Imprisoned in marital bliss: anxiety as influence in Pushkin’s “Mistress into Maid” and “The Blizzard”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Composed during Aleksandr Pushkin’s first Boldino Autumn, the most productive literary period of the poet’s career, “Mistress into Maid” and “The Blizzard” treat the issues of love and marriage, which were at the forefront of his consciousness. This article considers why Pushkin reframed his Tatiana and Eugene in two comic, quasi-sentimental adventure stories at the very time when he was preparing for his upcoming wedding. Through close reading of literary texts and careful analysis of Pushkin’s letters and autobiographical prose from the period, the author shows that Pushkin provides each of the characters in his love stories with various facets of his own personality. Thus, the sudden and unlikely endings so attacked by critics represent the author’s process of utilizing various literary devices and plots to work through his own anxieties about his upcoming marriage.