Verse Novel

The verse novel is a synthetic lyric-epic genre that combines the epic breadth of a novelistic plot with the lyric element of verse language, authorial digressions, and heightened emotionality. This form allows one both to unfold the fates of characters and to express directly the authorial voice, reflections, and judgments. The European model of the genre is Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. In Ukrainian literature the verse novel acquired special weight: its summit is Lina Kostenko's Marusia Churai — a historical verse novel about the legendary song-maker of the era of the Khmelnytsky uprising, in which personal drama is joined to the fate of the nation and the language rises to philosophical heights. Close to the genre are also the great narrative poems of Taras Shevchenko and modern verse novels that combine plotted narration with meditative lyric and publicistic pathos.