Eugene Onegin

by

Alexander Pushkin

Tatyana Larin Character Analysis

Tatyana is the shy eldest daughter of Dame Larin and Dmitry Larin as well as the sister of Olga. Although she is reserved and spends most of her time reading books, particularly romances from foreign countries, Eugene takes an interest in her as soon as he hears about her in Lensky’s tales of the Larin family. Tatyana eventually falls in love with Eugene and writes him a passionate letter. While Eugene is moved by the letter, he rejects Tatyana with a speech in which he claims that although he loves her, he’s rejecting her because he’d make an awful husband. Tatyana is heartbroken and becomes even more withdrawn from the world, eventually going to Moscow with her family and marrying a general whom she doesn’t love but who makes a sensible match. When Eugene comes back to confess his love to her, she turns the tables, giving her own speech about how she’s married and has no intention of being an unfaithful wife. Like many characters in the story, Tatyana experiences a loss of innocence, and she gives up her girlhood dreams of romance in order to fulfill her family’s marriage expectations.

Tatyana Larin Quotes in Eugene Onegin

The Eugene Onegin quotes below are all either spoken by Tatyana Larin or refer to Tatyana Larin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Youth, Regrets, and the Passage of Time Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

From early youth she read romances,
And novels set her heart aglow;
She loved the fictions and the fancies
Of Richardson and of Rousseau.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:

Her husband at the time was still
Her fiancé—against her will!
For she, in spite of family feeling,
Had someone else for whom she pined—
A man whose heart and soul and mind
She found a great deal more appealing;
This Grandison was fashion’s pet,
A gambler and a guards cadet.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin, Dame Larin, Dmitry Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Time was, with grave and measured diction,
A fervent author used to show
The hero in his work of fiction
Endowed with bright perfection’s glow.
He’d furnish his beloved child—
Forever hounded and reviled—
With tender soul and manly grace,
Intelligence and handsome face.
And nursing noble passion’s rages,
The ever dauntless hero stood
Prepared to die for love of good;
And in the novel’s final pages,
Deceitful vice was made to pay
And honest virtue won the day.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:

I’m writing you this declaration—
What more can I in candour say?
It may be now your inclination
To scorn me and to turn away;
But if my hapless situation
Evokes some pity for my woe,
You won’t abandon me, I know.

Related Characters: Tatyana Larin (speaker), Eugene Onegin, The Narrator
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

‘You wrote to me. Do not deny it.
I’ve read your words and they evoke
My deep respect for your emotion,
Your trusting soul… and sweet devotion.
Your candour has a great appeal
And stirs in me, I won’t conceal,
Long dormant feelings, scarce remembered.
But I’ve no wish to praise you now;
Let me repay you with a vow
As artless as the one you tendered;
Hear my confession too, I plead,
And judge me both by word and deed.’

Related Characters: Eugene Onegin (speaker), Tatyana Larin
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

How oft have tearful poets chances
To read their works before the glances
Of those they love? Good sense declares
That no reward on earth compares.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:

Oh, blest is he who lives believing,
Who takes cold intellect for naught,
Who rests within the heart’s sweet places
As does a drunk in sleep’s embraces,
Or as, more tenderly I’d say,
A butterfly in blooms of May;
But wretched he who’s too far-sighted,
Whose head is never fancy-stirred,
Who hates all gestures, each warm word,
As sentiments to be derided,
Whose heart… experience has cooled
And barred from being loved … or fooled!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Tatyana (with a Russian duty
That held her heart, she knew not why)
Profoundly loved, in its cold beauty,
The Russian winter passing by:
Crisp days when sunlit hoarfrost glimmers,
The sleighs, and rosy snow that shimmers
In sunset’s glow, the murky light
That wraps about the Yuletide night.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:

Tatyana, in her low-cut gown,
Steps out of doors and trains a mirror
Upon the moon to bring it nearer;
But all that shows in her dark glass
Is just the trembling moon, alas….

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: The Moon
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

But no, she can’t. What explanation? …
Well, she’s just promised his good friend
The next dance too. In God’s creation!
What’s this he hears? Could she intend? …
Can this be real? Scarce more than swaddler—
And turned coquette! A fickle toddler!
Already has she mastered guile,
Already learned to cheat and smile!
The blow has left poor Lensky shattered;
And cursing woman’s crooked course,
He leaves abruptly, calls for horse,
And gallops off. Now nothing mattered—
A brace of pistols and a shot
Shall instantly decide his lot.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Page Number: 129
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

And so, in slow but growing fashion,
my Tanya starts to understand,
More clearly now—thank God—her passion
And him for whom, by fate’s command,
She’d been condemned to feel desire:
That dangerous and sad pariah,
That work of heaven or of hell,
That angel… and proud fiend as well.
What was he then? An imitation?
An empty phantom or a joke,
A Muscovite in Harold’s cloak,
Compendium of affectation,
A lexicon of words in vogue …
Mere parody and just a rogue?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

‘What can I do? Tatyana’s grown,’
Dame Larin muttered with a moan.
‘Her younger sister married neatly;
It’s time that she were settled too,
I swear I don’t know what to do;
She turns all offers down completely,
Just says: “I can’t”, then broods away,
And wanders through those woods all day.’

Related Characters: Dame Larin (speaker), Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:

But roads are bad now in our nation;
Neglected bridges rot and fall;
Bedbugs and fleas at every station
Won’t let the traveller sleep at all.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Tatyana Larin, Dame Larin
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:

The night has countless stars to light her,
And Moscow countless beauties too;
And yet the regal moon shines brighter
Than all her friends in heaven’s blue;
And she, whose beauty I admire—
But dare not bother with my lyre—
Just like the moon upon her throne,
Mid wives and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride she grazes
The earth she walks, in splendour dressed!
What languor fills her lovely breast!
How sensuous her wondrous gazes! …
But there, enough; have done at last:
You’ve paid your due to follies past.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: The Moon
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

‘And happiness was ours … so nearly!
It came so close! … But now my fate
Has been decreed. I may have merely
Been foolish when I failed to wait;
But mother with her lamentation
Implored me, and in resignation
(All futures seemed alike in woe)
I married…. Now I beg you, go!
I’ve faith in you and do not tremble;
I know that in your heart reside
Both honour and a manly pride.
I love you (why should I dissemble?);
But I am now another’s wife,
And I’ll be faithful all my life.’

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin, The General
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:

But those to whom, as friends and brothers,
My first few stanzas I once read—
‘Some are no more, and distant… others.’
As Sadi long before us said.
Without them my Onegin’s fashioned.
And she from whom I drew, impassioned,
My fair Tatyana’s noblest trait…
Oh, much, too much you’ve stolen, Fate!
But blest is he who rightly gauges
The time to quit the feast and fly,
Who never drained life’s chalice dry,
Nor read its novel’s final pages;
But all at once for good withdrew—
As I from my Onegin do.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
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Tatyana Larin Quotes in Eugene Onegin

The Eugene Onegin quotes below are all either spoken by Tatyana Larin or refer to Tatyana Larin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Youth, Regrets, and the Passage of Time Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

From early youth she read romances,
And novels set her heart aglow;
She loved the fictions and the fancies
Of Richardson and of Rousseau.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:

Her husband at the time was still
Her fiancé—against her will!
For she, in spite of family feeling,
Had someone else for whom she pined—
A man whose heart and soul and mind
She found a great deal more appealing;
This Grandison was fashion’s pet,
A gambler and a guards cadet.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin, Dame Larin, Dmitry Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Time was, with grave and measured diction,
A fervent author used to show
The hero in his work of fiction
Endowed with bright perfection’s glow.
He’d furnish his beloved child—
Forever hounded and reviled—
With tender soul and manly grace,
Intelligence and handsome face.
And nursing noble passion’s rages,
The ever dauntless hero stood
Prepared to die for love of good;
And in the novel’s final pages,
Deceitful vice was made to pay
And honest virtue won the day.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:

I’m writing you this declaration—
What more can I in candour say?
It may be now your inclination
To scorn me and to turn away;
But if my hapless situation
Evokes some pity for my woe,
You won’t abandon me, I know.

Related Characters: Tatyana Larin (speaker), Eugene Onegin, The Narrator
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

‘You wrote to me. Do not deny it.
I’ve read your words and they evoke
My deep respect for your emotion,
Your trusting soul… and sweet devotion.
Your candour has a great appeal
And stirs in me, I won’t conceal,
Long dormant feelings, scarce remembered.
But I’ve no wish to praise you now;
Let me repay you with a vow
As artless as the one you tendered;
Hear my confession too, I plead,
And judge me both by word and deed.’

Related Characters: Eugene Onegin (speaker), Tatyana Larin
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

How oft have tearful poets chances
To read their works before the glances
Of those they love? Good sense declares
That no reward on earth compares.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:

Oh, blest is he who lives believing,
Who takes cold intellect for naught,
Who rests within the heart’s sweet places
As does a drunk in sleep’s embraces,
Or as, more tenderly I’d say,
A butterfly in blooms of May;
But wretched he who’s too far-sighted,
Whose head is never fancy-stirred,
Who hates all gestures, each warm word,
As sentiments to be derided,
Whose heart… experience has cooled
And barred from being loved … or fooled!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Tatyana (with a Russian duty
That held her heart, she knew not why)
Profoundly loved, in its cold beauty,
The Russian winter passing by:
Crisp days when sunlit hoarfrost glimmers,
The sleighs, and rosy snow that shimmers
In sunset’s glow, the murky light
That wraps about the Yuletide night.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:

Tatyana, in her low-cut gown,
Steps out of doors and trains a mirror
Upon the moon to bring it nearer;
But all that shows in her dark glass
Is just the trembling moon, alas….

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: The Moon
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

But no, she can’t. What explanation? …
Well, she’s just promised his good friend
The next dance too. In God’s creation!
What’s this he hears? Could she intend? …
Can this be real? Scarce more than swaddler—
And turned coquette! A fickle toddler!
Already has she mastered guile,
Already learned to cheat and smile!
The blow has left poor Lensky shattered;
And cursing woman’s crooked course,
He leaves abruptly, calls for horse,
And gallops off. Now nothing mattered—
A brace of pistols and a shot
Shall instantly decide his lot.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Page Number: 129
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

And so, in slow but growing fashion,
my Tanya starts to understand,
More clearly now—thank God—her passion
And him for whom, by fate’s command,
She’d been condemned to feel desire:
That dangerous and sad pariah,
That work of heaven or of hell,
That angel… and proud fiend as well.
What was he then? An imitation?
An empty phantom or a joke,
A Muscovite in Harold’s cloak,
Compendium of affectation,
A lexicon of words in vogue …
Mere parody and just a rogue?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: Books
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

‘What can I do? Tatyana’s grown,’
Dame Larin muttered with a moan.
‘Her younger sister married neatly;
It’s time that she were settled too,
I swear I don’t know what to do;
She turns all offers down completely,
Just says: “I can’t”, then broods away,
And wanders through those woods all day.’

Related Characters: Dame Larin (speaker), Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin, Olga Larin
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:

But roads are bad now in our nation;
Neglected bridges rot and fall;
Bedbugs and fleas at every station
Won’t let the traveller sleep at all.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Tatyana Larin, Dame Larin
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:

The night has countless stars to light her,
And Moscow countless beauties too;
And yet the regal moon shines brighter
Than all her friends in heaven’s blue;
And she, whose beauty I admire—
But dare not bother with my lyre—
Just like the moon upon her throne,
Mid wives and maidens shines alone.
With what celestial pride she grazes
The earth she walks, in splendour dressed!
What languor fills her lovely breast!
How sensuous her wondrous gazes! …
But there, enough; have done at last:
You’ve paid your due to follies past.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky, Tatyana Larin
Related Symbols: The Moon
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

‘And happiness was ours … so nearly!
It came so close! … But now my fate
Has been decreed. I may have merely
Been foolish when I failed to wait;
But mother with her lamentation
Implored me, and in resignation
(All futures seemed alike in woe)
I married…. Now I beg you, go!
I’ve faith in you and do not tremble;
I know that in your heart reside
Both honour and a manly pride.
I love you (why should I dissemble?);
But I am now another’s wife,
And I’ll be faithful all my life.’

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin, The General
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:

But those to whom, as friends and brothers,
My first few stanzas I once read—
‘Some are no more, and distant… others.’
As Sadi long before us said.
Without them my Onegin’s fashioned.
And she from whom I drew, impassioned,
My fair Tatyana’s noblest trait…
Oh, much, too much you’ve stolen, Fate!
But blest is he who rightly gauges
The time to quit the feast and fly,
Who never drained life’s chalice dry,
Nor read its novel’s final pages;
But all at once for good withdrew—
As I from my Onegin do.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Eugene Onegin, Tatyana Larin
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis: