"Eugene Oneguine [Onegin]: A Romance of Russian Life in Verse" by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin is a novel in the poems. It's also one of the most significant works of russian literature. In the novel Pushkin shows the dramatic fate of the aristocratic intelligentsia on a wide background of Russian life in the 1800s. The book artistically shows how different Russia was from the rest of the world.
When Vladimir Nabokov's translation of Pushkin’s masterpiece Eugene Onegin was first published in 1964, it ignited a storm of controversy that famously resulted in the demise of Nabokov’s friendship with critic Edmund Wilson. While Wilson derided it as a disappointment in the New York Review of Books, other critics hailed the translation and accompanying commentary as Nabokov’s highest achievement. Nabokov himself strove to render a literal translation that captured "the exact contextual meaning of the original," arguing that, "only this is true translation." Nabokov’s Eugene Onegin remains the most famous and frequently cited English-language version of the most celebrated poem in Russian literature, a translation that reflects a lifelong admiration of Pushkin on the part of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant writers. Now with a new foreword by Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd, this edition brings a classic work of enduring literary interest to a new generation of readers.
Eugene Onegin, a "novel in verse," as announced by its subtitle, and Russia's best-loved classic, was written by Alexander Pushkin, that country's unsurpassed literary idol. Yet the American reading public generally attributes its authorship to Tchaikovsky, who composed the score and co-authored the libretto of its operatic adaptation. Henry Hoyt, translator for this bilingual edition, suggests that this misunderstanding may stem from other translations' having been cast in a mold ill-fitted to capture both the spirit and meaning of the original. Most of the translations follow the complicated rhyme and meter scheme of the original, where the invention of new rhymes for the translated version forces the translator to abandon verbal fidelity to the original. The other translations are in prose, lacking the rhythm and hence much of the spirit of the original. Mr. Hoyt's translation is unrhymed, but retains the meter of Pushkin's verses, a procedure under which he believes verbal fidelity is attainable along with rhythm, affording the English-speaking reader an experience as close as possible to that of a Russian-speaking reader of the original. This publication includes an appendix describing the Cyrillic alphabet for readers unfamiliar with it but interested in examining the original text.
When Onegin, a dashing but jaded aristocrat from St. Petersburg, inherits his uncle’s estate in the country, his arrival sets hearts afire and stirs the embers of jealousy. Even the reclusive young Tatyana falls hopelessly under the spell of the aloof Onegin and professes her love for him. Will playing with lonely Russian hearts reap heartbreak or romance?
In the 1820s, Eugene Onegin is a bored St. Petersburg dandy, whose life consists of balls, concerts, parties, and nothing more. Upon the death of a wealthy uncle, he inherits a substantial fortune and a landed estate. When he moves to the country, he strikes up a friendship with his neighbor, a starry-eyed young poet named Vladimir Lensky. Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fiancée, the sociable but rather thoughtless Olga Larina. At this meeting, he also catches a glimpse of Olga's sister Tatyana. A quiet, precocious romantic, Tatyana becomes intensely drawn to Onegin, but he doesn't respond. Lensky mischievously invites Onegin to Tatyana's name day celebration, and upon arrival, Onegin is irritated with the guests who gossip about him and Tatyana. He decides to avenge himself by dancing and flirting with Olga. Earnest and inexperienced, Lensky is wounded to the core and challenges Onegin to fight a duel, and Onegin reluctantly accepts. During the duel, Onegin unwillingly kills Lensky. Afterwards, he quits his country estate, traveling abroad to deaden his feelings of remorse. Eugene Onegin is considered a classic of Russian literature, and its eponymous protagonist has served as the model for a number of Russian literary heroes
Vladimir Nabokov's famous and brilliant commentary on Pushkin's Eugene Onegin When Vladimir Nabokov first published his controversial translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin in 1964, the great majority of the edition was taken up by Nabokov’s witty and exhaustive commentary. Presented here in its own volume, the commentary is a unique scholarly masterwork by one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers—a work that Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd calls “the most detailed commentary ever made on” Onegin and “indispensable to all serious students of Pushkin’s masterpiece.” In his commentary, Nabokov seeks to illuminate every possible nuance of this nineteenth-century classic. He explains obscurities, traces literary influences, relates Onegin to Pushkin’s other work, and in a characteristically entertaining manner dwells on a host of interesting details relevant to the poem and the Russia it depicts. Nabokov also provides translations of lines and stanzas deleted by the censor or by Pushkin himself, variants from Pushkin’s notebooks, fragments of a continuation called “Onegin’s Journey,” the unfinished and unpublished “Chapter Ten,” other continuations, and an index. A work of astonishing erudition and passion, Nabokov’s commentary is a landmark in the history of literary scholarship and in the understanding and appreciation of the greatest work of Russia’s national poet.
