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In the Stance XXI of the 1st Chapter of the `Eugene Onegin` Alexandre Pushkin depicts the exact morals and manners of his time. The democratic public claps demanding to start the show. As to gentlemen the then theatrical good tone (bon ton) required to enter the hall at the last minute. The very appearance of gentlemen required the performance of etiquette: exchange of greetings, ritual of bows and conversations. People stood in the stalls, there were just several rows of seats for the High Society men. Ladies were only in the boxes. Onegin forced through twixt the rows which was a deliberate demonstration of the shocking negligence and impudence permitted to the young dandies and rakes. Besides, they had to simulate myopia and use opera glasess. It was not quite appropriate for gentlemen to look at people through the lenses, to lornette them, especially to examine young ladies and it was twice as inappropriate to look at people askance. It could be a pretext for a challenge. But Onegin was a rake and dandy and behaved according to the unwritten rules. The young men of that stratum were also required to express indifference and coolness. They copycatted `byrons`, `childe harolds`. The were all Anglophiles. However, Pushkin who was a replica of Onegin in the described time did not agree with him in his attitude towards Didelot. In his commentary to his novel in verse the author explained his hero`s behaviour like this: `A trait of a damped down temper worthy of Childe Harold. Mr. Didelot`s ballets are filled with a lively imagination and extraordinary delights. One of our romantic writers considered them to contain much more Poetry than all French literature does`. The common mistake of all English-speaking translators of Pushkin is their intention to use an excess of the lexical wealth of the language. But Pushkin was a poet who could get the highly-artistic results with the use of very simple expressive means of language and colloquial speech of his time. He was one of the main creators of the modern Russian language. While writing his `Onegin` he was being transformed from a romanticist into a psychological realist. And `simplicity`, economy on expressive means of language when tropes and lexical abundance were not required psychologically was his deliberate choice and aesthetic principle. | ||
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