"Love is submissive to all ages" ... The author of these lines is known to all. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin needs no introduction. The novel "Eugene Onegin" is a work with a unique creative destiny.
The story of the creation of the work "Eugene Onegin"
It was created from May 1823 to September 1830, that is, more than seven years. However, the author did not stop working on this text until the last edition appeared in 1833. In 1837, the last author's version of the work was released. Alexander Sergeyevich no longer has other creations that would have such a long history of creation. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” was by no means written by the author “in one breath”, but took shape at different times in his life. Four periods of the work of Alexander Sergeyevich are covered by this work - from the southern exile to the time known as Boldinskaya Autumn (1830).
All chapters from 1825 to 1832 were published as independent parts and became major events in literary life even before the end of the novel itself. If we take into account the discontinuity and fragmentation of Pushkin’s work, it can be argued that this work was for him something like a notebook, an album. Alexander Sergeevich himself sometimes calls it “notebooks” of the head of his novel. Records were replenished for more than seven years with "observations of the cold mind" and "notes of the heart."
The role of the retreat "Love of all ages is obedient" by Pushkin in the work
In chapter eight, Pushkin describes the new stage that Onegin went through in his spiritual development. Having met Tatyana in Petersburg, he changed a lot. There was nothing left of him from the former rational and cold man. This ardent lover did not notice anything except the subject of love, which very reminds Lensky. For the first time in his life, Onegin experienced a real feeling that turned into a love drama. Now Tatyana can not answer the protagonist to belated love. "Love of all ages is submissive," the author's retreat from the eighth chapter is a peculiar explanation of Pushkin's psychological state of Onegin, his love drama, which is inevitable.
The inner world of the hero in the eighth chapter
In the foreground in the characterization of the character, as before, is the relationship between feeling and reason. Now the mind was defeated. Eugene fell in love without listening to his voice. The author notes, not without irony, that Onegin almost lost his mind or became a poet. In the eighth chapter we do not find the results of the spiritual development of this character, who finally believed in happiness and love. Onegin did not reach the desired goal; as before, there is a lack of harmony between reason and feeling. The author of the work leaves his character incomplete, open, emphasizing that Onegin is capable of a sharp change in his value orientations, that he is ready for action, for action.
Onegin from nihilism comes to love
It is interesting how the author reflects on friendship and love in the retreat "Love is submissive to all ages." These poems are devoted to the relationship between friends and lovers. These two types of relationships between people are the donkeys on which a person is tested. They reveal his inner wealth or, on the contrary, emptiness.
The test of friendship, the protagonist, as you know, could not stand it. The cause of the tragedy in this case was his inability to feel. It is not for nothing that the author, commenting on Onegin’s state of mind before the duel, remarks that he could detect a feeling instead of “bristling like a beast”. In this episode, Onegin showed himself deaf to the voice of the heart of his friend Lensky, as well as his own.
Eugene closed himself from the false values ​​of light, despising their false brilliance, but neither in the village, nor in St. Petersburg did he discover genuine human values ​​for himself. Alexander Sergeyevich showed how complex a person’s movement is towards understandable and simple, it would seem, obvious truths in life. The author shows what tests a person needs to go through in order to understand with heart and mind the significance and grandeur of friendship and love. From prejudices and class limitations, inspired by idle life and education, through denying not only false, but also true life values, rational nihilism Onegin comes to the discovery of a high world of feelings, love.
Incorrect interpretation of the Onegin line
The amazing story is not only the life of Alexander Sergeyevich, his work, a single work, such as, for example, Pushkin’s novel "Eugene Onegin". Even one line of the poem of this great poet sometimes lives his own life. "Love of all ages is submissive," the author’s retreat of Alexander Sergeyevich is quoted very often today. Often seeking in a work not Pushkin’s depth of thought, but justification of his cowardice, the human consciousness grabs this line from the context and gives it as an argument. We begin to assert and convince others that if the poet allowed, then you can fall in love.
Adulthood
This thought has become so familiar today that there is even an explanation in encyclopedic publications that this phrase is used to explain (justify) the manifestations of feelings between people of a middle age. However, the first line of the stanza “Love of all ages is submissive” (subsequent verses confirm this) is not really permission to get carried away at any age. Quite the contrary - this is a copyright warning. The next verse does not accidentally begin with the union “but”: “But for young, virgin hearts ...”, Pushkin writes, her outbursts are beneficial, but at the turn of years they can be very sad.
Love, indeed, can be overtaken in a person’s mature age, but the consequences for many people who become close will be catastrophic. Of course, this does not mean that the wise Alexander Sergeyevich forbade mature people to fall in love. However, the Pushkin ideal, Tatyana, did not allow herself that feeling after marriage.
Why is the line of interest to us often misinterpreted?
Researchers explain why the phrase "Love of all ages is submissive," written by Pushkin, is often misinterpreted, and also why it has gained such popularity. The fame of the widespread opera entitled "Eugene Onegin" brought her fame. Konstantin Shilovsky was the author of the libretto for her. He changed the text in which after the first line the third immediately follows: "Her impulses are beneficial." That is, Shilovsky redid this passage from Eugene Onegin. He changed the meaning in such a way that love became useful both to the young man who barely saw the light, and to the "fighter with a gray head." Thanks to this, the line of interest to us today is often misinterpreted.
History of the name Gremin
This is not the only case when the adaptation of a work changes its content. Opera and production often bring something of their own into an artistic text. For example, the names of the heroes change, new ones appear.
The novel "Eugene Onegin" does not mention the name of her husband Tatyana Larina. All that was said by Pushkin was that he was a general of 1812. However, in the opera of Tchaikovsky with the same name, he has the name Gremin. "Eugene Onegin" is therefore better studied, based on the original author. This is the only way to avoid incorrect interpretations and factual errors.