There are many “dark places” in “Eugene Onegin” that attract the attention of researchers. Usually Pushkin implies something specific and important in such places. You just need to look at it from the right angle and then, perhaps, not only this place, but the entire text will be highlighted in a new way. One of these “dark places” is the last verse of stanza XXXVII of the first chapter:
No: his feelings cooled down early;
He was tired of the noise of the world;
The beauties didn't last long
The subject of his usual thoughts;
The betrayals have become tiresome;
Friends and friendship are tired,
Because I couldn’t always
Beef-steaks and Strasbourg pie
Pouring a bottle of champagne
And pour out sharp words,
When you had a headache;
And although he was an ardent rake,
But he finally fell out of love
And scolding and saber and lead.
As V. Nabokov wrote in his famous comments, “ this line is annoyingly unclear. What exactly did Onegin fall out of love with? “Arrest,” implying war itself, may lead one to assume that around 1815 Onegin, like many other dandies of his time, was in active service in the army; however, it is most likely that the reference is made to a single battle, as appears from a reading of the manuscript; but (bearing in mind Onegin’s further behavior, Chapter Six) it would be extremely important to interpret this in clearer terms of Onegin’s dueling experience.”
That is, Nabokov draws a connection between this verse and the duel between Onegin and Lensky. A very valuable note, since lead appears in both. But Nabokov believes that Pushkin means shooting from a pistol.
However, nothing is said in the text about Onegin’s military or dueling experience. As well as the fact that he felt sympathy for these crafts. Neither before nor after this fragment did military and dueling fields appear in Onegin’s circle of activities (with the exception of the duel with Lensky). Let's say that it was in this verse that Pushkin wanted to make it clear that his hero was once not indifferent to them. However, firstly, the literally understood theme of “battle, saber and lead” does not fit into the context of the previous and subsequent stanzas. They talk about the hero’s former dissolute lifestyle and his current cooling towards women. Secondly, there is an adversative conjunction “but” here, which connects Onegin’s new state precisely with the object of his former passions, a changed attitude towards him. That is, “abuse, saber and lead” are related to women.
As for the first two elements - “abuse” and “saber” - they may well be euphemisms for Onegin’s sexual experience. The comparison of love attributes with military ones has a long origin. Elegy IX (“Every lover is a soldier…”) from Book One of Ovid’s “Love Elegies” is especially famous. The scandalous Russian poet I.S. used the love-war metaphor more than once. Barkov.
“Lead” also fits well into the “love” series, but... from a special angle. Most likely, by “lead”, Pushkin means one of the methods of treating syphilis that was used at that time. There is a version that Beethoven died from lead poisoning, which he used to cure syphilis. Lead (“lead sugar”) was used to treat gonorrhea. Bismuth has long been confused with lead, too. effective remedy against syphilis. At the beginning of the 19th century. they were already separated, but in the minds of the general population, bismuth could remain lead or, out of habit, retain this name.
Apparently, Pushkin chose this particular remedy (and not iodine, bismuth or mercury, which he used to treat himself) in order to play up the similarity of “venereal” vocabulary with military vocabulary and to de-heroize the dissolute lifestyle. And also, perhaps, to indicate already in the first chapter the “lead” motive, which will subsequently play an important role in the plot.
Thus, we have reason to assume that the “lead” mentioned by the poet is related to the topic of venereal diseases: this word obviously refers to both the disease itself and its treatment.
Now we can read this “dark place” like this: Onegin fell out of love with love affairs and the troubles associated with them. Because of the latter, apparently, he fell out of love with the former.
It is curious that the last verse of the previous XXVI stanza seems to rhyme with “abuse, saber and lead” in this reading.
But was my Eugene happy?
Free, in color best years,
Among the brilliant victories,
Among everyday pleasures?
Was he in vain among the feasts?
Careless and healthy?
The motives of “carelessness and health” are quite consistent with the “venereal” theme.
And both the question itself and the answer to it sound ambiguous. After all, the answer (“No: his feelings cooled down early...”, etc.) can be read as referring to the first question and the second. If to the first: no, I wasn’t happy, my feelings cooled down. If to the second: no, not in vain, in the end Onegin’s carelessness led him to the loss of his health.
The reading of “abuse, saber and lead” from the proposed perspective is quite consistent with what is said about Onegin further: “Freaks of the great world! He left everyone before you”; “And you, young beauties, who are sometimes carried away by daring droshky along the St. Petersburg pavement, and my Eugene has left you.” Nabokov commented on the latter: “Courtesans, whom daring rakes race in open carriages.”
The words of the second chapter also speak about the trauma of Pushkin’s hero on the love front:
In love, considered disabled,
Onegin listened with an important look.
The meaning of the word “disabled” then was somewhat different, closer to “veteran”, but it included the seme “wound” (“Disabled is a retired military man who has lost his ability to work due to wounds or old age” - Pushkin Dictionary of the Language). The Latin invalidus translates as powerless, weak, sick. It is unlikely that Pushkin did not take into account this “crippled” aspect of meaning.
But we can go further.
In a letter to Tatyana, Onegin dropped the following phrase:
I know that my life has already been measured. ..
Isn’t it about this illness, the treatment of which he stopped or which turned out to be not very successful, that Onegin writes to Tatyana? Is he dying of a venereal disease? Or the consequences of treatment? That is, does he not die from what was called “lead” in the first chapter? This would be a logical punishment for killing Lensky with a lead bullet. A painful, drawn-out punishment.
In the first chapter (stanza VIII) there is another interesting place, which may be related to the “lead” motif:
What took the whole day
His melancholy laziness, -
There was a science of tender passion,
Which Nazon sang,
Why did he end up a sufferer?
Its age is brilliant and rebellious,
In Moldova, in the wilderness of the steppes,
Far away from Italy.
As Valery Lebedev noted, this passage “is written deliberately in an ambiguous manner. What has been said can be attributed to Ovid Nazon, but it can also be attributed to Onegin. Or both at the same time. It turns out that both gave oak as “sufferers from tender passion,” that is, they suffered and then died from syphilis. And this happened in Moldova, which was more convenient for Onegin to do. For in the time of Nazon there was no Moldavia.” In the time of Ovid, syphilis was not known, but he actually died from The Science of Love, the book for which he was exiled from Rome.
Thus, the “lead” motif, being associated with the “venereal” theme, allows not only to read a previously unread verse, but also to reconstruct one of the hidden thematic lines of Pushkin’s novel.
Pushkin's brilliant novel in verse includes absolutely all aspects of Russian both social and literary life that time. But main character embodies, perhaps, the main historical dilemma that had developed at this moment. The time of Pushkin’s novel coincides with historical timelessness in Russia, when it became obvious to the thinking part of society that no radical historical changes, which the War of 1812 made possible for a certain time, were foreseen.
A protracted reaction began in Russia, when the thinking and searching part of Russian society found itself out of work, and as a result, some were forced to resign in scandal, and some were forced to join the ranks of anti-government organizations. But there was also a third option - to thoughtlessly live your own life, languishing from idleness and inaction, from the inability to realize your inner world, when the abilities and potentials of the individual turned out to be completely unclaimed. Russian literature very clearly perceived this current situation and reflected this third category of Russian enlightened society, creating whole line images" extra people". Griboyedov laid the foundation for this series by creating the image of Chatsky in his immortal comedy "Woe from Wit." Pushkin significantly continued and expanded what Griboyedov began in his novel "Eugene Onegin."
Onegin, who appears before the reader on the first pages of the novel, is very similar to the traditional romantic hero disappointed in life, a gloomy dandy. His story is quite ordinary: he belongs to the top of Russian society, received a quite passable education, but did not find a vocation and directed all his strength to comprehend the “science of tender passion,” in which he was fairly successful, and having succeeded, he lost all interest in what was for a long time the core of his entire life. Pushkin also focuses on another point: “but he was sick of hard work.” This is an indication that Onegin is a hero of a later time than, for example, Chatsky. For Onegin, the War of 1812 and hopes for change were never the present, but only the past, which he can only know from stories. The hero of the novel Pushka95 Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, unlike Chatsky, has no reason to strive to be educated, enlightened, write and translate. The world of enlightenment and aspirations to realize oneself in the name of the homeland and the state means very little to him. Onegin knows practically nothing about it - not due to ignorance, but due to the fact that this world was never alive for him, was not at least potentially connected with reality, always remaining a kind of abstraction (albeit quite entertaining for the development of the mind - Apparently, this can explain the reading of Adam Smith).
Onegin comes to the village - and his position in the eyes of others changes, local landowners and neighbors begin to view him as a dangerous freethinker. Here their point of view fundamentally diverges from the author’s, which was not the case in the first chapter, when Onegin was perceived as disappointed romantic hero. Now, for the author, he is only a “good fellow,” and there is absolutely nothing romantic in his bored laziness. This is not even evidence of disappointment in life and in oneself, but banal boredom—evidence of a very definite spiritual emptiness, which he has absolutely nothing to fill in the village. He has nothing in common with his neighbors, since Onegin’s outlook and level of education clearly raise him above them, he stands out from this environment. But nothing more.
What is noteworthy here is that the more ironically the author treats his hero, the more caustic his descriptions of Onegin’s time spent in the village, the more Tatyana sees in him, the more enthusiastically she perceives him, based on her “solid” experience of reading French novels. She looks at life through the prism of the books she has read and tries to guess in Onegin the features of her loved ones. literary heroes. They “all for the tender dreamer / Were clothed in a single image, / Merged in one Onegin.” It is with this Onegin that she invented that Tatyana falls in love. It should be noted that from the emerging images of Tatiana and Onegin, their closeness and, to a large extent, similarity become obvious. They both get knocked out environment, being completely different from her, both are looking for something, not being satisfied with the world around them. And Pushkin, thus, points out that if Onegin himself were different, they would have found each other, but in the end this does not happen. It is also important that Onegin himself simultaneously recognizes and does not recognize Tatyana as his betrothed, singling her out from the entire environment, but not trying to combine her with himself, to think about her from his own point of view and in relation to himself. His interest in Tatyana is limited to the arrogant advice he gives to Lensky: “I would choose another if I were a poet like you.” Onegin “sees” her, but reciprocating her feeling means taking on some responsibility, taking some significant step when, as it seems to him, he is already able to predict the ending of their possible relationship.
Onegin loses his possible happy destiny, preferring “peace and freedom.” He very politely and even affectionately besieges Tatyana on a date, playing the role of a secular man to the core, in the same role he cares for Olga and finally kills Lensky - just as a secular man, forced to follow the laws of honor, will kill according to the laws of "secular enmity." The secular principle triumphs in the hero, who, at least it seems, despises the world and has long “outgrown” its conventions. And here even the lover Tatiana has a question: “is he really a parody?” - the hero lacks his own solid positive foundation of life, his disappointment only leads to an endless change of masks, each of which is familiar to him. And from this moment on, it is Tatyana Larina who becomes the heroine of the novel, it is her point of view on the hero that now and further coincides with the author’s. The paths of Onegin and Tatiana diverge. Onegin wanders around Russia, spending considerable time abroad, while Tatyana gets married. They are destined to meet again. Tatyana went through secular school without losing her best features. Having met her by chance, the hero falls in love - the situation repeats itself, but as in mirror image. Tatyana's refusal negates all Onegin's hopes for happiness in life, but at the same time produces a revolution in his feelings.
The ending of the novel remains open. The disappointed hero could not find use for himself and his abilities; having wasted himself, he missed his happiness, did not recognize it. Such is fate talented person in the era of Russian timelessness, this is the path along which his own disappointment in everything and everyone leads.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin devoted more than eight years to his novel “Eugene Onegin”. This was the peak of the poet's creativity. In the novel, Pushkin embodied in the image of Onegin the typical features of modern younger generation XIX century.
The novel "Eugene Onegin" was written primarily about the quest of the advanced noble intelligentsia. Pushkin, with his title “Eugene Onegin,” shows readers that Eugene Onegin occupies the main position among other heroes of the novel.
Eugene Onegin is a young man, an aristocrat, who received a home education typical of that time. He was raised and taught science by a French tutor who did not bother his pupil with knowledge, taught him, one might say, somehow, something. The hero leads a characteristic early XIX lifestyle: theaters, balls, walks along the Neva and boulevards, lunches in a fashionable French restaurant, dinner parties. Although Eugene Onegin received superficial knowledge, he still knew history very well from Romulus to his own days, and was fluent in French, knew Latin and ancient literature, read works on the economics of Adam Smith. All this put him head and shoulders above secular society. Evgeny Onegin despised society, he was tired of pretending, being a hypocrite, and lying. Onegin's sharp and cold mind, the nobility of his soul, set him apart from the aristocratic secular society and led him to become disillusioned with life and people, and was dissatisfied with the social and political situation.
Evgeny Onegin became tired of young beauties in love. Pushkin writes about him that his feelings cooled down early, he was bored with noise and light. The life of the main character is empty, boring, and he is overcome by melancholy. Onegin leaves high society; by the will of fate, he goes to the village, where after the death of his uncle he inherits an estate. Here he tries himself as a reformer, trying to make life easier for the peasants by replacing corvée with quitrent. He takes up reading books, but does not complete all his studies, since his lordly upbringing did not give him the habit of working. He was sick of hard work. The main character of the work, Eugene Onegin, has no goal in life. He lives in the village, tormented by feelings of spiritual emptiness, he does not care about his peasants, he is busy with himself. Evgeny Onegin is cut off from the life of the people, besides, he broke with high society, I think that Evgeny even lost touch with people.
The main character rejected the love of a young girl, Tatyana Larina. I read a moral lesson to her, but did not delve into the depth of her feelings. Explaining to her that he acted honorably with her. In addition, Evgeny Onegin did not want to lose his freedom, to take responsibility for the fate of other people.
Onegin provokes Lensky. Vladimir Lensky challenges him to a duel. In principle, Eugene could have resolved this difficult situation peacefully, but, unfortunately, he did not do this, because he was afraid of the reproaches and ridicule of high society for his cowardice. Onegin kills Lensky in a duel. Onegin, in a deeply depressed state, leaves his estate and begins a journey, I would say, wandering around Russia. This trip helped to look at Eugene Onegin in a new way. Evgeniy rethinks his perception of the surrounding reality and comes to the conclusion that he was wasting years of his life fruitlessly.
Evgeny Onegin returns to St. Petersburg and sees that the life of society has not changed at all. He meets Tatyana and understands that a feeling of love for this delightful woman has arisen in his soul. Tatyana tells Onegin that she is married and will be faithful to her husband. She tells Eugene that she still loves him, but feelings of duty are much more important to her than love. Pushkin makes us understand that if the feeling of love has been revived in Onegin’s soul, then, most likely, his life should change.
Alexander Sergeevich left the ending of the novel open so that the reader could figure out what future fate awaits the main character, Evgeny Onegin. The image of Onegin opened up a whole gallery of “superfluous people” in Russian literature.
Pushkin's brilliant novel in verse includes absolutely all aspects of Russian social and literary life of that time. But the main character embodies, perhaps, the main historical dilemma that has developed up to this point. The time of Pushkin’s novel coincides with historical timelessness in Russia, when it became obvious to the thinking part of society that no radical historical changes, which the War of 1812 made possible for a certain time, were foreseen. A protracted reaction began in Russia, when thinking and searching
Part of Russian society found itself out of work, and as a result, some were forced to resign in scandal, and some were forced to join the ranks of anti-government organizations. But there was also a third option - to thoughtlessly live your own life, languishing from idleness and inaction, from the inability to realize your inner world, when the abilities and potential of the individual were completely unclaimed. Russian literature very clearly perceived this current situation and reflected this third category of Russian enlightened society, creating a whole series of images of “superfluous people.” Griboedov laid the foundation for this series by creating the image of Chatsky in his immortal comedy “Woe from Wit.” Pushkin significantly continued and expanded what Griboyedov began in his novel “Eugene Onegin”.
Onegin, who appears before the reader on the first pages of the novel, is very similar to the traditional romantic hero disappointed in life, a gloomy dandy. His story is quite ordinary: he belongs to the top of Russian society, received a quite passable education, but did not find a vocation and directed all his strength to comprehend the “science of tender passion,” in which he was fairly successful, and having succeeded, he lost all interest in what had been for a long time time is the core of his whole life.
Pushkin also focuses on another point: “but he was sick of hard work.” This is an indication that Onegin is a hero of a later time than, for example, Chatsky. For Onegin, the War of 1812 and hopes for change were never the present, but only the past, which he can only know from stories. The hero of the novel Pushkin, unlike Chatsky, has no reason to strive to be educated, enlightened, write and translate. The world of enlightenment and aspirations to realize oneself in the name of the homeland and the state means extremely little to him; Onegin knows practically nothing about it - not due to ignorance, but due to the fact that this world has never been alive for him, not at least potentially connected with reality, always remaining a kind of abstraction (albeit quite entertaining for the development of the mind - apparently, this can explain reading Adam Smith).
Onegin comes to the village - and his position in the eyes of others changes, local landowners and neighbors begin to view him as a dangerous freethinker. Here their point of view fundamentally diverges from the author’s, which was not the case in the first chapter, when Onegin was viewed as a disappointed romantic hero. Now, for the author, he is only a “good fellow,” and there is absolutely nothing romantic in his bored laziness. This is not even evidence of disappointment in life and in himself, but banal boredom - evidence of a very definite spiritual emptiness - which in the village he finds himself with absolutely nothing to fill. He has nothing in common with his neighbors, since Onegin’s outlook and level of education clearly raise him above them, he stands out from this environment. But nothing more.
What is noteworthy here is that the more ironic the author treats his hero, the more caustic his descriptions of Onegin’s time spent in the village, the more Tatyana sees in him, the more enthusiastically she perceives him, based on her “solid” experience of reading French novels. She looks at life through the prism of the books she has read and tries to guess in Onegin the features of her favorite literary heroes. They “all for the tender dreamer / Were clothed in a single image, / Merged in one Onegin.” It is this Onegin she invented that Tatyana falls in love with.
It should be noted that from the emerging images of Tatiana and Onegin, their closeness and, to a large extent, similarity become obvious. They both stand out from the environment, being completely different from it, both are looking for something, not being satisfied with the world around them. And Pushkin, thus, points out that if Onegin himself were different, they would have found each other, but in the end this does not happen. It is also important that Onegin himself simultaneously recognizes and does not recognize Tatyana as his betrothed, singling her out from the entire environment, but not trying to combine her with himself, to think about her from his own point of view and in relation to himself. His interest in Tatyana is limited to the arrogant advice he gives to Lensky: “I would choose another if I were a poet like you.” Onegin “sees” her, but reciprocating her feeling means taking on some kind of responsibility, taking some significant step when, as it seems to him, he is already able to predict the ending of their possible relationship.
Onegin loses his possible happy destiny, preferring “peace and freedom.” He very politely and even affectionately besieges Tatyana on a date, playing the role of a secular man to the core, in the same role he cares for Olga and finally kills Lensky - just as a secular man, forced to follow the laws of honor, will kill according to the laws “ secular hostility." The secular principle triumphs in the hero, who, at least it seems, despises the world and has long “outgrown” its conventions. And here even the loving Tatiana has a question: “Isn’t he a parody?” – the hero lacks his own solid positive foundation of life, his disappointment leads only to an endless change of masks, each of which is familiar to him. And from this moment on, it is Tatyana Larina who becomes the heroine of the novel, it is her point of view on the hero that now and further coincides with the author’s.
The paths of Onegin and Tatiana diverge. Onegin wanders around Russia, spending considerable time abroad, while Tatyana gets married. They are destined to meet again. Tatyana went through secular school without losing her best features. Having met her by chance, the hero falls in love - the situation repeats itself, but as if in a mirror image. Tatyana's refusal negates all Onegin's hopes for happiness in life, but at the same time produces a revolution in his feelings.
The ending of the novel remains open. The disappointed hero could not find use for himself and his abilities; having wasted himself, he missed his happiness, did not recognize it. Such is the fate of a talented person in the era of Russian timelessness, such is the path along which his own disappointment in everything and everyone leads.
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