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Pushkin's Evgenii Onegin

Module description

You will explore in depth Pushkin’s ‘novel in verse’, one of the most influential Russian literary texts ever written, and discover why this short text (21,000 words) occupies such a prominent place in Russia’s cultural traditions. Onegin’s characters provided models for other writers to follow, its style stretched the capabilities of the Russian literary language (as you will see by reading the original Russian text), and its unique stanza form makes a virtue of apparent constraints. The 19^th -century critic Belinskii called it ‘an encyclopaedia of Russian life’, a realistic reflection of Russia; others see it as a virtuoso display of literary allusions, echoes, and parody, a demonstration of Pushkin’s manipulative skill.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to develop a detailed knowledge of Evgenii Onegin, through close reading of extracts from the text, as well as through discussions of how the text is constructed (plot, characters, the role played by the narrator, how individual stanzas relate to the chapter they appear in, as well as to the novel as a whole). All students will be expected to have read set passages from the text in advance of the class in which they will be analysed; each member of the group will take the lead in discussing an excerpt, including talking about elements of poetic form, such as stanza, meter, and rhyme in relation to meaning in one seminar session. The seminars will  also engage with a range of critical interpretations of Onegin, as well as questions related to the work’s genre, exploring whether we should accept Pushkin’s description of it as a ‘novel in verse’.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate familiarity with elements of poetic form (e.g. meter, rhyme)
• 2. Show detailed knowledge of the set text, and an understanding of the range of approaches used to analyse and interpret the text

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Assess the appropriateness of a range of literary-critical approaches for interpreting a given text
• 4. Demonstrate the ability to analyse a text based on close reading and commentary of a small excerpt from it

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Present a cogent and sustained argument on a designated or negotiated topic to a group of listeners, and respond to questions and responses from the group
• 6. Manage your own learning time and learning activities with minimal guidance from the course lecturer

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Introduction to the text: Russian versification; the Onegin stanza; Epigraph and Introduction
• Chapter One –  Introducing the hero: narrator / protagonist / language
• Chapter Two – Literature and life, writers and readers
• Chapter Three - The narrator and his heroine: a love story
• Chapter Four – Inside and outside the main narrative: contrasts and parallels
• Chapter Five – Tat’iana’s nightmare: dream and  reality
• Chapter Six – The duel: who is to blame?
• Chapter Seven – Life and literature: a belated introduction and a change of scenery
• Chapter Eight – Role reversal
• Genre: Is a novel in verse the same thing as a novel in prose?

After an initial lecture in week one, all subsequent class hours will take the form of seminar discussion. There will be two contact hours in odd-numbered weeks, and one contact hour in even-numbered weeks.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Primary texts:

• Pushkin, A, Evgenii Onegin (An edition of Evgenii Onegin , with an introduction and bibliography by A.D.P. Briggs and a vocabulary compiled by Frances F. Sobotka, is published by Bristol Classical Press, 1993).

Secondary reading:

• Briggs, A.D.P, Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
• Clayton, J. Douglas, Ice and Flame : Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (Toronto & London: University of Toronto Press, 1985)
• Freeborn , Richard, The rise of the Russian Novel :Studies in the Russian Novel from "Eugene Onegin" to "War and Peace" (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1973)
• Nabokov, Vladimir, Eugene Onegin : a Novel in Verse , translated from the Russian, with a commentary, 4 volumes, revised edition (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975) (other, earlier editions also available in the library)
• Todd, William Mills, Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin: Ideology, Institutions, and Narrative (Cambridge, Mass. London: Harvard University Press, 1986)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3240

Key words search

Pushkin