Nikolay GogolНиколай Гоголь

1809-1852

The Ukrainian Genius

• Born near Poltava, Ukraine• Father a petty nobleman• School in Nezhin• 1828 leaves for St Petersburg• 1831 Cycle of Ukrainian stories Evenings on a Farm

near Dikanka• 1834-35 Professor of Medieval history in St

Petersburg.• 1835 More Ukrainian stories: Mirgorod

The Russian theme

• 1836 The Government Inspector: supposedly based on an anecdote from Pushkin. Instant success.

• 1836 Arabesques, a cycle of stories about St Petersburg.

• 1836 “The Nose.”

• 1842 “The Overcoat.”

Classical works

• 1836-1848 lived abroad, in France, then Italy, settled in Rome.

• 1841 Dead Souls, Part 1 published, immediate success.

• 1842 “The Overcoat.”

Last years

• 1847 Selected passages from Letters to Friends.

• 1848 Visited Palestine before returning to Russia.

• Depression and physical decline.

How to understand Gogol?

• Lyrical, poetic attachment to Ukraine and its customs, attachment to Ukrainian friends

• Fear of death, of being buried alive

• Deep religiosity, mysticism

• In last years became more and more reactionary, Slavophile

• “Sexual labyrinth” – never married, dominated by mother

Gogol’s apocalyptic vision

• Dark vision of the world as a “fallen” one ruled by the Devil

• Characters are “petty demons,” masks filled with vices, not realistic psychological portraits

• People “vrut” – lie, tell fibs, fantasize • Satire has an ultimate purpose – to find the

solution to the world’s imperfection• In last part of Dead Souls and in Selected

passages tried to envisage a reformed world

His writings

• Fantastic, surreal world

• Looks forward to the writings of Franz Kafka

• Unerring portraits of Russian types: Nozdrev, Manilov, Korobochka in Dead Souls

• Gift of language: long riffs, extended metaphors

• “He writes like the Devil” – i.e., instinctively

The Grotesque

• Hyperbole

• non sequiturs

• illogical, non-linear progression of narrative.

• absurdities

• random switching from one image or event to another without apparent motivation

• characters’ conversations are at cross purposes, full of misunderstandings

“The Overcoat”Шинель

1842

Significance

• Dostoevsky declared: “We all emerged from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat.’”

• A key text in the St Petersburg theme

A Denunciation

• Vissarion Belinsky, socialist critic, saw in the tale the denunciation of the tsarist system.

• Plight of the “little man” crushed by the system

• Interpretation becomes the standard one in Soviet interpretations: beginning of “critical realism” – the forerunner of Socialist Realism

• Is it realistic?

Who or what is the “hero”?

• St Petersburg?

• Akaky Akakievich?

• Petrovich?

• The Important person?

• The Overcoat?

St Petersburg

• Its weather, its lack of comfort.

• It symbolic role as the bureaucratic machine.

• The ranking of individuals according to their position in society.

• The topography of the city: bridges and squares.

• The gap between the pretensions and the squalid reality.

The “Humans”

• Vices, pleasures and foibles.

• Vanity.

• Alcohol.

• Gossip.

• Sex.

• Snuff.

Akaky Akakievich

• Who is he?

• What are his circumstances?

• What changes does he go through?

Petrovich the tailor

• His description.

• His origins

• His vices

• The significant detail

The Important Person

• His recent promotion

• His interpretation of his function

• His family circumstances

• His “punishment”

The Important Person

• His recent promotion.

• His interpretation of his function.

• His family circumstances.

• His “punishment.”

The Important Person

• His recent promotion.

• His interpretation of his function.

• His family circumstances.

• His “punishment.”

Another hero…

• The Overcoat as hero.

• Pushes out the old overcoat.

The Important Person

• His recent promotion.

• His interpretation of his function.

• His family circumstances.

• His “punishment.”

Another hero…

• The Overcoat as hero.

• Pushes out the old overcoat.

“How the Overcoat is made”

• The overcoat as a metaphor for the work itself.

• “metapoetic.” – describes itself.

• cf Nos / Son (Dream).

• The details of the making of the overcoat reflect the details of the making of the story: lovingly sown together out of bits and pieces.

• The old overcoat and the new as metaphors or masks.

The Important Person

• His recent promotion.

• His interpretation of his function.

• His family circumstances.

• His “punishment.”

Another hero…

• The Overcoat as hero.

• Pushes out the old overcoat.

“How the Overcoat is made”

• The overcoat as a metaphor for the work itself.

• “metapoetic.” – describes itself.

• cf Nos / Son (Dream).

• The details of the making of the overcoat reflect the details of the making of the story: lovingly sown together out of bits and pieces.

• The old overcoat and the new as metaphors or masks.

The narrator

• Ironical self-portrait of the author.

• Constant self-references. Authors

• “lies” (врёт): his fantasies.