Yevgény
Onégin.
The pleasant euphony of this small phrase is not a thing to be lost. The name makes up a tiny poem in two parts, each consisting of three syllables. (Say it out loud: Yevgény rhymes with “rainy”; Onégin is pronounced “An-yé-gin”, the “o” being unstressed. Yev-gé-ny An-yé-gin.) It does not matter whether you read each word, technically, as a one-foot iambic line with a feminine ending (i.e. having two-syllables, as in habit/rabbit) or treat the two words as perfect amphibrachs (two times te-túm-te); either way you have a couple of perfectly balanced lines in a combination that has an appealing ring. But there is more to it than that. The interplay of consonants and vowels is typical of Pushkin, who is famous for hitting on successful acoustic arrangements apparently through serendipity. Look what happens here. Not only do the two little lines form a strong (if approximate) feminine rhyme (-ény/-égin), but the main letters in the two phrases go like this: e… gén… nég… i, with the first “e” and the last “i” sounding the same (both in Russian like an “i” because the “e” is unstressed). So we suddenly realize that this is a modest example of chiasmus, a device in which parallel forms are presented in one order and then re-presented in reverse (as in, “Nice to see you. To see you nice!”). Thus the name given to the hero sings with its own sweet harmony every time it is used, and since it is possible to fully retain this property in transliteration, we should certainly do so. However, there is irony even in this positive decision: the poetic beauty of this miniature creation is not merited by the hero on whom it has been bestowed: his character and behaviour are not in tune with it, being unbalanced and unbeautiful in the extreme, as we shall see.
Anyone who thinks all of this sounds fanciful could be challenged to change the name to something else, and see if it makes a difference. What if the poet had hit upon Yevgeny Bazarov, Yevgeny Oleshin or Dmitry Onegin? The story and the characters would remain the same, but some spangle of acoustic refinement would have departed from an important work of poetry; on the finest scale of ideal values this hidden property of a novel in verse would have been thinned down, driving it one nuance away from perfection. The importance of such values to this poet was made clear in a poem of 1829 (‘Winter…’), in which he describes what it is like when inspiration deserts a poet: “The sounds won’t come together…”
The ease with which Pushkin achieves intricate effects like this one reminds me of younger days. At the age of eleven I watched a famous batsman (Len Hutton) compile a score of 104 at Bramall Lane; at sixteen I heard my first Mozart, the clarinet concerto. I remember being struck by the simplicity of the skills used on both occasions. You could obviously rush home and perform this kind of high art yourself, because it was so effortless, except that you couldn’t get remotely near the models when you tried. Pushkin’s poetry is consistently of that order: nearly every line of his seems like a happy fluke that could have happened to anyone, until you try to do it yourself and the lucky chances don’t materialize.
We have dwelt long on the two words at the head of this poem, and we shall have to linger over other examples of Pushkin’s poetic effectiveness. (The small number of enthusiasts who want more of this could consult my short book on the novel in the Cambridge University Press series: Landmarks in World Literature, 1992). The point is this: don’t be fooled by the seductive idea of serendipity. Complex organization by a master intelligence is the name of the game. If you are prepared to think like a modern physicist, treating the word like an atom, you will find in the subatomic realm a full range of interrelated particles of sound sharing magical relationships. But it isn’t magic, it isn’t luck; it is creative genius in a holiday mood. And Pushkin’s translator must be intimately aware of the imperceptible tricks and forces that drive and decorate his work, not in order to replicate them in some mechanical way, but at least to guide the English language in some appropriate direction, in the hope that now and then a modest turn of phrase will produce the occasional flash of wit, aptness or originality strong enough to bring out a memory of the original. The Onegin Stanza
The stanza used in this novel is a tried and tested poetic form: the sonnet. It contains the standard fourteen lines and a fixed rhyme scheme. However, Pushkin’s version is unusual in at least two ways. First, the line has been shortened from the traditional five feet to four (from iambic pentameter to tetrameter). Second, the rhyme scheme has an unusual property. In order to understand what this is, it is necessary to be familiar with the two main family branches into which the sonnet has been traditionally divided. The “Italian” sonnet breaks into two unequal halves. Its first eight lines (the octave) introduce the main idea; a strong break appears at the end of line eight, and the last six lines (the sestet) are then left to provide some kind of response to the first idea—a counter-proposal, re-affirmation or some new departure. Wordsworth’s sonnet composed on Westminster Bridge in 1802, “Earth has not anything to show more fair…”, and Christina Rossetti’s famous poem “Remember me when I am gone away…” are good examples of the form in English literature.
By contrast, the “English” sonnet works the fourteen lines into a different pattern. It begins with three four-line groups (quatrains), each with its own idea, though the three ideas usually amount to an ongoing argument of increasing intensity. These are followed by a terminal couplet containing a good deal of explosive power, enough to complete the preceding argument or dramatically subvert it. Another name for this form is the Shakespearean sonnet since our finest poet was its greatest exponent. (Curiously, Shakespeare appears to have written one sonnet—No. 145 of 154—in eight-syllable lines, the iambic tetrameter used by Pushkin in this novel, though it is not highly regarded in our poetry and it didn’t catch on.)
Within these two basic sonnet shapes there is some room for varying the rhymes, but not much. Typical rhyme schemes might be:
Italian sonnet: [abab abab] + [cde cde] English sonnet: [abab] + [cdcd] + [efef ] + [gg]
With a stroke of genius (more suited to Russian than English) Pushkin has hit upon a “sonnet” form that can go either way. It can become Italian or English at the flick of a switch in mid-stanza. Here is the basic pattern:
Onegin sonnet: [ababccddeffegg]