On the “Male” Poetics of Alexander Pushkin, or the Sense-Generating Possibilities of One Assimilation: Olga Larina = Phyllida

The article reveals the meaning-generating possibilities of assimilating Olga Larina to Phyllida (Alexander Pushkin's novel Eugene Onegin). The discovery of additional content is ensured by applying cultural-historical and structural-semiotic approaches. Contextual search allows returning forgotten meanings to the reader's perception zone. The author uses the idyllic tradition in deciphering the name, as previous commentators did, and the myth of Phyllida and Demophon, the legend of Phyllida, Aristotle and Alexander the Great to prove that the image of the ancient heroine is connected not only with the motive of restrained modesty, but also with frank passion (verses of Virgil, Horace, Martial, pictorial, sculptural and even church compositions of the “races” of Phyllida and Aristotle). The considered sources, which served as the basis for the development of plots about the mythological, idyllic and “Aristotelian” Phyllids in the world culture, were reflected with varying degrees of clarity in Pushkin's novel. In the course of the structural-semiotic study, attention is drawn to the “leafy” semantics of the name of Phyllida, to the “floral” image of Olga and, in this connection, to a number of subtle associative-erotic meanings generated by the symbolization of the flora. Lensky and Onegin have different ideas about Phyllida-Olga. Lensky perceives her in a high sense: she is either the Thracian Phyllida, or the conditionally sublime heroine in Russian poems and in ancient authors' works. Onegin, by renaming, makes it clear that he sees something different (passionate) in Olga, and, as it turned out, he is not mistaken in her willingness to psychophysiologically respond (by blush, languor) to a “vulgar madrigal”, to an intimate handshake, and to a playful dance with another man (“his bride gave herself to another”). Olga's responsiveness creates a tragic stalemate in the novel; there is no way out of it. Death rescues Lensky from family life disappointments: an unenviable matrimonial fate would await him ahead. But for his bright sign-long black curls, would have another, more noticeable in society, one: he would be “happy and horned”. Pushkin completes the “leafy” storyline “Olga- Lensky” with a thematic repetition: plant symbols, which already correlate with Lensky, not with Olga. The author poetically compensates for the premature death of “poor Lensky” by the motive of eternal life. Lensky rested in the “sweet land”, in his native and at the same time over-dimensional space of eternity. The article concludes that the “Phyllida complex” allows Pushkin to convey the most modest and natural in a person in a concealed form, to create a language for the expression of hidden feelings and experiences. Russia in the language of Pushkin reaches spiritual and moral maturity, which Boileau, who considered the “modesty of the language” to be a normative feature of the national culture, spoke about in his poetic teachings.

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