More questions on Onegin

[Edward M Dumanis]

As I understand, there is no evidence, whatsoever, that would even hint
that Tatyana's lifestyle included observation of any sexual activity
between animals. Moreover, the very idea of upbringing of a gentle lady
would restrict her activities to a very narrow circle leaving simple folk
to deal with real life. She was day-dreaming, and her fantasies were
brought by the books she read.
Quoting A.S.,

Yej rano nravilis' romany,
Oni yej zamenyali VSYO;
Ona vlyublyalasya v obmany
I Richardsona i Russo.
......................
Zhena zh ego byla sama
Ot Richardsona bez uma.
-----------------------------------
I have not read Rousseau for over 40 years, but I do not remember anything
there that could serve as a manual for Sex Ed. Samuel Richardson is known
to me only through Hollywood (Clarissa), and I have no idea whether his
books could educate a young lady on the matters of homosexuality. If
anyone knows it, please share your information with the list.
I believe that there are two different questions which are confused in
this discussion: 1) How A.S. saw his character, and 2) How others
interpret the same character and the connection between the character and
its creator.
I do believe in the absolute freedom of interpretation, and there is
nothing wrong in seeing something in a book about which its author might
never had even a thought. One might say: "Oh, this is what the author had
in his/her subconsciousness," and this could be very interesting for those
who keep psychoanalysis in high esteem. Nevertheless, it is not a
universally accepted approach, and one might strive for some more
established and recognized methods of literary reconstruction based rather
on scrupulous studies of the lifestyle in the given period. Do we need to
tell apart any individual poetic interpretation based on intuition from
analytical approach? I think so. One might even mix them together but then
his/her work will be more or less related to the second of the questions.
Tchaikovsky was a very powerful interpreter of the novel. However, it was
purely poetic interpretation through his own personality. One might
analyze the opera but it is not what A.S. wrote, even if the opera is a
treasure itself.
A famous contemporary Russian songwriter, Veronika Dolina, has a poem
where she portraits  Sancho Panza as a woman who is in love with her
master. It's a wonderful song, however, I have not heard about anybody
thinking that this might be what was in Cervantes' subconsciousness. Or
was it?
I guess that the measure of our acceptance of any not strictly
constructive (borrowing from contemporary political lexicon) literary
criticism varies in direct proportion with our belief in those methods and
the amount of imagination used there. Whether it is too much imagination,
or is not enough, characterizes more ourselves than the work we study.
Constructive criticism might be less interesting but it is certainly
different from its attractive counterpart, and we should not mix them
together to avoid any confusion.  

Sincerely,

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>



On Wed, 5 Apr 2006, Jules Levin wrote:

> At 08:55 PM 4/5/2006, you wrote:
> 
> >And if Tatyana were to know about homosexuality (or even sexuality) 
> >as an unmarried girl, where would this knowledge come from? Were 
> >there any books on her shelf that would enlighten her, or can we 
> >expect her nanny teach her, or maybe her mother?
> >Alina Israeli
> 
> Perhaps from seeing dogs in the road and stallions in the field 
> engaging in homosexual activity...;-)  Certainly the public 
> heterosexual copulation of animals was a fixture of both town and 
> countryside a hundred years ago.  But maybe genteel young ladies were 
> expected not to look.
> But would Tatyana have read Leviticus?   Homosexual-ITY isn't 
> mentioned of course, but the behavior is.   And this suggestion seems to
> return us to a previous topic...
> Jules Levin 
> 
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