In its final form (1837 edn.) Pushkin’s novel in verse (Evgeniy Onegin, roman v stihah) consists of 5541 lines, all of which, except a set of eighteen, are in iambic tetrameter, with feminine and masculine rhymes. The 5523 iambic lines (only three of which are incomplete) break up into the following groups:
Lines |
|
(1) Prefatory Piece, rhymed ababececediidofof |
17 |
(2) Eight Cantos (termed “chapters,” glavϊ), the basic component of which is a fourteen-line stanza rhymed ababeecciddiff : |
|
One: 54 stanzas numbered I–LX (IX, XIII, XIV, and XXXIX–XLI missing) |
756 |
Two: 40 stanzas numbered I–XL (VIII : 10–14 and XXXV : 5–11 missing) |
548 |
Three: 41 stanzas numbered I–XLI (III : 9–14 missing), with |
568 |
“Tatiana’s Letter to Onegin,” freely rhymed, between XXXI and XXXII* |
79 |
Four: 43 stanzas numbered I–LI (I–VI, XXXVI, XXXVII : 13 [in part]–14, and XXXVIII missing) |
601 |
Five: 42 stanzas numbered I–XLV (XXXVII, XXXVIII, and XLIII missing) |
588 |
Six: 43 stanzas numbered I–XLVI (XV, XVI, XXXVIII missing), plus 24 lines in Pushkin’s |
602 |
n. 40, of which 10 repeat text lines, and are additional |
14 |
Seven: 52 stanzas numbered I–LV (VIII, IX, XXXIX missing) |
728 |
Eight: 51 stanzas numbered I–LI (II : 5–14, XXV : 9–14 missing), with “Onegin’s Letter |
698 |
to Tatiana,” freely rhymed, between XXXII and XXXIII, and additional lines quoted in |
60 |
prefatory remarks to the appendix entitled “Fragments of Onegin’s Journey” |
5 |
(3) Fragments of Onegin’s Journey: 21 unnumbered stanzas, 4 of which are incomplete (IX : 1–2 [in part], X : 1 [in part]–14, XV : 1–8, XXX : 2–14 missing) |
259 |
Thus, in all there are 5523 iambic tetrameters. To this should be added:
(a) A master motto in French prose (composed by the author but presented as “tiré d’une lettre particulière”).
(b) A song consisting of eighteen lines, in trochaic trimeter with long terminals, “The Song of the Girls” (in Three, between XXXIX and XL).
(c) A set of forty-four authorial notes.
(d) An appendix with some comments in prose on the fragments of Onegin’s Journey.
Moreover, there are the following chapter mottoes: Chapter One, a line from Vyazemski; Two, a venerable pun, slightly improved (O rus! Horace; O Rus’ !); Three, a line from Malfilâtre; Four, a sentence from Mme de Staël; Five, two lines from Zhukovski; Six, two (not adjacent but printed as such) lines from Petrarch; Seven, two lines from Dmitriev, one from Baratïnski, and two from Griboedov; Eight, two lines from Byron.
Most of the dropped stanzas are found in early editions or in MS. In some cases their omission may be regarded as a deliberate structural gap. A large mass of EO material rejected by Pushkin comprises dropped stanzas, variant stanzas, expunged continuations, samples from “Onegin’s Album,” stanzas referring to Onegin’s Journey (the latter expanded into a chapter that was to come after Seven, thus turning the established Eight into a ninth chapter), fragments referring to a tenth chapter, and numerous canceled lines found in drafts and fair copies. I have translated in my notes all the most important and interesting rejections as given in various publications, but I am fully aware that no adequate study of original texts can be accomplished before all Pushkin’s MSS preserved in Russia are photographed and made available to scholars, and this, of course, a cagey police state cannot be expected to do without some political reason—and I can see none yet.
For the basic text I have relied as completely as possible (that is, with the correction of obvious misprints, the worst of which are pointed out in my notes) on the last edition published in Pushkin’s lifetime. This “third” edition, now exceedingly rare, was printed under the supervision of Ilya Glazunov, bookseller, and brought out in January, 1837—certainly before January 19, when it was advertised for sale in the St. Petersburg Gazette (supp. 14, p. 114). This miniature volume (32mo) was praised in the “New Books” section of the literary review The Northern Bee (Severnaya pchela, no. 16, pp. 61–63), on January 21, for its pretty pocket format.
The fifth page of this edition reads:
Evgeniy
Onegin
roman v stihah.
Sochinenie
Aleksandra Pushkina.
Izdanie tretie.
V tipografii Ekspeditsii zagotovleniya Gosudarstvennϊh bumag.
(EO, a novel in verse. The work of Aleksandr Pushkin. Third edition. St. Petersburg. In the printing shop of the Office of Purveyance of State Papers.)
The sixth page bears the master motto (“Pétri de vanité,” etc.), the seventh, the beginning (ll. 1–12) of the Prefatory Piece, and the eighth, its end (13–17).
The numbered pages contain eight chapters, headed by mottoes (One, pp. 1–40; Two, pp. 41–69; Three, pp. 71–105; Four, pp. 107–38; Five, pp. 139–69; Six, pp. 171–202; Seven, pp. 203–40; Eight, pp. 241–80); Pushkin’s “Notes,” pp. 281–93; and “Fragments of Onegin’s Journey” with some comments, pp. 295–310.
After this come two blank pages and the cover, with the modest line, Izdanie Glazunova, “Published by Glazunov.”
For further details on this edition see “The Publication of EO,” item 24.
The novel is mainly concerned with the emotions, meditations, acts, and destinies of three men: Onegin, the bored fop; Lenski, the minor elegiast; and a stylized Pushkin, Onegin’s friend. There are three heroines: Tatiana, Olga, and Pushkin’s Muse. Its events are placed between the end of 1819, in St. Petersburg (Chapter One), and the spring of 1825, in St. Petersburg again (Chapter Eight). The scene shifts from the capital to the countryside, midway between Opochka and Moscow (Chapter Two to the beginning of Seven), and thence to Moscow (end of Seven). The appended passages from Onegin’s Journey (which were to be placed between Chapters Seven and Eight) take us to Moscow, Novgorod, the Volga region, the Caucasus, the Crimea, and Odessa.
The themes and structural devices of Eight echo those of One. Each chapter has at least one peacock spot: a young rake’s day in One (XV–XXXVI), the doomed young poet in Two (VI–XXXVIII), Tatiana’s passion for Onegin in Three, rural and literary matters in Four, a fatidic nightmare and a name-day party in Five, a duel in Six, a journey to Moscow in Seven, and Onegin’s passion for Tatiana in Eight. Throughout there is a variety of romantic, satirical, biographical, and bibliographical digressions that lend the poem wonderful depth and color. In my notes I have drawn the reader’s attention to the marvelous way Pushkin handles certain thematic items and rhythms such as the “overtaking-and-hanging-back” device (One), interstrophic enjambments (Tatiana’s flight into the park and Onegin’s ride to Princess N.’s house), and the little leitmotiv of a certain phrase running through the entire novel. Unless these and other mechanisms and every other detail of the text are consciously assimilated, EO cannot be said to exist in the reader’s mind.
Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its sweep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance. It is not “a picture of Russian life”; it is at best the picture of a little group of Russians, in the second decade of the last century, crossed with all the more obvious characters of western European romance and placed in a stylized Russia, which would disintegrate at once if the French props were removed and if the French impersonators of English and German writers stopped prompting the Russian-speaking heroes and heroines. The paradoxical part, from a translator’s point of view, is that the only Russian element of importance is this speech, Pushkin’s language, undulating and flashing through verse melodies the likes of which had never been known before in Russia. The best I could do was to describe in some of my comments special samples of the original text. It is hoped that my readers will be moved to learn Pushkin’s language and go through EO again without this crib. In art as in science there is no delight without the detail, and it is on details that I have tried to fix the reader’s attention. Let me repeat that unless these are thoroughly understood and remembered, all “general ideas” (so easily acquired, so profitably resold) must necessarily remain but worn passports allowing their bearers short cuts from one area of ignorance to another.
*See below for “The Song of the Girls” between XXXIX and XL.