language, gender and the dream in «evgenii onegin» - the pushkin review

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Language, Gender and the Dream in «Evgenii Onegin»Language, Gender and the Dream in «Evgenii Onegin»

Luc Beaudoin

Tat´iana’s dream in Evgenii Onegin is an enigma. Occupying a central place in Pushkin’s novel in verse, it shares the role of novelistic

artifact with the protagonists’ letters and its folk song. Dreams, in particular, hold sway as indicators of special insights, as they have

for millenia, and literary dreams in particular make tempting targets for interpretation. [1] In Slavistics, Formalist and structuralist

analyses of the dream include V. M. Markovich’s “Son Tat´iany v poeticheskoi strukture ‘Evgeniia Onegina,’” and both Iurii Lotman’s

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[21] Gregg, “Tat´jana’s Two Dreams,” 500. This male sexuality can also be based on simple revulsion: the grotesque animals can be

seen as representing the suitors every girl’s parents would have paraded through the house, with the girl on display like in a zoo.

[22] Gachev also specifically equates “Onegin” with on, (he). See Georgii Gachev, Russkii eros: “Roman,” Mysli s zhizníu (Moscow:

Interprint, 1994), 15.

[23] A common symbol of the vagina, which in turn implicitly refers to the phallus and the beginning of her signification. See Cirlot,

Dictionary of Symbols, 85, 149.

[24] It should be noted that Pushkin was aware of the tendency to use the neuter form with brides-to-be in Russian folk songs. See

Rancour-Laferriere, “Puškin’s Still Unravished Bride,” 222.

[25]Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 15, Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (London: Imago

Publishing, 1940), 86.

[26] For an insightful discussion of Lacan’s reworking of Freud’s statement, see Jane Gallop, Reading Lacan, 95–96.

[27] Gregg, “Tat´jana’s Two Dreams,” 499.

[28] The motivation of Lenskii’s murder likewise can be interpreted in a Freudian fashion: Tatíana justifies Onegin’s lack of interest in

her by deciding that he must be homosexual, and therefore has him stab Lenskij with a knife, thereby completing homosexual phallic

penetration. See Rancour-Laferriere, “Puškin’s Still Unravished Bride,” 244.

[29] Emerson has a fascinating take on this entire section of the novel: Onegin is in fact dreaming. Tatíana’s reaction, then, would bewholly in Onegin’s dream. If this is in fact a dream, the analysis of Tatíana’s actions would not be different. Just as Tatíana’s dream,

by virtue of the intrusion by the metatextual narrator, is a vehicle with which to understand both her and Onegin, so his dream would

do the same. See Caryl Emerson, “Tatiana,” 6–20.

[30] V. G. Belinskii, Vzgliad na russkuiu literaturu (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1988), 475.

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Header photo by Michael Julius (2004).

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language, gender and the dream in «evgenii onegin» - the pushkin review

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