Eugene Onegin Summary | Chapterly
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin: A Complete Summary "I've lived to bury my desires, and see my dreams corrode with rust." Overview Eugene Onegin (1825-1832, published complete in 1833) is Alexander Pushkin's masterpiece and the foundational text of Russian literature. Written as a novel in verse, in 389 stanzas of iambic tetrameter, it tells the seemingly simple story of a jaded young aristocrat who rejects the love of an innocent country girl, only to fall for her years later when she has become an elegant society woman who rejects him in turn. But Onegin is far more than a love story. It is an encyclopedia of Russian life in the 1820s, a meditation on boredom and wasted potential, a reflection on the relationship between literature and life, and a technical masterpiece in which Pushkin's voice, witty and melancholy by turns, is as much the subject as any character. Tchaikovsky's opera adaptation has made the story world-famous, but the novel in verse is richer, funnier, and more complex than any adaptation can convey. Pushkin's narrator comments on his own story, digresses into reflections on literature and society, and addresses the reader directly, creating a work that feels startlingly modern. Plot Summary...