So, at the beginning of the essay, we formulated one of the problems that the author of the text was thinking about. Then, in a commentary, we showed exactly how this problem is revealed in the source text. The next step is to identify the position of the author.
Remember that if the problem of the text is a question, then the position of the author is the answer to the question posed in the text, what the author sees as a solution to the problem.
If this does not happen, the logic of the presentation of thoughts in the essay is violated.
The author's position is manifested, first of all, in the attitude of the author to the depicted phenomena, events, heroes and their actions. Therefore, when reading the text, pay attention to the language means in which the author's attitude to the subject of the image is expressed (see the table on the next page).
When identifying the author's position, it is important to take into account that the text can use such a technique as irony - the use of a word or expression in a context that gives the word (expression) the exact opposite meaning. As a rule, irony is a condemnation under the guise of praise: My God, what wonderful positions and services there are! How they uplift and delight the soul! But, alas! I do not serve and am deprived of the pleasure of seeing the subtle treatment of my superiors(N. Gogol). A literal reading of ironic statements leads to a distorted understanding of the content of the text and the author's intention.
In addition, proving their point of view, many authors start from various statements of their real or potential opponents, that is, they cite statements with which they do not agree: “Take care of honor from an early age,” Pushkin bequeathed in his “Captain’s Daughter”. "What for?" - asks another modern "ideologist" of our market life. Why save a product for which there is a demand: if I am well paid for this very “honor”, then I will sell it (S. Kudryashov). Unfortunately, students often attribute such statements to the author himself, which leads to a misunderstanding of the author's position.
For example, in the text below by V. Belov, the author's position is not expressed verbally and can only be identified by carefully reading the fragment and a comparative analysis of all its parts.
Everything has already been learned two weeks after returning to his native village, everything has been bypassed, discussed with almost everyone. And only I try not to look at my own home and bypass it. I think: why reopen the past? Why remember what is forgotten even by my countrymen? Everything is gone forever - good and bad, - you don’t feel sorry for the bad, but you can’t return the good. I will erase this past from my heart, never return to it again.
You have to be modern.
We must be ruthless to the past.
Enough to walk through the ashes of Timonikha, sit on the stoves. We must remember that day and night on earth - as Hikmet said - reactors and phasotrons work. That one calculating machine operates faster than a million collective farm accountants, that ...
In general, you don’t need to look at your home, you don’t need to go there, you don’t need anything.
But one day I crumple my writing in my fist and throw it in a corner. I run up the stairs. In the alley, I look around.
Our house protruded from the settlement down to the river. As in a dream I approach our birch. Hello. Didn't recognize me? Has become tall. The bark has broken in many places. Ants run along the trunk. The lower branches are cut off so as not to obscure the windows of the winter hut. The top has become higher than the pipe. Please don't wear your jacket. When I was looking for you with my brother Yurka, you were frail, thin. I remember it was spring and your leaves were already hatching. They could be counted, you were so small then. My brother and I found you in the dirt on the Vakhrunin mountain. I remember the cuckoo cuckooed. We cut off two big roots from you. They carried it through the lava, and my brother said that you would wither, you would not take root under the winter window. Planted, poured two buckets of water. True, you barely survived, for two summers the leaves were small, pale. Brother was no longer at home when you got stronger and gained strength. And where did you get this power under the winter window? Gotta get it out like that! Already above the father's house.
You have to be modern. And I push off the birch like a poisonous tree. (According to V. Belov)
At first glance, the author calls for abandoning the past in favor of the present: “You have to be modern. You have to be ruthless to the past." However, the true attitude of the author to the past is manifested in his touching memories of the birch, which in fact represent a living dialogue with the tree. We see that behind the outward indifference (“You have to be modern. And I push off the birch like a poisonous tree”), there is a love for childhood, for the past, which cannot be erased from human life.
For a correct understanding of the text, it is also important to distinguish between the concepts of author and narrator (narrator). The author of a work of art can tell his story on his own behalf or on behalf of one of the characters. But the first person in whose name the work is written is still the narrator, even if the writer uses the pronoun "I": after all, when the author creates a work of art, he describes life, introducing his fiction, his assessments, his likes, likes and dislikes. . In any case, one should not put an equal sign between the author and the hero-narrator.
Such a discrepancy can be found, for example, in the following text.
I still remember that jar of ink. In the morning, she stood on the table near her father's drawings, and by noon, a huge black ink appeared on a piece of drawing paper from nowhere, through which the results of a painstaking week's work vaguely looked through ...
Sergey, tell me honestly: did you spill your mascara? the father asked sternly.
No. It's not me.
Who then?
I don't know... Probably a cat.
The cat Mashka, my mother's favorite, was sitting on the edge of the sofa and somehow frightened looked at us with her yellow eyes.
Well, she must be punished. From that moment on, the entrance to the house was ordered to her. Will live in a closet. However, maybe it's not her fault? My father looked at me searchingly.
Honestly! I have nothing to do with it! I answered, looking him straight in the eyes.
A couple of days later, Masha disappeared without a trace, apparently unable to endure the unjust expulsion from the house. Mom was upset. The father never mentioned the incident again. I forgot, probably. And I still washed my soccer ball from treacherous black spots ...
Then I was naively convinced that relationships between people are most important, the main thing is not to upset your parents. As for the cat... She's just an animal, she can't speak or think. And yet, until now, in any cat's eyes, I see a dumb reproach ... (G. Andreev)
The position of the author is not stated directly. However, in the reflections of the hero about his act, we hear the voice of a sick conscience. It is no coincidence that the punishment of the cat is called unfair, and in the cat's eyes Sergey reads a "mute reproach". Of course, the author condemns the hero, convincing us that it is dishonorable and low to shift the blame on another, especially on a defenseless creature who cannot answer and stand up for himself.
Typical designs
The author believes that...
The author leads the reader to the conclusion that ...
Arguing over the problem, the author comes to the following conclusion...
The position of the author is...
The position of the author, it seems to me, can be formulated as follows...
The author calls us (to what)
The author assures us that...
The author condemns (who / what, for what)
The attitude of the author to the problem posed is ambiguous.
The author's main goal is to...
Although the position of the author is not expressed explicitly, the logic of the text convinces us that...
Typical mistakes in formulating the position of the author
Adviсe
1)
Usually the position of the author is contained in the final part of the text, where the author sums up what has been said, reflects on the above events, the actions of the characters, etc.
2)
Pay attention to the evaluative vocabulary of the text, lexical repetitions, introductory words, exclamatory and incentive sentences - all these are means of expressing the author's position.
3)
Be sure to highlight the wording of the author's position in a separate paragraph of your essay.
4)
Try to formulate the author's position in your own words, avoiding complex metaphors.
5)
When quoting, choose sentences in which the author's thought is expressed clearly and clearly, if possible. (Remember that not every text contains quotations that accurately express the opinion of the author!)
What does an expert check?
The expert checks the ability to adequately perceive and correctly formulate the position of the author: positive, negative, neutral, ambiguous, etc. attitude to what is told, the proposed response of the author to the questions posed by him in the text.
1 point is assigned by an expert if you correctly formulated the position of the author of the source text on the commented problem and did not make any factual errors related to understanding the position of the author of the source text.
Practice
The task of the textologist is not only to establish the exact text of the author's work, but also to comment on it. The first scientific commentary edition was Pushkin's edition edited by Annenkov (1857).
A comment- this is an interpretation of the text of the work as a whole from one side or another.
Types of comments:
1) Textological - a set of information characterizing the state of the literary heritage of the writer, and highlighting the direction and nature of the work of the editor-textologist in preparing the text of each work included in the publication. Accordingly, the textual commentary should contain the following sections:
2) Historical literary commentary. It aims to put this work in connection with the era, the history of the country's life, to explain to the reader its ideological content and the artistic skill of the writer, to tell how the work was received by readers and critics of that time. This type of commentary should help the reader more correctly and better assimilate, understand, comprehend the work of the writer, his artistic skill, his ideological positions.
3) Dictionary comment. Its goal is to explain to the reader those words and turns of speech that differ from the usual word usage in the modern literary language and therefore can be. not understood by the reader or misunderstood. Such words and phrases include archaisms, professionalisms, dialectisms, neologisms, words with a changed meaning, etc.
4) Real comments. In fact, this is a system of references to the author's text, which should pursue three main goals:
Disclosure of names, hints, allegories.
Communication to the reader of the factual information necessary for understanding the text.
Textual commentary. Its structure and characteristics
Textological - a set of information characterizing the state of the literary heritage of the writer, and highlighting the direction and nature of the work of the editor-textologist in preparing the text of each work included in the publication. Accordingly, the textual commentary should contain the following sections:
List of all text sources.
Justification of the attribution of works.
Substantiation of the dating of works.
Brief review of text theory.
List of corrections made to the text.
The first section of the textological commentary provides an exhaustive list of all sources of the text, arranged in chronological order, and handwritten and printed sources should be grouped separately.
The second section is found only in cases where the published work is not signed by the name of the author, and if its belonging to this author has been proven long ago, the textologist is limited to a brief reference, indicates by whom, when and where the attribution was made, what additions were later in it, new arguments and arguments. But if the work is published for the first time as belonging to the author in this particular edition, then the editor in the commentary is obliged to give a full statement of the attribution arguments.
The third is given in all cases. Here the editor should not be limited to referring to predecessors, so the commentary on each work should contain information about the date. Sometimes it might. simple reference.
In other cases, the editor should give an extended reasoning for the date, especially in cases where he has set a date for a given edition or changed an earlier one. In cases where there is an author's date that the editor rejects, he should give the necessary extended argumentation.
The fourth gives a coherent account of the history of the text from conception to the last authorized edition. It is always a research work of a textologist who logically reveals all stages of the author's work and gives a detailed description of the sources that were listed in the first section, necessarily with their description, features of the form and content of the text, with an analysis of the change in the author's intention. It is in this section that the editor must prove the correct choice of the source of the main text.
The fifth should give the necessary list of corrections made by the editor to the main text. Since the main text can almost never simply be retyped, because various kinds of distortions are found in it, which the editor has the right and must correct. It is this work of the editor on the main text that this section of the commentary should reflect.
A comment is an explanatory note, reasoning about the problem of the text you have highlighted.
Your comment should link the problem you formulated earlier with the author's position, which you will talk about later: show the author's train of thought, how exactly he reveals the formulated problem, leading readers to a certain conclusion. The author of the text conveys his thoughts to you, encrypts them verbally, and your task is to understand them, decipher them. The comment shows how deeply and fully you understood the problem, managed to see its aspects outlined by the author.
There are two types of comments.
Attention
In any case, the comment should be based on the read text!
Types of information in text
Commenting involves the ability to work with various types of text information. The information contained in the text is not the same in terms of significance and way of expression. There are usually three types text information: factual, conceptual and subtextual.
Factual information is a message about facts, events, processes that have taken place, are taking place or will take place in reality.
Conceptual information is a subjective author's understanding of the relationship between facts, events, their author's assessment, understanding of cause-and-effect relationships between events. This type of information reveals the writer's intention, draws a picture of the world as he imagines it. Conceptual information is not always clear and well expressed in words. It is often withdrawn from interaction different types factual information. Moreover, conceptual information, especially in works of art, suggests different interpretations, since it is not verbally specified.
Subtext (hidden) information is not indicated by words, but only implied. This information arises due to the ability of words, phrases, sentences in separate small segments of the text to contain a hidden meaning.
In the commentary, we are primarily interested in conceptual information, because if we mention some facts from the text, it is only to connect them with the author's vision of the problem. If we reproduce only the facts from the text, the comment turns into a paraphrase.
Identification of subtext information - the author's deep meaning of the statement - requires a breadth of knowledge, the ability to find associative links, draw analogies with other texts.
Typical constructions (cliches) for commenting on the problem
Introduction of quotations into the text of the essay
In the commentary, as in no other part of the essay, quotations, various references to the text are appropriate. Remember that quotations should be organically woven into the text of the essay, and not just increase its volume. Quoting for the sake of increasing the volume of work immediately catches the eye, because it violates the logic of the unfolding of thought.
However, it is important not only to find good quote, but also to arrange it correctly. Unfortunately, the inability to enter source text information into an essay leads to many errors. Consider typical ways inclusion of information from the text in the essay.
Direct speech- this is an accurate, verbatim transmission of someone else's speech on behalf of the one who said it or wrote it. When using direct speech, pay attention to punctuation marks. When quoting a poetic passage “in a column”, quotation marks are usually not put, the text of the quotation begins on a new line.
For example:
I especially remember the lines from the poem by S. A. Yesenin: Goy you, Rus', my dear, Huts - in the robes of the image ... Do not see the end and edge - Only the blue sucks the eyes.
When quoting “inline”, quotation marks are placed, and the text of the quotation is placed on the same line: At the end of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem, the image of the mountain ash becomes a symbol of the homeland, a reminder that the homeland is an integral part of each of us, and behind the dots lies a whole storm of unexpressed feelings: “But if along the way the bush rises, especially the rowan ...".
Indirect speech is a complex sentence with a subordinate explanatory clause. It is convenient in that it does not require an exact, verbatim transmission of the source text - it is enough to keep the general content. When replacing direct speech with indirect speech, it is necessary to replace pronouns and verbs in the form of the 1st or 2nd person with forms of the third person.
When using introductory constructions (according to the author, according to Soloukhin, etc.), the quotation begins with a small letter, and quotation marks are used if there are no 1st person forms in the statement. For example: According to S. Soloveichik, "success in one work does not pass without a trace for another." In any case, do not get carried away with quoting! Remember that each quote should be appropriate, that is, serve as an illustration of some of your thoughts.
Common Mistakes in Problem Statement
Consider fragments from student essays written according to the text of Y. Lotman, with errors when commenting on the problem.
I am an old man. Survived as a soldier in a great war, went on foot both Russia and Europe. Among my close friends were and are Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Estonians, Germans, and many others. And now, on the verge of death, I am compelled to observe that clinical madness of hatred that embraces entire spaces of our earth. I pity those of them who are blinded by hatred. Do they really not see that they are being played with and that those who are now kindling a bloody fog from behind the scenes will direct a blow against them tomorrow? What they do with their hands will very soon be done with them by someone else. And those behind the scenes will act as peacekeepers when they think both sides have shed enough blood.
The era of petty conflicts and private clashes is over. The world is one, and what happens at one end inevitably resonates at the other. Nobody can hide. The bell tolls for each of us. (According to Yu. Lotman)
What does an expert check?
1)
how fully the problem is commented (whether everything that is important for understanding this problem is highlighted);
2)
how correctly the problems of the source text are commented (are there any distortions of the information of the text, inaccuracies, contradictions);
3)
whether there are factual errors related to understanding the source text.
The highest score (2 points) is given if the problem of the source text is commented correctly, without distortion. There are no actual errors related to understanding the source code problem.
Typical designs
Typical mistakes in formulating the position of the author
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Error type |
Essay example |
Expert comment |
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1. There is no wording of the author's position in the essay. |
The text raises the problem of patriotism. I agree with the position of the author and I can cite the following as proof. |
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Thus, the position of the author is expressed in the fact that he describes with pleasure the beauty of a summer meadow. The author of the text tells about the love of man and nature. And I completely agree with him. |
The "vague" phrases of the essay can hardly claim to complete coverage of the author's position. It should be remembered that the formulation of the author's position should be clearly related to the stated problem. |
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At the beginning of the essay, the student states the problem of the role of the individual in history, while the author's position is connected with another problem - the problem of an objective assessment of historical events and persons. The essay clearly violated the logic of the presentation of thought. |
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4. The position of the author is replaced by the opinion of the hero-narrator. |
The author convinces us that the most important thing is to maintain good relations between people. But as a result, an innocent animal suffers! I cannot agree with the author. (From an essay based on the above text by G. Andreev.) |
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5. The position of the author is replaced by quoting a fragment of the text. |
An unsuccessful quote is given that does not reflect the opinion of the author, in addition, a mixture of direct and indirect speech is allowed in the essay. |
The unusual nature of the hero is explained by the author from a social standpoint. Lensky's soul did not fade from the "cold debauchery of the world", he was brought up not only in "Germany foggy", but also in the Russian village. There is more Russian in the "half-Russian" dreamer Lensky than in the crowd of surrounding landowners. The author sadly writes about his death, twice (in the sixth and seventh chapters) leads the reader to his grave. The author is saddened not only by the death of Lensky, but also by the possible impoverishment of youthful romanticism, the hero's growing into the inert landlord environment. With this version of Lensky's fate, the fates of the lover of sentimental novels Praskovya Larina and the "village old-timer" Uncle Onegin ironically "rhyme".
Tatyana Larina - "cute Ideal" of the Author. He does not hide his sympathy for the heroine, emphasizing her sincerity, depth of feelings and experiences, innocence and devotion to love. Her personality manifests itself in the sphere of love and family relationships. Like Onegin, she can be called a "genius of love." Tatyana is a participant in the main plot action of the novel, in which her role is comparable to the role of Onegin.
The character of Tatiana, like the character of Onegin, is dynamic, developing. Usually, attention is paid to a sharp change in her social status and appearance in the last chapter: instead of a village young lady, direct and open, Onegin was confronted by a majestic and cold society lady, a princess, “the legislator of the hall.” Her inner world is closed to the reader: Tatyana does not utter a word until her final monologue. The author also keeps a “secret” about her soul, limiting herself to the “visual” characteristics of the heroine (“How harsh! / She doesn’t see him, not a word with him; / Oh! how she is now surrounded / by Epiphany cold!”). However, the eighth chapter shows the third, final stage of the heroine's spiritual development. Its character changes significantly already in the "village" chapters. These changes are connected with her attitude to love, to Onegin, with ideas about duty.
In the second - fifth chapters, Tatyana appears as an internally contradictory person. Genuine feelings and sensitivity, inspired by sentimental novels, coexist in it. The author, characterizing the heroine, points first of all to the circle of her reading. Novels, the author emphasizes, "replaced everything" for her. Indeed, dreamy, alienated from her friends, so unlike Olga, Tatyana perceives everything around her as a novel that has not yet been written, she imagines herself as the heroine of her favorite books. The abstractness of Tatyana's dreams is shaded by a literary and everyday parallel - the biography of her mother, who also in her youth was "mad about Richardson", loved "Grandison", but, having married "by captivity", "was torn and cried at first", and then turned into ordinary landowner. Tatyana, who was expecting "someone" similar to the heroes of novels, saw in Onegin just such a hero. “But our hero, whoever he was, / Surely it was not Grandison,” the Author ironically. The behavior of Tatyana in love is based on the novel models known to her. Her letter, written in French, is an echo of the love letters of the heroines of the novels. The author translates Tatyana's letter, but his role as a "translator" is not limited to this: he is constantly forced, as it were, to release the true feelings of the heroine from the captivity of book templates.
Follow these "translations". Why does the author constantly correlate Tatyana with Svetlana, the heroine of the ballad by V.A. Zhukovsky? What motifs of the ballad are constantly used in the image of Tatyana? What is the importance of the author's remark that "Tatiana believed in the legends / of common antiquity, / And dreams, and fortune-telling by cards, / And predictions of the moon"?
A revolution in Tatyana's fate takes place in the seventh chapter. External changes in her life are only a consequence of the complex process that went on in her soul after Onegin's departure. She was finally convinced of her "optical" deception. Restoring Onegin's appearance according to the "traces" left in his estate, she realized that her lover was an utterly mysterious, strange person, but not at all the one she took him for. The main result of Tatyana's "research" was love not for a literary chimera, but for a genuine Onegin. She completely freed herself from bookish ideas about life. Caught in new circumstances, not hoping for new meeting and the reciprocity of her lover, Tatyana makes a decisive moral choice: she agrees to go to Moscow and get married. Note that this is a free choice of the heroine, for whom "all lots are equal." She loves Onegin, but voluntarily submits to her duty to her family. Thus, Tatyana's words in the last monologue - “But I am given to another; / I will be faithful to him for a century ”- news for Onegin, but not for the reader: the heroine only confirmed the choice made earlier.
One should not oversimplify the question of the influence on Tatyana's character of the new circumstances of her life. In the last episode of the novel, the contrast between secular and "domestic" Tatyana becomes obvious: "Who would have known the former Tanya, poor Tanya / Now I would not recognize the princess!" However, the heroine's monologue testifies not only that she retained her former spiritual qualities, fidelity to love for Onegin and her conjugal duty. Onegin's Lesson is full of unfair remarks and absurd assumptions. Tatyana does not understand the feelings of the hero, seeing in his love only secular intrigue, a desire to drop her honor in the eyes of society, accusing him of self-interest. Onegin's love is "littleness" for her, "a petty feeling," and in him she sees only the slave of this feeling. Again, as once in the village, Tatyana sees and "does not recognize" the real Onegin. Her false idea of him was born of the world, that “oppressive dignity”, the methods of which, as the Author noted, she “soon adopted”. Tatyana's monologue reflects her inner drama. The meaning of this drama is not in the choice between love for Onegin and fidelity to her husband, but in the “corrosion” of feelings that occurred in the heroine under the influence of secular society. Tatyana lives with memories and is not able to at least believe in the sincerity of a person who loves her. The disease, from which Onegin was so painfully freed, also struck Tatyana. “Empty Light”, as if reminded by the wise Author, is hostile to any manifestation of a living, human feeling.
The main characters of "Eugene Onegin" are free from predeterminedness, one-linearity. Pushkin refuses to see in them the embodiment of vices or "exemplary perfection". The novel consistently implements new principles for depicting characters. The author makes it clear that he does not have ready-made answers to all questions about their destinies, characters, psychology. Rejecting the role of the “omniscient” narrator, traditional for the novel, he “hesitates”, “doubts”, and is sometimes inconsistent in his judgments and assessments. The author, as it were, invites the reader to complete the portraits of the characters, imagine their behavior, try to look at them from a different, unexpected point of view. For this purpose, numerous "pauses" (missing lines and stanzas) are also introduced into the novel. The reader must "recognize" the characters, correlate them with own life, with their thoughts, feelings, habits, superstitions, read books and magazines.
How does the author introduce the reader to Onegin, Lensky, Tatyana? Give examples of his conflicting, inconsistent opinions about heroes. Find the missing lines, stanzas, see in what context they appear, try to explain their meaning. What books and magazines are mentioned in the novel? What literary heroes the author calls, speaking of Onegin and Tatyana?
The appearance of Onegin, Tatyana Larina, Lensky is made up not only of the characteristics, observations and assessments of the Author - the creator of the novel, but also of rumors, gossip, rumors. Each hero appears in the halo of public opinion, reflecting the points of view of a variety of people: friends, acquaintances, relatives, neighbors-landlords, secular gossips. Society is the source of rumors about heroes. For the Author, this is a rich set of worldly "optics", which he turns into artistic "optics". The reader is invited to choose the view of the hero that is closer to him, it seems the most reliable and convincing. The author, recreating the picture of opinions, reserves the right to place the necessary accents, gives the reader social and moral guidelines.
Notice how it reflects public opinion"in the characteristics of Onegin (chapters one, three, eight), Lensky (chapters two, four, six), Tatyana Larina (chapters two, three, five, seven and eight).
"Eugene Onegin" looks like an improvisational novel. The effect of a relaxed conversation with the reader is created primarily by the expressive possibilities of iambic tetrameter - Pushkin's favorite meter and the flexibility of the "Onegin" stanza created by Pushkin especially for the novel, which includes 14 verses of iambic tetrameter with strict rhyming AbAb CCdd EffE gg (capital letters denote female endings, lowercase - male) . The author called his lyre "talkative", emphasizing the "free" nature of the narration, the variety of intonations and styles of speech - from the "high", bookish to the colloquial style of ordinary village gossip "about haymaking, about wine, about the kennel, about one's relatives".
A novel in verse is a consistent denial of the well-known, universally recognized laws of the genre. And it's not just a daring rejection of the usual prose speech for the novel. In "Eugene Onegin" there is no coherent narrative about the characters and events that fits into the predetermined framework of the plot. In such a plot, the action develops smoothly, without breaks and digressions - from the beginning of the action to its denouement. Step by step, the Author goes to his main goal - to create images of heroes against the backdrop of a logically verified plot scheme.
In "Eugene Onegin" the narrator now and then "departs" from the story of the characters and events, indulging in "free" reflections on biographical, worldly and: literary themes. The characters and the Author are constantly changing places: either the characters or the Author are in the center of the reader's attention. Depending on the content of specific chapters, there may be more or less such “intrusions” by the Author, but the principle of “album”, outwardly unmotivated, connection of plot narration with author’s monologues is preserved in almost all chapters. The exception is the fifth chapter, in which Tatyana's dream occupies more than 10 stanzas and a new plot knot is tied - Lensky's quarrel with Onegin.
The plot narrative is also heterogeneous: it is accompanied by more or less detailed author's "remarks aside". From the very beginning of the novel, the author reveals himself, as if peeking out from behind the backs of the characters, reminding him of who is leading the story, who is creating the world of the novel.
The plot of the novel outwardly resembles a chronicle of the life of the heroes - Onegin, Lensky, Tatyana Larina. As in any chronicle plot, it lacks a central conflict. The action is built around conflicts that arise in the sphere privacy(love and friendship). But only a sketch of a coherent chronicle narrative is created. Already in the first chapter, containing Onegin's background, one day of his life is described in detail, and the events associated with his arrival in the village are simply listed. Onegin spent several months in the village, but the narrator was not interested in many details of his village life. Only individual episodes are reproduced quite fully (a trip to the Larins, an explanation with Tatiana, a name day and a duel). Onegin's almost three-year journey, which was supposed to link two periods of his life, is simply omitted.
Time in the novel does not match real time: it is either compressed, compressed, or stretched. The author often, as it were, invites the reader to simply “flip through” the pages of the novel, briefly reporting on the actions of the characters, on their daily activities. Separate episodes, on the contrary, are enlarged, stretched out in time - attention is delayed on them. They resemble dramatic "scenes" with dialogues, monologues, with clearly defined scenery (see, for example, the scene of Tatyana's conversation with the nanny in the third chapter, the explanation of Tatyana and Onegin, divided into two "phenomena" - in the third and fourth chapters).
The author emphasizes that the lifetime of his characters, plot time, is an artistic convention. The "calendar" of the novel, contrary to Pushkin's semi-serious assurance in one of the notes - "in our novel, time is calculated according to the calendar" - is special. It consists of days, which are equal to months and years, and months, and even years, which have been awarded several remarks by the Author. The illusion of a chronicle narrative is supported by "phenological notes" - indications of the change of seasons, weather and seasonal activities of people.