"Eugene Onegin Chapter XI" original poetry recital

This is my original poem entitled "Eugene Onegin: Chapter XI" which I recited for my Russian Literature class on April 6th, 2010. The poem is a continuation of Alexander Pushkin's poetic novel "Eugene Onegin."

I pick up the action from the end of the story, where Tatiana closes her door upon Eugene for the final time in order to spend her life faithful to her loveless arranged marriage. For those unfamiliar with the novel, it will help you to know that Lensky was Eugene's best friend, but Eugene killed Lensky in a duel that took place at a mill.

Rhyme scheme and meter: I rigidly adhere to the rhyme scheme and meter of the "Onegin Stanza". The stanzas are built upon the following formula: aBaBccDDeFFeGG. The different letters represent different rhymes. The capital letters are lines of iambic tetrameter. (u/u/u/u/) The lowercase letters are also iambic tetrameter but with an extra, unstressed syllable added to the end. (u/u/u/u/u) Working with the meter is quite challenging but I also find it very rewarding.

The book ends at the termination of Chapter VIII, which would make my piece Chapter IX. However, Pushkin wrote ten chapters to Eugene Onegin. He omitted one chapter before the book was published. He later wrote the tenth chapter after the book was published, but burned it. Scattered fragments of this tenth chapter remain. According to a footnote in my text, "There is evidence to suggest that Onegin might show up, possibly as a Decembrist." (Mitchell 240) I ran with this idea in my piece. Since Pushkin wrote ten chapters to Eugene Onegin, I felt that to name my piece "Chapter IX" or "Chapter X" would be to step on Pushkin. Thus I named my piece "Chapter XI" even though it picks up the action from the end of Chapter VIII. I also enjoy the double entendre of "Chapter Eleven", which in business parlance refers to bankruptcy. This is precisely where Eugene ends up physically and emotionally at the end of my piece.

Names and places: True to the original text, I use the names Eugene (YOU-gene) and Onegin (on-YAY-gin) interchangeably to refer to Eugene Onegin. The reason for this is that if the author only uses one name, then the placement starts to grow stale within the framework of the meter. Likewise, the names Tanya (TAN-ya) and Tatiana (tat-YA-na) are also interchangeable.

All names of people and places that I use, besides literary characters, are non-fictional. Nikita Muraviev was a leader of the Decembrist revolution in St. Petersburg. This group called themselves the "Union of Salvation". The term "Decembrists" did not come about until after their failed revolt in December 1825.

To avoid anachronisms, all literary references that I employ are from works that would have been available to Pushkin at the time he wrote Eugene Onegin in 1833.

Work Cited
Pushkin, Alexander. Eugene Onegin. Trans. Stanley Mitchell. London: Penguin Group, 2008. Print.

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[fallowstars]

This is very good. Have you any more original poems? : D