Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich: Eugene Onegin. 02 Dec 2007

[Roy White]

From Wikipedia...

(I haven't read this one)


Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse written by Aleksandr Pushkin. It was one of the classics of Russian literature and its hero served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes. It was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832. The first complete edition was published in 1833, and the edition on which the current accepted version is based was published in 1837.

The work's primary defining feature is that it is almost entirely written in verses of iambic tetrameter with the unusual rhyme scheme "aBaBccDDeFFeGG", where the lowercase letters represent feminine rhymes while the uppercase letters represent masculine rhymes. This form has become known as the "Onegin stanza" (or "Pushkin sonnet").

The story is told by an idealised version of Pushkin, who often digresses from the story and while the plot of the novel is quite scant the book is more loved for the telling than what is told. It is partly because of this garrulous narrator that the book has been compared to Tristram Shandy.

Plot
Eugene Onegin, a Russian dandy who is bored with life, inherits a country mansion from his uncle. When he moves to the country he strikes up an unlikely friendship with the minor poet Vladimir Lensky. One day Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fiancée Olga Larina. At this meeting Olga's bookish and countrified sister, Tatiana (Tanya), falls in love with Onegin. During the night Tatiana writes a letter to Onegin professing her love and sends it to him. While this is something a heroine in one of Tatiana's French novels would have done, Russian society would consider it inappropriate for a young, unmarried girl to take the initiative. Contrary to her expectations, Onegin does not reply by letter. The two meet on his next visit where he rejects her advances in a speech that has been described as tactful yet condescending.

Later Lensky nonchalantly invites Onegin to Tatiana's nameday celebration promising a small celebration with just Tatiana, her sister, and parents. At the celebration Onegin finds a grandiose ball reminiscent of the fast-paced world he has grown tired of. To exact revenge on Lensky Onegin proceeds to flirt and dance with Olga. Lensky leaves in a rage and in the morning issues a challenge of a duel to Onegin. At the duel Onegin kills Lensky, then flees.

Tatiana visits Onegin's mansion where she reads through his books and the notes in the margins, and through this comes to believe that Onegin's character is merely a collage of different literary heroes and so there is no "real Onegin". Later Tanya is taken to Moscow and introduced to society. In this new environment Tanya matures to such an extent that when Onegin later meets her in St Petersburg, he fails to recognise her. When he realises who she is, he tries to win her affection despite the fact that she is now married, only to be ignored. He writes her several letters and receives no reply. The book ends when Onegin manages to see Tanya and is once more rejected in a speech admitting her love for Onegin while professing absolute loyalty to her husband. In echoing the speech he previously gave her, she also demonstrates her emotional and moral superiority to Onegin.

Enjoy

Roy

Edited to remove attachment.

[chesstron]

The cover graphic on page 1 is from an Arndt translation, not this one by Johnston? And we seem to have lost the 14-line stanzas so everything runs together in paragraphs as if it were written that way? Sorry, this looks rather odd to my eyes.

[Roy White]

Hmm.. The weird thing about Book Designer when you are trying to render verse... It wont do it well... (Or maybe I dont know how to command it to render it correctly.) You are MORE than welcome to give it a shot though.. I had to hunt for a while to find the text since its not on Gutenburg. I just wanted the book on my reader so I did it.

I just search for a picture that has the name of the book on it when i find a title page so... o well...

chesstron, I'd really encourage you to download BD and learn to fowrmat your own books. It's very fun.

All of the books I convert I do for me, then share on this board as a favor but I'll admit that sometimes I miss little details.

Sorry...

Roy

[Sparrow]

Is this translation in the public domain?
The copyright notice is from the seventies

[Patricia]

Roy, you should be able to keep verses in BD if you go to configuration, then settings, then check the box for 'keep original format' and the boxes underneath.

Unfortunately, as Sparrow has noticed, this is not public domain. I imagine that you got the work from:
http://www.lib.ru/LITRA/PUSHKIN/ENGLISH/onegin_j.txt

I have noticed that there are quite a few Russian sites which ignore the copyright of other states. The translation is the current Penguin version and is clearly under copyright. I very much doubt whether the moderators will let the upload stay.

There is a notice at the beginning of the web version which makes the copyright status clear:

Translation by Charles H. Johnston.

Penguin Books Ltd, Hannondsworth, Middlesex, England
Penguin Books, 625 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada
L3R IB4
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

This translation first published 1977
Published with minor revisions and an Introduction in Penguin Classics
1979

Copyright © Charles Johnston, 1977, 1979
Introduction copyright © John Bayley, 1979
All rights reserved

[RWood]

I removed the attachment. While the original book is out of copyright, the translation is still in copyright.

[Roy White]

Oops.. My bad!

Sorry..

The Devil's in the details my Mom used to say.