Lensky and Onegin: comparative characteristics. Onegin and Lensky, table

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Ah, dear Alexander Sergeevich! Has your pen written something more perfect than the living and eternal novel "Eugene Onegin"? Haven't you put most of yourself, your wild inspiration, all your poetic passion into it?

But didn't you, oh immortal classic, say that Onegin has nothing to do with you? Are the traits of his character peculiar to you? Isn't it your "spleen" on it, isn't it your disappointment? Is it not your "black epigrams" he draws to his enemies?

And Lensky! Really, how he looks like you, young lover! On you - another, on that you, whom you no longer dared to open to the world clearly …

Lensky and Onegin… A comparative description of both of them is yours, O immortal Alexander Sergeevich, a colorful and lively portrait on the wall of poetry. Do you agree with such audacity?

However, be that as it may, allow, in view of your silence, every admirer of your genius to do theirconclusions, letting your own imagination fly.

We will compare and contrast the two bright heroes of "Eugene Onegin", barely touching the facets of your personality directly. In order to avoid intrusive parallels between you, sir, and the characters of your poem, we will make every effort to carry out a dry statement of their striking characteristics.

Characteristics of Onegin and Lensky

So, Onegin. Handsome, smart, stately. In the description of his Petersburg daily routine, dear Alexander Sergeevich, we find your lines about at least three hours he spends at the mirrors in preening. You even compare it to a young lady dressed like a man, hurrying to the ball. Perfume, lipstick, fashion haircut. Dandy, pedant and dandy. Always elegant in clothes. And, by the way, it will be said, nails, sir … He, like you, sir, spends a lot of time at the dressing table, caring for them.

Alas, all the actions he performs on himself in order to be attractive are just a tribute to secular habit. He has long cooled down to the opposite sex, disappointed in love. He does not want to please women at all. Not! Love has long been replaced by the "art of seduction", which, however, does not bring any satisfaction.

Social events have long lost all taste for him. He often goes to balls, but out of inertia, out of boredom and nothing to do. The secular social circle is boring to him. Everything is disgusting, tired! But, not knowing another life, he continues to drag out his usual way of life. No friends, no love, no interest in life.

Way of thought, worldviewOnegin - you expose everything, Alexander Sergeevich, to the merciless "Russian blues", or depression. Immeasurable inner emptiness, lack of dreams, boredom, joylessness. At the same time, the liveliness of a cold, sober mind, lack of cynicism, nobility.

You emphasize its prosaic nature by the inability to “distinguish the polecat from the iambic”, and their preference for Scott Smith, with his political economy books, only confirms the presence of unpoetic exact thinking.

What's wrong Lensky

What evil muse visited you, Alexander Sergeevich, when you brought together your so different heroes in friendly bonds? Could the relationship between Lensky and Onegin not lead to tragedy? Your Lensky…

Beautiful, but beautiful differently than Onegin. You endow him with natural beauty of facial features, long, dark, curly hair. With the inspirational look of a poet and a lively, warm heart, open to the world.

Vladimir Lensky is sensitive to the perception of nature and the universe as a whole. “Suspicious of miracles” in everything, he understands and feels the world in his own way. Idealist, right word!

In love with life, an eighteen-year-old dreamer firmly believes in the existence of his soulmate, who is waiting for him and languishing. In faithful, devoted friendship and "sacred family", as you, venerable Alexander Sergeevich, deigned to call the Holy Trinity.

Onegin and Lensky. Table

Describing the relationship between Onegin and Lensky with your own pen, you compare them with the union of water and stone, fire and ice, poetry and prose. How different they are!

Comparative table of Lensky and Onegin

Hero Traits	Onegin	Lensky
worldview	nihilism	idealism
mindset	practical, accurate	poetic, philosophical
judgments	superficial, sober, sharp	search deep meaning in everything, space
life views	skepticism, prosaicism	mysticism, romanticism
sociability	misanthropy, solitude	openness, lightness
attitude towards ladies	frustration, neglect, avoidance of deep feelings	bright, chaste ideal, dream of a family idyll

Lensky and Onegin. Comparative characteristics

You were pleased, Lord of the Muses, to play these two beautiful youths in a sad game that to this day prompts the reader to sprinkle tears on the pages of your great novel. You make them related by friendship, at first “from nothing to do”, and after a closer one. And then cruelly…

No, better in order. So, they get closer: Lensky and Onegin. A comparative description of these two heroes, so characteristic of your time, Alexander Sergeevich, can only be complete when describing their friendship.

So, contradictions occur, as the English proverb says. At first, they are boring to each other due to the dissimilarity of judgments. But after a while this difference becomesc, an opposites-attracting magnet. Each thesis becomes the cause of lively disputes and discussions between friends, each dispute turns into a subject of deep reflection. Perhaps none of them took the positions of a comrade, but they also retained interest, respect for the flow of someone else's thought. Listening to Lensky, Onegin does not interrupt his youthfully naive judgments, poems and ancient legends. Being a disappointed realist, he is in no hurry to reproach Vladimir for idealizing people and the world.

Similarities of heroes

Daily joint horse rides, dinners by the fireplace, wine and conversations bring young people together. And, at the same time, over time, similarities between Onegin and Lensky are revealed. Endowing them with such bright features, you, the master of the pen, pull them out of the usual circle of rural communication, with boring conversations about the kennel, their own relatives and other nonsense. The education of the main characters, which is one of the few traits that both of them have in common, makes them yawn in the circle of rural nobility.

Two destinies, two loves

Onegin is five or six years older than Lensky. Such a conclusion can be reached, based on what you said, dear Alexander Sergeevich, he was twenty-six years old at the end of the novel … When, kneeling down, he wept for love at her feet … at Tatyana's feet … But, no. All right.

Oh, great connoisseur of the human soul, oh, subtlest psychologist of deepest feelings! Your pen reveals before the dead soul of Onegin the bright, pure ideal of the young maiden - TatianaLarina. Her young, tender passion pours out before him in a frank letter, which you attribute to him to keep for life as evidence of the possibility of sincerity and beauty of feelings in which he no longer believed. Alas, his sour hardened heart was not ready to reciprocate. He tries to avoid meeting Tatyana after a conversation with her in which he denies her high feelings.

In parallel with this discordant love, you develop Vladimir Lensky's feelings for Tatyana's sister, Olga. Oh, how different these two loves are, like Lensky and Onegin themselves. A comparative description of these two feelings would be superfluous. The love of Olga and Vladimir is full of chaste passion, poetry, youthful inspiration. The naive Lensky, sincerely wishing his friend happiness, tries to push him into Tatiana's arms, inviting him to her name day. Knowing Onegin's dislike for noisy receptions, he promises him a close family circle, without unnecessary guests.

Revenge, honor and duel

Oh, how much effort does Eugene make to hide his furious indignation when, having agreed, he gets to a provincial ball with many guests, instead of the promised family dinner. But more than that, he is outraged by Tatyana's confusion when he sits on the place prepared for him in advance … opposite her. Lensky knew! Everything is set up!

Onegin, really, didn't want what your, Alexander Sergeevich, inexorable pen had prepared when he took revenge on Lensky for his deceit! When he drew his beloved Olga into his arms in a dance, when he whispered freedom in her ear, he portrayed a gentle look. Cynically and short-sightedly appealing tojealousy and contempt of the young poet, he obediently followed the fate you destined for both of them. Duel!

Morning at the mill…

Both have already moved away from stupid insults. Both had difficulty finding a reason to duel. But no one stopped. Pride is to blame: no one intended to pass for a coward by refusing to fight. The result is known. A young poet is killed by a friend's bullet two weeks before his own wedding. Onegin, unable to indulge in memories and regrets about the death of the only person close to him, leaves the country …

On his return, he will fall in love with the matured and flourishing Tatyana, only now a princess. Kneeling before her, he will kiss her hand, pray for love. But no, it’s too late: “Now I have been given to another and I will be faithful to him for a century,” she will say, weeping bitterly. Onegin will be left completely alone, face to face with memories of love and a friend killed by his own hand.

Duels of the creator Onegin and quite appropriate parallels

You were reproached, dearest Alexander Sergeevich, for insufficient grounds for a duel between your heroes. Funny! Didn't your contemporaries draw parallels between these two young men and yourself? Haven't they noted the similarities between such opposite Onegin and Lensky with your contradictory, dual nature? This boundary bifurcation into Lensky - an inspired poet, a superstitious lyricist - and a secular rake, a chilled, tired Onegin … did they not discover? To one you give your fiery genius,love, cheerfulness and, without suspecting it, your own death. Unhappy love, wanderings, alienation and, in the end, a long trip abroad, which you yourself dreamed about, are given to another. The characterization of Onegin and Lensky is a comprehensive disclosure of yourself, isn't it? And if such an obvious resemblance of both heroes to you, dear classic, was exposed by your contemporaries, did they not know what easy, insignificant reasons for dueling were enough for you yourself? And how many times in every week of your life have you started to play with death, fearlessly and indifferently looking at the cold barrel in the hands of your enraged opponent?