GENRE PECULIARITIES OF LORD BYRON’S CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE AND A. PUSHKIN’S EUGENE ONEGIN: COMPARATIVE ASPECT

Abstract

This article examines the major works of two outstanding European poets, Lord Byron and Alexander Pushkin, with a view to estimating the extent of their literary and personal affinity. In the examination of style, attention is limited to Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, since they are regarded as the masterpieces of their respective authors. The purpose of the article was to make a comparative analysis of two works; to define genre peculiarities of Byron’s poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Pushkin’s novel Eugene Onegin; to show the influence of Byronism on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Also it was defined that the image of the author was one of the most important structural features of both works. In Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, we found out the influence of the system of Byron’s poems: alienated, mysterious, opposed to the world hero, the beauty of the heroine and a certain force that hinders the happiness of the heroes. The article gives a detailed analysis of epigraphs, which play a significant role in the composition of the works of two writers. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage consists of individual cantos, some of them preceded by an epigraph that contains the main idea of the canto, or the author’s point of view on the event is expressed. In Eugene Onegin Pushkin made epigraphs much more meaningful, laying the foundations of the Byron’s system of epigraphs. In the article it was shown that the poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage combines two plans: concrete (personal) and common (universal), which allowed the author to talk at the same time about the complex and contradictory life of individual, spiritual and historical problems of all mankind. According to genre peculiarities, the poem belongs to lyric and epic works, the innovation of which was in the form of a diary of the lyrical hero, in the reflection of the hero and the author, as well as in a combination of historical, philosophical and psychological plans. Pushkin’s novel Eugene Onegin has complemented and complicated compositional system. There are several story lines; a lot of main characters; the action is taking place during a considerable period of time.