RUSS 385 - Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”

The essential task of this course is to give students firsthand knowledge of the book which is considered the supreme and untranslatable masterpiece of Russian literature: Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse Evgenii Onegin. To meet this goal, we will undertake a close analytical reading of Pushkin’s novel in the original Russian over the course of the entire semester. Our second goal is to explore the artistic structure of Eugene Onegin, its literary, cultural, and historical contexts, the literary tradition generated by the book, and the attempts to render it in the nonliterary media, such as musical theater. The structure of our classes will reflect the double task of the course: each class will include a) the translation and analysis of a portion of Pushkin’s text, and b) the discussion of a literary and/or scholarly text(s) that elucidate the meaning of “Onegin” in the context of European and Russian Romanticism. We will read Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” Constant’s “Adolphe,” excerpts from Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” and “Don Juan,” and Vikram Seth’s “The Golden Gate.” We will also read and consult the Pushkin scholarship: Serena Vitale’s Pushkin’s Button, and the commentaries on Eugene Onegin written by Vladimir Nabokov and Yuri Lotman. Apart from Eugene Onegin, several Russian Romantic poems, and Lotman’s commentary, all our texts will be in English. The languages of our discussions will be English and Russian. This course meets the poetry requirement for the Russian major.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): RUSS 220
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2024-25
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).