genres are limited to three categories: epic, lyrics, drama, then there are much more genres.
"Eugene Onegin": genre
The famous work of art "Eugene Onegin", written by the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, has long been under the scrutiny of philologists and literary critics. Not only is this work filled with deep semantic content, its genre characteristics are also very ambiguous. So, why is the definition of the Eugene Onegin genre so unusual?
Generations and genres of literature
To begin with, it should be noted that the work is written in poetic form, which means that the type of literature to which it belongs is lyrical. However, despite the fact that the story is described in verse, it is absolutely impossible to call it a simple poem. The detailed plot, the dynamics of the development of events, psychologism and the works within the work rightfully allow us to attribute "Eugene Onegin" to the genre of the novel. According to the definition from the explanatory dictionary of Sergei Ivanovich Ozhegov,a novel is a prose epic literary work with multiple characters and a complex plot structure. Based on it, we can say that in terms of meaning and content, "Eugene Onegin" refers, rather, to the epic genre and the novel genre of literature.
Story summary
According to the plot, a spoiled and selfish young man from the capital, Eugene Onegin, tired of endless balls and social receptions, decides to retire to live in the village in order to somehow add variety to his identical everyday life. However, life in the village turns out to be more boring than in St. Petersburg, Eugene is again attacked by the blues. He meets young villagers: the eighteen-year-old talented poet Vladimir Lensky, the Larin sisters - the beautiful and cheerful Olga, thoughtful and dreamy Tatyana.
They also become the main characters in the plot. Lensky is engaged to Olga, while Tatyana has fallen in love with Yevgeny. However, he does not reciprocate the feelings of the girl, and having received a letter with an ardent and tender declaration of love, he tries to set her on the right path, advising her not to express her feelings to unfamiliar people in the future. Tatyana is embarrassed and offended. And Lensky, meanwhile, challenges Onegin to a duel for repeatedly inviting his fiancee Olga to dance. Just before the duel, Tatyana has a dream in which Yevgeny kills Vladimir, but the girl does not know about the intention of the young people to shoot themselves, otherwise she would have prevented the duel. Onegin kills Lensky, afraid to cancel the duel andbe considered a coward in secular society. Olga does not mourn her lover for long and soon marries another. Some time later, Tatyana also gets married, for some time she still continues to love Yevgeny, but then the veil falls from her eyes.
Once, at a social ball, these two met: the still bored and moping Onegin and the inaccessible noble wife of the general Tatyana. And in this meeting, the characters switched roles, Eugene realized that he had fallen in love with a beautiful princess, Tatyana answered him with a phrase that later became famous: “But I am given to another and I will be faithful to him for a century.”
Analysis of the genre specifics of the text
So, how, in fact, to determine the genre in the work "Eugene Onegin"? We can say about the plot that it is really rich in events, and the dialogues and monologues of the characters are full of sensuality and psychologism. These features make it possible to classify the work as a genre of the novel. However, the poetic form of Pushkin's famous creation leaves the question open. Experts tend to argue that the genre of "Eugene Onegin" is a novel in verse. However, according to some literary critics, including Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky, this is not so. They argue that the genre of "Eugene Onegin" is a poem, since the work fully and almost with historical accuracy reproduces the life of the Russian public in the capital and beyond. V. G. Belinsky, without stint, called "Eugene Onegin" "an encyclopedia of Russian life." But for a poem, the work is still too large,the amount of text is closer to the novel. This is the first contradiction.
The second contradiction is related to the content of the novel. Again, critics call "Eugene Onegin" not only a "novel about a novel", but also a "novel within a novel." And if the first definition is directly influenced by the genre of "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin A. S., as well as the love line - the central theme of the plot, then the second characteristic is directly related to the literary texts inside the work.
Romance about romance
So, as it was already found out earlier, in terms of its genre, the work belongs more to the novel, despite the presentation in verse. And this is the first component of the definition of "a novel about a novel." The second, of course, reflects the presence of love events in the plot. As the action develops, the reader can observe how the relationship between two couples develops: Olga Larina and Vladimir Lensky and her sister Tatiana and Eugene Onegin. However, the relations of the latter come to the fore. It is around this couple that the plot revolves. Thus, the expression "a novel about a novel" not only informs about the presence of a love line in the text, but also once again emphasizes that in the work "Eugene Onegin" the genre is characterized as a novel.
A novel within a novel
This description also contains a reference to the genre of Pushkin's creation. However, now that the question “Eugene Onegin” no longer arises - what genre?definitions reminds of the presence in the text of another novel - a letter by Tatyana Larina, almost a work of art. Confessing her love to Onegin, Tatyana told in writing about her feelings. And Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin fully reflected her impulse. It is about this novel as a genre characteristic within another novel - the work itself - that is being discussed. Tatyana Larina, pouring out her love for Yevgeny, brought to light her own novel in verse, displaying it in a letter.
So, even after analyzing the work "Eugene Onegin", its genre is still problematic to establish. In form it is a poem, in content it is a novel. Perhaps only such a talented and great poet as Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is allowed to invent his own genre - a novel in verse - and demonstrate it with the best example.
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