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=='''Pushkin, Aleksandr''', ''Eugene Onegin'' (Russian: Евгений Онегин, BGN/PCGN: Yevgeniy Onegin), 1825-1832, 1833, 1837==

''Includes edited material from Wikipedia article on Eugene Onegin.''

==Translations==

'''Walter W. Arndt''', ''Eugene Onegin'', 1963, (ISBN 0-87501-106-3) was written keeping to the strict rhyme scheme of the Onegin stanza and won the Bollingen Prize for translation. It is still considered as one of the best translations.

'''Vladimir Nabokov''' severely criticised Arndt's translation, as he had criticised many previous (and later) translations. Nabokov's main criticism of Arndt's and other translations is that they sacrificed literalness and exactness for the sake of the prettiness of melody and rhyme and in 1964 he published his own scrupulously exact translation in four volumes. The first volume contains an introduction by Nabokov and the text of the translation. The Introduction discusses the structure of the novel, the Onegin stanza in which it is written and Pushkin's opinion of Onegin (using Pushkin's letters to his friends); and gives a detailed account of both the time over which Pushkin wrote Onegin and the various forms any part of it appeared in publication before Pushkin's death (after which there is a huge proliferation of the number of different editions). The second and third volume consists of very detailed and rigorous notes to the text. The fourth volume contains a facsimile of the 1837 edition. The discussion of the Onegin stanza contains the poem "On Translating Eugene Onegin", which first appeared in print in The New Yorker on January 8, 1955, and is written in two Onegin stanzas. The poem is reproduced there both so that the reader of his translation would have some experience of this unique form, and also to act as a further defence of his decision to write his translation in prose.

Nabokov's previously close friend Edmund Wilson reviewed Nabokov's translation[1] in the New York Review of Books, which sparked an exchange of letters there and an enduring falling-out between them.

While many despair at the loss of what is at first most appealing in Pushkin's novel, Nabokov's translation is essential reading for anyone who wishes to study Onegin at a high level without learning Russian. Also, a number of later translations which do attempt to preserve melody and rhyme have been helped by Nabokov's literal translation.

John Bayley has described Nabokov's commentary as '"by far the most erudite as well as the most fascinating commentary in English on Pushkin's poem" and the commentary as being "as scrupulously accurate, in terms of grammar, sense and phrasing, as it is idiosyncratic and Nabokovian in its vocabulary". Some consider this "Nabokovian vocabulary" a failing, for it might require even educated native speakers to reach for the dictionary from time to time, but most agree that it is elegant and accurate.

'''Charles Johnston''', 1977, published another translation[2] trying to preserve the Onegin stanza, which is generally considered to surpass Arndt's. Johnston's translation is influenced by Nabokov. Vikram Seth's novel The Golden Gate was inspired by this translation.

'''James E. Falen''', 1995, (the professor of Russian at the University of Tennessee) published a translation which was also influenced by Nabokov's translation, but preserved the Onegin stanzas (ISBN 0809316307)

'''Douglas Hofstadter''', 1999, published a translation, again preserving the Onegin stanzas, after having summarized the controversy (and severely criticized Nabokov's attitude towards verse translation) in his book Le Ton beau de Marot.

'''Tom Beck''' published a translation in 2004, preserving the Onegin stanzas (ISBN 1-903517-28-1).

'''Babette Deutsch''', 1935, published a translation preserving the Onegin stanzas.

'''Stanley Mitchell''' has been commissioned to translate EO preserving the Onegin stanzas. The first two chapters have been published in the journal Modern Poetry in Translation.

==External Links==

Wikipedia article on Eugene Onegin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Onegin#Translations]

* [http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/04onegin/01onegin/0836.htm?start=0&length=all Yevgeny Onegin] The full text of the poem in Russian
* [http://lib.ru/LITRA/PUSHKIN/ENGLISH/onegin_j.txt Eugene Onegin at lib.ru] Charles Johnston's complete translation
* [http://www.poetryloverspage.com/yevgeny/pushkin/evgeny_onegin.html The Poetry Lovers' Page] (a translation by [[Yevgeny Bonver]])
* [http://www.pushkins-poems.com/ Pushkin's Poems] (a translation by [[G. R. Ledger]] with more of Pushkin's poetry)
* [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12829 The New York Review of Books] [[Edmund Wilson]]'s A review of Nabokov's translation
* [http://www.tetrameter.com/nabokov.htm On translating ''Eugene Onegin''] a poem by Nabokov defending his choice to translate Onegin into free verse
* [http://adaweb.walkerart.org/influx/muntadas/nytbooks.html What's Gained in Translation] An article by [[Douglas Hofstadter]] on the book, which explains how he can judge the relative worth of different translations of Onegin without being able to read Russian