Alexander Pushkin’s last residence on the Moika Embankment; now a museum.

Part II of III: Intertextual Romanticism or A Link Through a Couple of Cool Novels and a Poem - Pushkin the Awesome

Part I covered Benjamin Constant’s novel Adolphe, Part II will cover Alexander Pushkin’s epic poem, Eugene Onegin.  So, the link:  Pushkin, in his notes while writing this epic poem, begun in 1823, made remarks about Constant’s novel, so we know this was an influence.  But, you say, what kind of influence? Is not Eugene Onegin a stunningly Russian poem, with true Russian characters?  Well, I would say, kinda.  Onegin, himself, wants to be seen as a European Romantic hero (or does he?), as indicated when the girl that loves him, Tatyana, looks in his study and sees a portrait of the true Byronic hero, Lord Byron!  I will leave that discussion for some other time.  Onegin is the superfluous man, un-heroic, a portrait of the new, youthful aristocracy following the devastating Napoleonic wars.  So, what is the connection with Constant’s novel?  The letters between lovers, that is what.  Adolphe and Emmanuel exchanged some devastatingly beautiful and scathing love letters which influenced Pushkin.

The letters:  In Eugene Onegin, Tatyana, the beautiful Russian country girl professes her love to Onegin, the bored fop (as Nabokov said), in a beautiful letter.  Young students in Russia could probably recite to you the opening of this letter, if not the whole thing (I have seen it done… very impressive).  Onegin is not a man to be tied down to a lowly country noble and denies her in a cold, firm letter.  Both letters reflect Adolphe and Ellenore’s letters and Pushkin is sure to have been influenced by them.

Tatyana’s Letter to Onegin (an excerpt):

“I’m writing you this declaration-

What more can I in candour say?

It may be now your inclination

To scorn me and to turn away;

But if my hapless situation

Evokes some pity for my woe,

You won’t abandon me, I know.

I first tried silence and evasion;

Believe me, you’d have never learned

My secret shame, had I discerned

The slightest hope that on occasion-

But once a week-I’d see your face,

Behold you at our country place,

Might hear you speak a friendly greeting,

Could say a word to you; and then,

Could dream both day and night again

Of but one thing, till our next meeting… “ 

- from James Falen’s excellent lyrical translation of Eugene Onegin.