RUSS 385 Evgenii Onegin
Instructor: Evgenii Bershtein
Friday 2:10 PM -5PM VOL 234
Office hours: T, TH 2-3 PM, and by appoinment. VOL 128
Phone: 503-771-1112 ext. 7953
Full course for one semester. Conference. The first task of this course is to give the students the firsthand knowledge of the book that is deemed the supreme and untranslatable masterpiece of Russian literature: Pushkins’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. The second goal of the course is to explore the artistic structure of Onegin, its literary, cultural and historicalcontexts, the tradition generated by the book, and the attempts to render it via non-literary media (opera and film). The structure of our classes will reflect the double task of the course: the first half of each class will be devoted to the discussion of Pushkin’s text; the second half will focus on literary and scholarly texts that elucidate the meaning of Onegin and the relevant literary traditions. The language of discussions will be Russian and English. Prerequisite: RUSS 220 or the consent of the instructor. Workload: extensive reading, much of it in Russian; a midterm and a choice betweena final paper(12 pages) or take-home exam at the end of the semester. Your evaluation will be based on your contribution to the conference, exam(s) and/or paper.
Books to buy:
Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (in Russian) (Bristol Classical Press, ISBN 1-85399-396-4)
Sona Hoisington, ed. Russian Views of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. (Indiana University Press; ISBN: 0253350670)
Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679729518)
Benjamin Constan, Adolphe (Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0192839276)
Byron, Poetry. (W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 039309152X)
Serena Vitale, Pushkin’s Button (University of Chicago Press (Trd); ISBN: 0226857719)
Turgenev, Rudin (Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0192833332)
Vikram Seth,TheGolden Gate (Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679734570)
Syllabus
Friday, January 31
Intorduction
Friday, February 7
Reading: 1) Evgenii Onegin, Chapter One.
2) Nabokov, I, 9-73, Lotman “The Structure of Evgenii Onegin” (Hoisington, 91-114), Bakhtin, “Discourse in Evgenii Onegin” (Hoisington, 115-121)
Friday, February 14
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter One.
2) Benjamin Constant, Adolphe.
Friday, February 21
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Two.
2)Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto the First (25-50).
Friday, February 28
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Two.
2)Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Friday, March 7
1) Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Three
2) Olga Hasty, “Tatyana’s Letter” (in her book Pushkin’s Tatyana, reserve)
Friday, March 14
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Four.
2)MIDTERM on Chapters One to Four.
SPRING BREAK
Friday, March 21
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Five.
2) Tynianov, “On the Composition of Evgenii Onegin” (Hoisington, 71-90);
Bocharov, “The Stylistic World of the Novel” (Hoisington, 122-168)
Friday, March 28
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Six
2) Nabokov, III, 43-51; Irina Reyfman, “A Brief History of Dueling in Russia” (in her Ritualized Violence Russian Style, 45-96, reserve)
Friday, April 4
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Six.
2)Serena Vitale, Pushkin’s Button, chapters 1-8.
Friday, April 11
1)Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Seven.
2)Serena Vitale, Pushkin’s Button, chapters 8-16.
Friday, April 18
1) Evgenii Onegin, Chapter Eight.
2) Belinsky, “Eugene Onegin: An Encyclopedia of Russian Life,” Pisarev, “Pushkin and Belinsky,” Dostoevsky, “Pushkin.” (Hoisington, 17-71)
Friday, April 25
1)Discussion of Tchaikovsky’s opera.
2)Turgenev, Rudin; Lotman, “The Transformation of the Tradition Generated by Onegin in the Subsequent History of the Russian Novel” (Hoisington, 167-177)
Friday, May 4 1) Discussion of Ralph Fiennes’ film Onegin.
3)Vikram Seth, The Golden Gate.
The final papers and take-home finals are due in Prof. Bershtein’s office on Monday, May 12 at noon.