УДК 81'42

Onegin Stanza in Nabokov's The Gift: the structure of text

Двинятин Федор Никитич – кандидат филологических наук, доцент Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета.

Abstract: The article analyzes the language patterns and poetic organization of the final fragment of Nabokov's novel "The Gift": the reproduction of so called “Onegin stanza” (with its iambic tetrameter and its rhyme structure), the grammar of poetry, the semantic correlations, especially the motives of boundaries and continuation.

Аннотация: В статье анализируются языковые модели и поэтическая организация фрагмента романа В.В. Набокова "Дар", в котором воспроизводится метрическая и строфическая структура онегинской строфы: поэтическая грамматика, семантические переклички, мотивика границ и их преодоления.

Keywords: Nabokov, grammar, Onegin stanza, structure of text.

Ключевые слова: Набоков, грамматика, онегинская строфа, структура текста.

Прощай же, книга! Для видений — отсрочки смертной тоже нет. С колен поднимется Евгений, — но удаляется поэт. И все же слух не может сразу расстаться с музыкой, рассказу дать замереть… судьба сама еще звенит, — и для ума внимательного нет границы — там, где поставил точку я: продленный призрак бытия синеет за чертой страницы, как завтрашние облака, — и не кончается строка phrase (Nabokov 2002: 541).

Good-by, my book! Like mortal eyes, imagined ones must close some day. Onegin from his knees will rise—but his creator strolls away. And yet the ear cannot right now part with the music and allow the tale to fade; the chords of fate itself continue to vibrate; and no obstruction for the sage exists where I have put The End: the shadows of my world extend beyond the skyline of the page, blue as tomorrow’s morning haze—nor does this terminate the phrase (Nabokov 1963: 378).

It is anything but rare for Russian poets to borrow the “Onegin stanza” (f. e., Greber 1955; esp. 139-146). It is also typical for poets, whenever they use this verse structure, to borrow – knowingly or unwittingly – the vocabulary and stylistic and structural nuances of Pushkin’s novel in verse, as well as its measures and rhymes. This is the case, for example, with Lermontov’s long poem The Tambov Treasurer’s Wife, as well as with the roguish opus Debogoriy-Mokrievich by late 19th-century Narodnik revolutionary Vladimir Debogoriy-Mokrievich.

But The Gift’s final lines (Toker: 151-152) are tied to Eugene Onegin not solely by virtue of the reproduction of Pushkin’s stanza (in prose’s graphic disguise), with its iambic tetrameter and its AbAbCCddEffEgg rhyme structure (It is true that Nabokov, while retaining the rhyme sceme, subtly alters the form, using exclusively masculine rhymes – Wachtel 1998: 167) or even by the use of the name Евгений (Onegin in english translation). The key link here is the word раcстаться (to part), also used in the penultimate line of the final chapter of Pushkin’s novel: И вдругъ умѣлъ разстаться съ нимъ, Какъ я съ Онѣгинымъ моимъ (ЕО, 7, LI) (And all at once could part with it / As I with my Onegin). This subtext is plain, but perhaps there is another subtext, less meaningful and less conspicuous. As the excerpt progresses, the aural imagery – слух... с музыкой... звенит (the ear… with the music… chords of fate) – clearly gives way to the visual. Nothing juxtaposes the audible and the visible as straightforwardly as the core verbs used in the present tense: судьба — звенит, and продленный призрак бытия — синеет. The ringing and the blueing in the finale are, quite possibly, an allusion to Gogol’s famous lines from Diary of a Madman: струна звенитъ въ туманѣ... Домъ ли то мой синѣетъ вдали? (“…a musical string twangs in the mist… Is that my home looming blue in the distance?” – in Nabokov’s own translation). Nabokov had previously played on the first part of this quote, and Dostoevsky once also invoked it ironically: дымъ, туманъ, струна звенитъ въ туманѣ “smoke, a mistiness, and a chord vibrating in the mist” in Crime and Punishment).

But the verb синеть (to turn blue) in the final lines of The Gift pulls in the novel’s internal contexts as well as external subtexts, weaving associations of motif. This verb occurs in poems written by both of the novel’s central fictional poets: синеет, синего синей (turning blue, bluer than blue), by Godunov-Cherdyntsev (in his poem about the morning sky glimpsed through a crack in the window shutter), and изваянья в аллеях синели (statues in the alleys were turning blue) by Koncheev (in the Koncheev quote, the word that follows it – небеса (skies) – no longer pertains to blueness directly, but due to the contiguousness of these words, it is as though the skies had lent their colour to the statues; moreover, the words аллеи синели (alleys blueing) evoke the archaic word for lilac – синель (very aptly used by Tyutchev). Nabokov, or Sirin (an old pen name), kept lilac (siren', сирень) on hand as one of his many secondary tokens of his authorly presence in his novels.

One salient feature about the grammar of the excerpt is its diverse and fractional verb forms: the only imperative is прощай (fare thee well), the only one in past tense, поставил (put; next to the only first-person pronoun), and the only one in future tense is поднимется (will rise). Only the infinitive and the present tense occur in multiple instances, and several notable symmetries and consonances are found there: удаляется — (не) кончается (strolls away – (nor) does this terminate), звенит — синеет (vibrate – turn blue). The vast field of vision, the continuation and extension, which are stated expressly, are subtly underpinned, in the verbal grammar, by the extensive palette of word-forms and the dominance of the present tense.

One may be so bold as to surmise (as long as one exercises the proper measure of prudence) that these two grammatically identical structures, occurring in two neighbouring lines containing crucial imagery, also stylistically allude to Pushkin’s literary style: призрак бытия (the shadows of my world) and за чертой страницы (beyond the skyline of the page). In russian poetry, the frequency of use of phrases with the adnominal non-prepositional genitive varies steeply and strikingly between eras and authors (more perspicacious poets of later eras can hear this well and use it to selectively imitate the style of poets from the past). The use of phrases with the genitive case had its heyday in the poetry of Batyushkov. Pushkin used this phrase structure differently for different genres, but his use of it was, overall, more sparing, averaging at about two phrases per stanza, which is exactly the typical “Onegin frequency”.

And here is one more hallmark of Onegin and of Pushkin’s verse generally: several enjambments (mismatches between poetic and syntactic divisions) follow one another in succession in the middle of the excerpt: И все же слух не может сразу // расстаться с музыкой, рассказу // дать замереть… судьба сама // еще звенит, — и для ума // внимательного нет границы... (And yet the ear cannot right now / part with the music and allow / the tale to fade; the chords of fate / itself continue to vibrate; / and no obstruction for the sage / exists…). There can be no doubt that this “division crisis” serves to highlight the theme of нет границы (no obstruction, lit. no border).

On the lexical plane, the semantic correlations stand out in particular. The key internal themes of The Gift’s ending are highlighted repeatedly, and so that series of words belonging in the same meaning-domain are apt to form graded progressions, such as, for instance, this one: книга — страница — строка (book – page – line). This is echoed by another triple series: точка — черта — граница (end, lit. point – line – obstruction). And the word knIga (book) also enters into another series: книга — видение — рассказ (book – dream – tale), while страница (page), along with точка, черта, and граница, contributes to the semantic of “(transcendable) boundaries”. This – broader and more central – domain of “end / not end,” “end/ continuation” also involves such words and phrases as прощай, отсрочки... нет (good-by, must close some day), удаляется (strolls away), расстаться (part), замереть, нет границы, продленный, за чертой, не кончается  (fade, no obstruction, extended, beyond the skyline, nor does this terminate). The duality of the assertion and denial of “the end” is highlighted at least twice by grammatical parallelisms filled with contradictory meaning. The first one is the opposition of отсрочки... нет (must close some day, the end) and нет границы (no obstruction, the end is rescinded). The second parallelism – an even more obvious one, underscored by both the grammar and the rhythm – is this: (1) но удаляется поэт (but his creator strolls away, the end) – и не кончается строка (nor does this terminate the phrase, the end is rescinded). The beginning of the closing excerpt of the novel declares the impending end of the novel. However, the ending of this same excerpt, that is, the ultimate ending of the novel, conversely, at the very least calls the impending finale into question. As aural and visual metaphors harmonize and somewhat compete (the sound is given flesh by the very sonic fabric of the lines; it might seem a little meagre for Nabokov, a consummate virtuoso of sound consonances, but this succession of four stressed A’s in the finale – как зАвтрашние облакА, — и не кончАется строкА – is certainly not coincidence), so the semantics and imagery of space and time also interact in the excerpt. At first, time reigns supreme, signified, as it were, by сразу (right now) and еще (continue, lit.: still), and the frame of the text appears similar to the boundaries of a musical or theatrical performance: the final sounds fade, and (afterwards) the actor, or some character likened to an actor, caught in this genuflected posture at the novel’s abrupt end – something akin to metaphorical “curtains” – rises from his knees. And here something spatial intervenes: the figure of the poet strolling away. From this point on, space dominates over time – граница, точка, призрак за чертой – but time still has a say amid this spatial domination: the morning haze is tomorrow’s. Space and time, sound and vision merge to the point of becoming indistinguishable in the last line – the line about the line. The line is spatial and visible when it is written, and it exists in time and is audible when it is uttered, when it sounds.

In this general context of duality, it is probably no accident that the distinction between Eugene and his creator is underscored . Indeed, many scholars have pointed out that the persona of the narrator appears to be dual in Pushkin's novel in verse as well; the narrative enigma of The Gift rests upon an ambiguous equilibrium between the first and the third person: Is it me writing about myself occasionally? Is that his monologue reproduced without quotation marks?

It is important to read Nabokov slowly and attentively, and this applies to The Gift in full measure. The Gift’s prosaic narrative fabric is haunted by the laws of poetry, complete with the sweeping engagement of language, the metrics, and the intricate interplay of cross-textual connections. One of Nabokov’s favourite authors, Leo Tolstoy, wrote that the fabric of a novel is an endless labyrinth of connections (of thoughts, characters with their interrelations, statuses and shifts of the plot, of narrative, meaningful and symbolic motifs). Nabokov was certainly aware of all this and was adept at putting it into practice, but he would frequently augment and cement his prosaic complexity with a poetic one, drawing amply on his experience as a poet, albeit an unrecognised one.

References

1. Greber E. Das zweite Leben des Evgenij Onegin. Transpositionen der Oneginstrophe und Onegins Reinkarnation als Campus-Heldin // Lebensstadien. Festschrift Renate Döring-Smirnov (= Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 55. 2005). Wien, 2005. S. 135-150.
2. Nabokov V. The Gift: A Novel. Translated into English by Michael Scammel and Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with Vladimir Nabokov. London, 1963.
3. Nabokov V. Dar // Nabokov V. Sobranie sochinenii russkogo perioda v piati tomakh. St. Petersburg, 2002. Vol. 3. P. 189-541.
4. Toker 1989 - Toker Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures. Ithaca; London, 1989.
5. Wachtel M. The Development of Russian Verse: Meter and its Meanings. New York; Cambridge, 1998.