Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls," -- a macabre novel, or a rollicking ballad?

A poem in prose? -  Russian literature class comment

As an absurd fantasy Dead Souls is a very funny skewering of Gogol's characters. They become highly exaggerated caricatures of the Russian types Gogol wishes to highlight (or ridicule.) The polite are polite beyond all reason and their compliments and greetings become increasingly drôle as they stretch to outdo each other. The greedy are hilarious as they bargain for the best price on a dead soul, listing attributes to boost the value, or wanting a second bidder in order to compare prices. Such earnest negotiations mock the worthlessness of the goods in the transaction. If one loses sight of the idea that Dead Souls is basically a ridiculous construct, then a reader might find the plot somewhat macabre. However, if the absurd basis of the story is accepted, then the reader can enjoy the exaggerations and perhaps glimpse the grain of truth that inspired them.

The poetry may be in the elegant deftness of Gogol's mockery and in the the carefully noted details that build his case.  It is difficult, though, to say that a translation is poetic; I think we have to be able to read the original Russian text to make that judgement.

Happy to have my ticket to Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin on the 10th of May 2013

Kiev Opera House, May, 2013 while on a short holiday  from Astana. 

The Saint George's ribbon had no political connotations at that time.

Pushkin's Eugene Onegin; Some thoughts on Chapter Three, Stanzas 21 and 22

           Stanzas 21 and 22 contrast the love of an impulsive, innocent, country maid with some cool, even icy, beauties of St Petersburg, who abhor love. These belles have driven Onegin to boredom with the superficial social life they all thrived on for so many years, and the resulting ennui taints his appreciation of  Tanya’s confession of love for him. These stanzas contrast  the innocence of a first crush with the cynical experience of high society’s mating game.

            Stanza 21 opens lyrically, just after Tanya confesses three times to Filippyevna, her nurse, “I am in love.”(3.19, 3.20) With her heart and mind drifting, she looks at the moon.(line 2) On line 8 the moon returns her attention; ‘Сбетит ей луна.' The moon appears again as soon as her letter is finished, 'Но вот уж лунного луна / Сиянье гаснет' its light fades as the dawn breaks.(3.32) Tatyana's love is concealed by the night and lighted by the moon.

            The moon is so often mentioned in relation to Tanya, it almost becomes a character, like the seasons or the countryside. I take it that it signifies purity and romance, but also the madness of people under its influence. In Tanya's case it reflects her soul, her purity, her spirituality and her strength. The moon also brings to mind Diana, who Pushkin first mentions in 1.32. Diana is the Roman goddess of the hunt, the moon, chastity, childbirth and women. She is one of a string of mythological deities and ancient poets whose mere mention or allusion adds layers of meaning to the text; in Tanya's case, the idea of light, virginity and inaccessibility. Her isolation and inaccessibility is captured in the phrase I like best , in line 7, ‘У вот она одна' which has a sad, sweet assonance, like the word ‘solo.’

            After gazing at the moon, Tatyana's resolve bursts forth with an impetuous bold thought.(3.22.line 3) Our narrator chooses here to give her a voice, and what a voice! Tatyana is suddenly abrupt, decisive and in charge; it is a startling transition and prefigures the letter itself, described as ‘необдуманный’-injudicious, unconsidered, precipitate. Well, love can make one crazy, as Eugene discovers in chapter 8.

The narrator takes up four tasks in this stanza. First, he sets the scene and describes Tanya’s emotional state. Next he quotes her and gives her a strong voice, then describes her actions and thoughts as she writes. Finally, he addresses her directly, ‘Татьяна! Для кого ж оно?' Who is the letter for?

We are accustmed to the narrator addressing us, but now can he speak directly to Tatyana? Why does he question her—she is oblivious to him, and he knows who the letter is for! Is he suddenly playing the part of her shocked mother or aunt? There is ambiguity throughout the novel about who, in fact, is in charge of the story. I see a parallel with Christianity; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The parallel Pushkin Trinity is;

·      Pushkin the Author, who digresses with an endless supply of autobiographical anecdotes, who refers to his own and his friend’s previous works, who makes meta-literary jokes, and who treats his readers as equals,

·      Pushkin the Friend, who chats with Eugene and even attends Tatyana’s name day party, where he spots a cousin, and

·      Pushkin the Narrator, the omniscient one who tells us what the characters think and feel. As a time traveller, he can even watch Onegin leave his dressing room, then arrive at the ball ahead of him to describe his arrival. (1.27, 1.28)

In stanza 23 we meet the type of women who are the antithesis of Tatyana, and here Pushkin’s language reinforces his harsh attitude with a string of negative prefixes, ‘недоступных, неумолимых, неподкупных, непостижимых'—inaccessible, inexorable, incorruptible and unfathomable. The second quatrain contains lines beginning ‘Их, И, И' which gives a noticeable ‘bullet point effect,’ in today’s parlance. In contrast to Pushkin’s meta-literary rhyme jokes like ‘froze-rose’ and ‘truth-youth’ he has a highly unusual contrastive pairing here, ‘ада-отрада' rhyming ‘hell’ and ‘joy.’

Lines 6 and 7, in Nabokov’s translation, describe the women’s ‘austere demeanor frightening timid love,’ ironically, a precise description of how Onegin treated Tatyana. And line 8, they ‘had the knack of attracting it [love] again,’ prefigures Onegin at the name day party, who, with a silent tender look, revived Tanya’s heart, ‘Он сердце Тани оживул.' (5.34)

The italicised quotation from Dante’s Inferno is well known in its English translation, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ but now is cut short, maybe because the entire line is just as well known in Russian.

In the novel overall there are numerous reflections, parallel occurences, repetitions of phrases and ideas in new situations. Events can be ‘book-ended’ by related passages. In stanza 23, I am tickled by the way it is bracketed; the first word is ‘I’ and the last word is ‘you,’ ‘Я-вы.'

A Common Reader: Eugene Onegin discussion: Chapters 5 – 8

A Common Reader: Eugene Onegin discussion: Chapters 5 – 8

A Common Reader: Eugene Onegin discussion: Chapters 1 – 4

A Common Reader: Eugene Onegin discussion: Chapters 1 – 4

Some thoughts on Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin Stanza 

                                                                      

On Sunday I spent the afternoon at Bard on the Beach, listening to Shakespeare’s blank verse in iambic pentameter; that evening I listened to two versions of  Eugene Onegin(EO) with Pushkin’s complex rhymes in iambic tetrameter.

The Comedy of Errors sounded like a very fast conversation with occasional bouts of rapid wordplay, with a couplet to end a speech, a scene, or to make a joke—like a cymbal crash after a comedian’s joke. I did not detect any strong sense of meter in the blank verse; it sounded much like prose.

Shakespeare’s conversational blank verse contrasted strongly with my rendition of a poem I used to read to my kids at bedtime, The Cremation of Sam McGee.  The rhyme scheme is AABB CCDD for about twenty stanzas, and each line has an internal rhyme;

“On a Christmas day we were mushing our way over the Dawson Trail.

Talk of you cold, through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail!”

This rhyme scheme moved the tale along at a rhythmic entertaining pace, and when I first read EO that was the model or pattern I fitted to it.

The rhythm and rhymes of EO kept the story light for me until, finally, Tatyana’s letter broke the spell and I felt a sense of drama and passion.

The Stephen Fry reading of Falen’s translation is in my Sam McGee vein. It is theatrical entertainment. His melodious voice, with its rich RP British accent, is delivered with rather wide intonation, an attention-getting trick, something like a mother talking to her baby, or a little girl to her kitten. Fry maintains the rhythm and stresses the rhymes. These rhymes were like sweets at the end of each line—a bit rich and distracting from the continuity. Even Pushkin pokes fun at this in 4.42;

“(If you’re expecting ‘a rose’ to rhyme with ‘froze,

there!—take it reader, quick!)”       (морозы – розы)

The other reading, in Russian, is by Innokenty Smoktunovsky. He makes the poem sound like blank verse. His reading is relaxed and conversational—a tête-à-tête voice, rather than Fry’s hold-an-audience voice. It is more engaging to listen to Smoktunovsky’s confidential, sometimes even wistful, tone. There are many pauses and the rhymes are unstressed. Nor is there any noticeable rhythm. It is a soothing, intimate voice, speaking directly to me.

This is the voice, pace and style that now plays in my own head as I read in silence.

On a flight from Astana to Kiev these toes visited me from the seat behind.

And this is what the rest of the leg was supporting.