The artistic originality of N. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls

Features of the genre and composition of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". Artistic features of the poem
Gogol had long dreamed of writing a work "in which all of Russia would appear." It was supposed to be a grandiose description of life and customs
Russia in the first third of the 19th century. The poem became such a work.
"Dead Souls", written in 1842. The first edition of the work
was called "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." Such
the name reduced the true meaning of this work, translated into the field of an adventure novel. Gogol did this for censorship reasons, in order for the poem to be published.
Why did Gogol call his work a poem? The definition of the genre became clear to the writer only at the last moment, since, while still working on the poem, Gogol calls it either a poem or a novel. To understand the features of the genre of the poem "Dead Souls", you can compare this work with the "Divine Comedy" by Dante, a poet of the Renaissance. Her influence is felt in Gogol's poem. The Divine Comedy consists of three parts. In the first part, the shadow of the ancient Roman poet Virgil appears to the poet, which accompanies the lyrical hero to hell, they go through all the circles, a whole gallery of sinners passes before their eyes. The fantasy of the plot does not prevent Dante from revealing the theme of his homeland - Italy, her fate. In fact, Gogol conceived to show the same circles of hell, but the hell of Russia. No wonder the title of the poem "Dead Souls" ideologically echoes the title of the first part of Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy", which is called "Hell".
Gogol, along with satirical denial, introduces an element glorifying, creative - the image of Russia. With this image is connected the "high lyrical movement", which in the poem sometimes replaces the comic narrative.
A significant place in the poem "Dead Souls" is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for the poem as a literary genre. In them, Gogol deals with the most pressing Russian social issues. The author's thoughts about the high purpose of man, about the fate of the Motherland and the people are contrasted here with the gloomy pictures of Russian life.
So, let's go for the hero of the poem "Dead Souls" Chichikov in N.
From the very first pages of the work, we feel the fascination of the plot, since the reader cannot assume that after the meeting of Chichikov with Manilov there will be meetings with Sobakevich and Nozdrev. The reader cannot guess about the end of the poem either, because all its characters are drawn according to the principle of gradation: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov, if considered as a separate image, cannot be perceived as a positive hero (on the table he has a book open on the same page, and his courtesy is feigned: "Let me not allow you to do this>>), but in comparison with Plyushkin, Manilov even wins in many ways.However, Gogol put the image of the Box in the center of attention, since it is a kind of single beginning of all characters.According to Gogol, this is the symbol of the "box man", which contains the idea of ​​an irrepressible thirst for hoarding.
The theme of exposing bureaucracy runs through all of Gogol's work: it stands out both in the Mirgorod collection and in the comedy The Inspector General. In the poem "Dead Souls" it is intertwined with the theme of serfdom.
A special place in the poem is occupied by "The Tale of Captain Kopeikin". It is plot-related to the poem, but is of great importance for revealing the ideological content of the work. The form of the tale gives the story a vital character: it denounces the government.
The world of "dead souls" in the poem is opposed by the lyrical image of people's Russia, about which Gogol writes with love and admiration.
Behind the terrible world of landlord and bureaucratic Russia, Gogol felt the soul of the Russian people, which he expressed in the image of a rapidly rushing forward troika, embodying the forces of Russia: So, we settled on what Gogol depicts in his work. He portrays the social disease of society, but we should also dwell on how Gogol manages to do this.
First, Gogol uses the techniques of social typification. In the image of the gallery of landowners, he skillfully combines the general and the individual. Almost all of his characters are static, they do not develop (except for Plyushkin and Chichikov), they are captured by the author as a result. This technique emphasizes once again that all these Manilovs, Korobochki, Sobakevichs, Plyushkins are dead souls. To characterize his characters, Gogol also uses his favorite technique - the characterization of a character through a detail. Gogol can be called a "genius of detail", so precisely sometimes the details reflect the character and inner world of the character. What is worth, for example, the description of the estate and the house of Manilov! When Chichikov drove into the Manilov estate, he drew attention to the overgrown English pond, to the rickety gazebo, to the dirt and desolation, to the wallpaper in Manilov's room - either gray or blue, to two chairs covered with matting, which they never reach owner's hands. All these and many other details bring us to the main characterization made by the author himself: "Neither this nor that, but the devil knows what it is!" Let's remember Plyushkin, this "hole in humanity", who even lost his gender.
He goes out to Chichikov in a greasy dressing gown, some unthinkable scarf on his head, everywhere desolation, dirt, dilapidation. Plushkin - an extreme degree of degradation. And all this is transmitted through the detail, through those little things in life that A.S. so admired. Pushkin: "Not a single writer has ever had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so vividly, to be able to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such force that all that trifle that escapes the eyes would flash large into the eyes of everyone."
The main theme of the poem is the fate of Russia: its past, present and future. In the first volume, Gogol revealed the theme of the past of the motherland. The second and third volumes he conceived were to tell about the present and future of Russia. This idea can be compared with the second and third parts of Dante's Divine Comedy: Purgatory and Paradise. However, these plans were not destined to come true: the second volume was unsuccessful in concept, and the third was never written. Therefore, Chichikov's trip remained a trip into the unknown. Gogol was at a loss, thinking about the future of Russia: "Rus, where are you rushing to? Give me an answer! Doesn't give an answer."

1. "Dead soul" as a realistic work

b) The principles of realism in the poem:

1. Historicism

Gogol wrote about his own time - approximately the end of the 20s - the beginning of the 30s, during the crisis of serfdom in Russia.

2. Typical characters in typical circumstances

The main trends in the depiction of landlords and officials are satirical description, social typification and a general critical orientation. "Dead Souls" is a work of everyday life. Particular attention is paid to the description of nature, the estate and the interior, the details of the portrait. Most of the characters are shown statically. Much attention is paid to the details, the so-called "silt of trifles" (for example, the character of Plyushkin). Gogol correlates various plans: universal scales (a lyrical digression about a troika bird) and the smallest details (a description of a trip along extremely bad Russian roads).

3. Means of satirical typification

a) The author's characteristics of the characters, b) Comic situations (for example, Manilov and Chichikov cannot part at the door), c) Appeal to the past of the heroes (Chichikov, Plyushkin), d) Hyperbole (the unexpected death of the prosecutor, Sobakevich's extraordinary voracity), e ) Proverbs (“Neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan”), e) Comparisons (Sobakevich is compared with a medium-sized bear, Korobochka is compared with a mongrel in the hay).

2. Genre originality

Calling his work a “poem”, Gogol meant: “a lesser kind of epic ... A prospectus for an educational book of literature for Russian youth. The hero of epics is a private and invisible person, but significant in many respects for observing the human soul.

The poem is a genre that goes back to the traditions of the ancient epic, which recreated a holistic being in all its contradictions. The Slavophiles insisted on this characterization of "Dead Souls", appealing to the fact that elements of the poem, as a glorifying genre, are also in "Dead Souls" (lyrical digressions). Gogol himself, later in his "Selected passages from correspondence with friends", analyzing the translation of Zhukovsky's "Odyssey", will admire the ancient epic and the genius of Homer, who presented not only the events that make up the core of the poem, but also "the whole ancient world" in all its completeness, with its way of life, beliefs, popular beliefs, etc., i.e. the very spirit of the people of that era. In letters to friends, Gogol called "Dead Souls" not only a poem, but also a novel. In "Dead Souls" there are features of an adventure-adventure, picaresque, as well as a social novel. However, "Dead Souls" is usually not called a novel, since there is practically no love intrigue in the work.

3. Features of the plot and composition

The features of the plot of "Dead Souls" are associated primarily with the image of Chichikov and his ideological and compositional role. Gogol: "The author leads his life through a chain of adventures and changes, in order to present at the same time a true picture of everything significant in the features and customs of the time he took ... a picture of shortcomings, abuses, vices." In a letter to V. Zhukovsky, Gogol mentions that he wanted to show "all Russia" in the poem. The poem is written in the form of a journey, disparate fragments of the life of Russia are united into a single whole. Such is the main compositional role of Chichikov. The independent role of the image is reduced to the description of a new type of Russian life, an entrepreneur-adventurer. In chapter 11, the author gives a biography of Chichikov, from which it follows that the hero uses either the position of an official or the mythical position of a landowner to achieve his goals.

The composition is built on the principle of "concentric circles" or "enclosed spaces" (city, estates of landowners, all of Russia).

4. The theme of the motherland and the people

Gogol wrote about his work: "All Russia will appear in it." The life of the ruling class and the common people is given without idealization. Peasants are characterized by ignorance, narrow-mindedness, downtroddenness (the images of Petrushka and Selifan, the courtyard girl Korobochka, who does not know where the right is, where the left is, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay, who are discussing whether Chichikov’s britzka will reach Moscow and Kazan). Nevertheless, the author warmly describes the talent and other creative abilities of the people (a lyrical digression about the Russian language, a characterization of a Yaroslavl peasant in a digression about the Bird Troika, Sobakevich's register of peasants).

Much attention is paid to the popular revolt (the story of Captain Kopeikin). The theme of the future of Russia is reflected in Gogol's poetic attitude to his homeland (lyrical digressions about Russia and the troika bird).

5. Features of the image of landowners in the poem

The images drawn by Gogol in the poem were ambiguously perceived by his contemporaries: many reproached him for drawing a caricature of his contemporary life, depicting reality in a ridiculous, absurd way.

Gogol unfolds before the reader a whole gallery of images of landowners (leading his main character from the first to the last) primarily in order to answer the main question that occupied him - what is the future of Russia, what is its historical purpose, what is in modern life contains at least a small hint of a bright, prosperous future for the people, which will be the key to the future greatness of the nation. In other words, the question that Gogol asks at the end, in a lyrical digression about "Rus-Troika", permeates the entire narrative as a leitmotif, and it is to him that the logic and poetics of the entire work are subordinated, including the images of landowners (see Logic of creativity).

The first of the landowners whom Chichikov visits in the hope of buying dead souls is Manilov. Main features: Manilov is completely divorced from reality, his main occupation is fruitless wandering in the clouds, useless projecting. This is evidenced both by the appearance of his estate (a house on a hill, open to all winds, a gazebo - a “temple of solitary reflection”, traces of begun and unfinished buildings), and the interior of residential premises (variegated furniture, heaps of pipe ash, laid out in neat rows on the windowsill , some book, the second year laid on the fourteenth page, etc.). Drawing the image, Gogol pays special attention to the details, interior, things, through them showing the features of the owner's character. Manilov, despite his "great" thoughts, is stupid, vulgar and sentimental (lisping with his wife, "ancient Greek" names of not quite neat and well-mannered children). The internal and external squalor of the type depicted prompts Gogol, starting from him, to look for a positive ideal, and to do this "from the opposite." If complete detachment from reality and fruitless wandering in the clouds lead to this, then perhaps the opposite type will inspire some hope in us?

The box in this respect is the exact opposite of Manilov. Unlike him, she does not hover in the clouds, but, on the contrary, is completely immersed in everyday life. However, the image of the Box does not give the desired ideal. Pettiness and stinginess (old coats kept in chests, money put into a stocking for a “rainy day”), inertia, stupid adherence to tradition, rejection and fear of everything new, “clubhead” make her appearance almost more repulsive than that of Manilov .

For all the dissimilarity of the characters of Manilov and Korobochka, they have one thing in common - inactivity. Both Manilov and Korobochka (albeit for opposite reasons) do not affect the reality around them. Maybe an active person will be a model from which the younger generation should take an example? And, as if in answer to this question, Nozdryov appears. Nozdryov is extremely active. However, all his violent activities are mostly scandalous. He is a frequenter of all drunkenness and revelry in the district, he changes everything for whatever he gets (he tries to give Chichikov puppies, a hurdy-gurdy, a horse, etc.), cheats when playing cards and even checkers, mediocrely squanders the money that he gets from selling harvest. He lies unnecessarily (it is Nozdryov who subsequently confirms the rumor that Chichikov wanted to steal the governor's daughter and took him as an accomplice, without blinking an eye agrees that Chichikov is Napoleon, who fled from exile, etc.). Repeatedly he was beaten, and by his own friends, and the next day, as if nothing had happened, he appeared to them and continued in the same spirit - "he is nothing, and they, as they say, nothing." As a result, almost more troubles come from Nozdryov's "activities" than from the inaction of Manilov and Korobochka. Nevertheless, there is a feature that unites all the three types described - this is impracticality.

The next landowner, Sobakenich, is extremely practical. This is the type of "master", "fist". Everything in his house is solid, reliable, made "for centuries" (even the furniture seems to be full of complacency and wants to shout: "Iya Sobakevich!"). However, all Sobakevich's practicality is directed only towards one goal - obtaining personal gain, for the achievement of which he stops at nothing (“scoldling” by Sobakevich of everyone and everything - in the city, according to him, there is one decent person - the prosecutor, “and even the one who if you look at it - a pig", Sobakevich's "meal", when he eats mountains of food and so on, seems to be able to swallow the whole world in one sitting, the scene with the purchase of dead souls, when Sobakevich is not at all surprised by the very subject of the sale, but immediately feels that the case smells of money that can be “ripped off” from Chichikov). It is quite clear that Sobakevich is even further away from the sought-for ideal than all previous types.

Plushkin is a kind of generalizing image. He is the only one whose path to his current state (“how he got to such a life”) is shown to us by Gogol. Giving the image of Plyushkin in development, Gogol raises this final image to a kind of symbol, accommodating Manilov, and Korobochka, and Nozdryov, and Sobakevich. The common thing for all the types bred in the poem is that their life is not sanctified by thought, the goal is socially useful, it is not filled with concern for the common good, progress, the desire for national prosperity. Any activity (or inaction) is useless and meaningless if they do not carry concern for the good of the nation, the country. It is precisely for this reason that Plyushkin turns into a “hole in humanity”, precisely for this reason his repulsive, disgusting image of a miser who has lost all human appearance, stealing old buckets and other rubbish from his own peasants, turning his own house into a dump, and his serfs into beggars, is precisely therefore, his image is the final stop for all these manila, boxes, nostrils and dogs. And it is precisely a “hole in humanity”, like Plyushkin, that Russia can turn out to be if it does not find the strength in itself to tear away all these “dead souls” and bring to the surface of national life a positive image - active, diligent in deeds with a mobile mind and imagination, and most importantly - dedicated to the common good. It is characteristic that it was precisely this type that Gogol tried to portray in the second volume of Dead Souls in the image of the landowner Kostanjoglo (see below). However, the surrounding reality did not provide material for such images - Costanjoglo turned out to be a speculative scheme that had nothing to do with real life. Russian reality supplied only manila, boxes, nostrils and Plushkins - “Where am I? I don’t see anything ... Not a single human face, .. Only snouts, snouts around ... ”- exclaims Gogol through the mouth of the Governor in The Government Inspector (compare with the“ evil spirits ”from“ Evenings ... ”and“ Mirgorod ”: a pig's snout protruding through the window in the Sorochinskaya Fair, mocking inhuman muzzles in the Enchanted Place). That is why the words about Russia-troika sound like a woeful cry-warning - "Where are you rushing? .. He does not give an answer ...". The meaning of this passage, which has been interpreted in different ways at different times, can be understood by recalling a similar passage, very reminiscent of this one, from the Notes of a Madman:

"No, I can't take it anymore. God! what are they doing to me!.. They don't listen, they don't see, they don't listen to me. What did I do to them? Why are they torturing me? What do they want from me poor? What can I give them? I dont have anything. I am unable, I cannot endure all their torments, my head is on fire, and everything is spinning before me. Help me! take me! give me a trio of horses as fast as a whirlwind! Sit down, my driver, ring, my bell, soar, horses, and carry me from this world! Further, further, so that nothing, nothing can be seen. There the sky swirls before me; an asterisk sparkles in the distance; the forest is rushing with dark trees and a moon; gray fog creeps underfoot; the string rings in the mist; on one side the sea, on the other Italy; you can see the Russian huts too. Does my house turn blue in the distance? Is my mother sitting in front of the window? Mother, save your poor son! drop a tear on his sick little head] look how they torment him! hug your poor orphan to your breast! he has no place in the world! they chase him! Mother! have pity on your poor child!”

Thus, the troika, according to Gogol, is what should rush him away from all these Plyushkins, Dzhimords, boxes and Akaki Akakievichs, and Russia-troika is the image of that Russia, which, having overcome all its age-old ailments: slavery, darkness , depravity and impunity of power, longsuffering and silence of the people - will enter a new life worthy of free, enlightened people.

But so far there are no prerequisites for this. And Chichikov rides in a britzka - a swindler, the embodiment of mediocrity, neither this nor that - who feels at ease in the Russian open spaces, who is free to take where something is bad and who is free to fool fools and scold bad Russian roads.

So, the main and main meaning of the poem is that Gogol wanted to understand the historical path of Russia through artistic images, to see its future, to feel the sprouts of a new, better life in the reality surrounding him, to distinguish those forces that would turn Russia off the sidelines of world history and turn on into the overall cultural process. The image of the landowners is a reflection of this very search. Through extreme typification, Gogol creates figures on a national scale, representing the Russian character in many guises, in all its inconsistency and ambiguity.

The types bred by Gogol are an integral part of Russian life, these are precisely Russian types that are as bright as they are stable in Russian life - until life itself changes radically.

6. Features of the image of officials

Like the images of landowners, the images of officials, whose whole gallery Gogol unfolds in front of the reader, perform a certain function. Showing the life and customs of the provincial town of NN, the author tries to answer the main question that concerns him - what is the future of Russia, what is its historical purpose, what in modern life contains at least a small hint of a bright, prosperous future for the people.

The theme of bureaucracy is an integral part and continuation of the ideas that Gogol developed by depicting landowners in the poem. It is no coincidence that the images of officials follow the images of the landlords. If the evil embodied in the owners of the estates - in all these boxes, manilovs, sobeviches, nostrils and Plyushkins - is scattered across the Russian expanses, then here it appears in a concentrated form, compressed by the living conditions of a provincial city. A huge number of "dead souls" gathered together creates a special monstrously absurd atmosphere. If the character of each of the landlords left a unique imprint on his house and estate as a whole, then the city is influenced by the entire huge mass of people (including officials, since officials are the first people in the city) living in it. The city turns into a completely independent mechanism, living according to its own laws, sending its needs through the offices, departments, councils and other public institutions. And it is the officials who ensure the functioning of this whole mechanism. The life of a civil servant, which does not bear the imprint of a lofty idea, the desire to promote the common good, becomes an embodied function of the bureaucratic mechanism. In essence, a person ceases to be a person, he loses all personal characteristics (unlike the landowners, who had an ugly, but still their own physiognomy), even loses his own name, since the name is still a certain personal characteristic, and becomes simply Postmaster, Prosecutor, Governor, Chief of Police, Chairman, or the owner of an unimaginable nickname like Ivan Antonovich Jug Snout. A person turns into a detail, a "cog" of the state machine, the micromodel of which is the provincial town of NN.

Officials themselves are unremarkable, except for the position they hold. To enhance the contrast, Gogol cites grotesque "portraits" of some officials - so the chief of police is famous for the fact that, according to rumors, he only needs to blink, passing by the fish row, to ensure himself a sumptuous dinner and an abundance of fish delicacies. The postmaster, whose name was Ivan Andreyevich, is known for the fact that they always added to his name: “Sprechen zi deutsch, Ivan Andreich?” The chairman of the chamber knew Zhukovsky's "Lyudmila" by heart and "masterfully read many places, especially: "Bor fell asleep, the valley is sleeping," and the word "Chu!" Others, as Gogol sarcastically notes, were “also more or less enlightened people: some read Karamzin, some Moskovskie Vedomosti, some even read nothing at all.”

The reaction of the inhabitants of the city, including officials, to the news that Chichikov is buying dead souls is noteworthy - what is happening does not fit into the usual framework and immediately gives rise to the most fantastic assumptions - from the fact that Chichikov wanted to kidnap the governor's daughter, to the fact that Chichikov - either a wanted counterfeiter or a runaway robber, about whom the Chief of Police receives an order for immediate detention. The grotesqueness of the situation is only intensified by the fact that the Postmaster decides that Chichikov is Captain Kopeikin in disguise, a hero of the war of 1812, an invalid without an arm and leg. The rest of the officials assume that Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise who escaped from Saint Helena. The absurdity of the situation reaches its climax when, as a result of a collision with insoluble problems (from mental stress), the prosecutor dies. In general, the situation in the city resembles the behavior of a mechanism into which a grain of sand has suddenly fallen. Wheels and cogs, designed for quite specific functions, scroll idly, some break with a bang, and the whole mechanism rings, strums and "peddles". It is the soulless car that is a kind of symbol of the city, and it is in this context that the very title of the poem - “ Dead Souls" - takes on a new meaning.

Gogol, as it were, asks the question - if the first people in the city are like this, then what are all the rest? Where is the positive ideal that will serve as an example for the new generation? If the city is a soulless machine that kills everything living, pure in people, destroying the very human essence, depriving them of all human feelings and even a normal name, turning the city itself into a “graveyard” of dead souls, then in the end the whole of Russia can take on a similar appearance , if he does not find the strength in himself to tear away all this "dead matter" and bring to the surface of national life a positive image - active, with a mobile mind and imagination, diligent in business and, most importantly, sanctified by concern for the common good.

About the second volume of "Dead Souls"

Gogol, in the guise of the landowner Kostanzhoglo, tried to show a positive ideal (Chichikov comes to him and sees his activities). It embodied Gogol's ideas about the harmonious structure of life: rational management, a responsible attitude to the work of all those involved in the construction of the estate, the use of the fruits of science. Under the influence of Costanjoglo, Chichikov had to reconsider his attitude to reality and "correct himself." However, sensing in his work "life untruth", Gogol burned the second volume of "Dead Souls".

Gogol had long dreamed of writing a work "in which all of Russia would appear." It was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. Such a work was the poem "Dead Souls", written in 1842. The first edition, for censorship reasons, was entitled "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." Such a name reduced the true meaning of this work, evoked associations with an adventure novel. Gogol did this in order for the poem to be published.

Why did Gogol call his work a poem? The definition of the genre became clear to the writer only at the last moment, since, while still working on it, Gogol calls it either a poem or a novel. To understand the motivation of the author of Dead Souls, one can compare this work with the Divine Comedy by Dante, a poet of the Renaissance. Her influence is felt in Gogol's poem. The Divine Comedy consists of three parts. In the first part, the shadow of the ancient Roman poet Virgil appears to the poet, which accompanies the lyrical hero to hell, they go through all the circles, a whole gallery of sinners passes before their eyes. The fantasy of the plot does not prevent Dante from revealing the theme of the homeland - Italy, its fate. In fact, Gogol conceived to show the same circles of hell, but the hell of Russia. No wonder the title of the poem "Dead Souls" echoes the title of the first part of the "Divine Comedy" - "Hell".

Gogol, along with satirical negation, introduces an element that glorifies, creative - the image of Russia. Associated with it is the "high lyrical movement", which in the poem sometimes replaces the comic narrative. A significant place in the poem "Dead Souls" is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for the poem as a literary genre. In them, Gogol deals with the most pressing Russian social issues. The author's thoughts about the high purpose of man, about the fate of the Motherland and the people are contrasted here with the gloomy pictures of Russian life.

So, let's go for the hero of the poem "Dead Souls" Chichikov to the city of N. From the very first pages of the work we feel the harmony of the composition, although the reader cannot assume that after the meeting of Chichikov with Manilov there will be meetings with Sobakevich and Nozdrev. The reader cannot guess the denouement of the plot.

All characters are deduced according to the principle: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov, if considered as a separate image, cannot be perceived as a positive hero (he has had a book open on the same page for a long time on his table, and his politeness is feigned: “Let me not let you do this” ), but compared to Plyushkin, Manilov wins in many ways. However, Gogol put the image of the Box at the center of the narrative, since it is a kind of single beginning of all the characters. According to Gogol, this is a symbol of the “box man”, which contains the idea of ​​an irrepressible thirst for hoarding.

The theme of exposing the bureaucracy runs through all of Gogol's work: it appears in the collection "Mirgorod", and in the comedy "Revisor" it becomes a key one. In the poem "Dead Souls" it is intertwined with the theme of serfdom.

The Tale of Captain Kopeikin occupies a special place in the poem. It is plot-related to the poem, but is of great importance for revealing the ideological content of the work. The form of the tale gives the story the character of a parable, but in fact it is a satire on the government.

The world of "dead souls" in the poem is opposed by the lyrical image of people's Russia, about which Gogol writes with love and admiration. Behind the terrible world of the landlord and bureaucratic power, Gogol felt the soul of the Russian people, which he expressed in the form of a rapidly rushing troika, embodying the forces of Russia:

Almost all the characters in the poem are static, they do not develop. This technique emphasizes once again that all these manilovs, boxes, dogs, Plyushkins are dead souls. To characterize the characters, Gogol also uses his favorite technique - the characterization of the character through the detail. What is worth, for example, the description of the estate and the house of Manilov! When Chichikov drove into the estate, he drew attention to the overgrown English pond, to the rickety arbor, to the dirt and desolation, to the wallpaper in the room - either gray or blue, to two chairs covered with matting, up to which never reach the hands of the owner. All these and many other details bring us to the main characterization made by the author himself: "Neither this nor that, but the devil knows what it is!" Recall Plyushkin, this “hole in humanity”, even the gender of which is not immediately determined: he goes out to Chichikov in a greasy dressing gown, some unthinkable scarf on his head, desolation, dirt, dilapidation everywhere. Plyushkin - the extreme degree of falling. And all this is conveyed through a detail, through those little things in life that A.S. Pushkin admired so much: of a person, so that all that little thing that escapes the eyes, would flash large in the eyes of everyone.

The main theme of the poem is the fate of Russia: its past, present and future. In the first volume, Gogol revealed the theme of the past of the motherland. The second and third volumes he conceived were to tell about the present and the future. This idea can be compared with the second and third parts of Dante's Divine Comedy: "Purgatory" and "Paradise". However, these ideas were not destined to come true: the second volume turned out to be unsuccessful in principle, and the third was never written. Therefore, Chichikov's trip remained a trip into the unknown. Gogol was lost, thinking about the future of Russia; "Rus, where are you going? Give an answer! Doesn't give an answer."

Course work
in the discipline "History of World Literature"

Ideological and artistic originality of N.V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"

Completed by: student gr.SO-07-1
Badikova V.N._______________
Scientific adviser: Ph.D., associate professor
Uglova N.V.____________________
"____" _________ 2011
Lipetsk - 2011
Content

Introduction 3-4
Chapter 1. N.V. Gogol - the great Russian writer
1.1. Biography and highlights of the work of N.V. Gogol 5-7
1.2. The history of the creation of the poem "Dead Souls 8-11
Chapter 2
2.1. Genre originality and composition of the poem 12-18
2.2. The meaning of the title of the poem 19-20
2.3. Problems of the poem "Dead Souls" 21-24
2.4. The role of portrait sketches in character portrayal
characters 25-27
Conclusion 28
References 30

Introduction
"Dead Souls" - a brilliant work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was on him that Gogol pinned his main hopes. The history of the creation of the poem covers almost the entire creative life of the writer. The first volume was created in 1835-1841, the writer worked on the second volume from 1840-1852. In 1845 he burned the finished text for the first time. By 1851 he finished a new version of the volume - and burned it on February 11, 1852, shortly before his death.
"Dead Souls" is one of the most read and revered works of Russian classics. No matter how much time separates us from this work, we will never cease to be amazed at its depth, perfection, and, probably, we will not consider our understanding of it exhausted. Reading "Dead Souls", you absorb the noble moral ideas that every brilliant work of art carries in yourself, and imperceptibly for yourself you become both purer and more beautiful.
Relevance: in order to understand the work of a writer in his living, concrete ideological and artistic originality, it is necessary to find out his real connections with historical reality, the ideological struggle, and the literary movement of the era. The amazing power of Gogol's artistic generalizations arose on the basis of the writer's close connection with life. In its movement, its thickness, he drew both the pathos of his inspiration and the richness of the content of his works. An artist of great social passion, Gogol inquisitively peered into the processes that took place in reality. And not as an indifferent observer, but as a writer-citizen, vitally interested in the fate of the people, the country, he reflected the typical features of life.
Purpose of coursework- to study the work of Gogol on the example of the poem "Dead Souls".
Subject of study- the study of the ideological and artistic originality of the poem "Dead Souls".
Object of study– the study of the writer's critical view of the position of "fat" and "thin" people in society.
Tasks:
1. Consider the biography of the writer.
2. Find out what is the meaning of the title of the poem.
3. Explain the features of the genre of this work.
4. Consider critical materials on the poem "Dead Souls".
The structure of the work: the work consists of an introduction, 2 chapters, 5 paragraphs, a conclusion and a bibliographic list.
Chapter 1 "N.V. Gogol - the great Russian writer" examines the writer's work and the process of creating a poem, from the appearance of the idea itself to the moment it appears in print.
Chapter 2, "The Poem Dead Souls as a Critical Depiction of the Life and Customs of the 19th Century," examines the critical views of Gogol's contemporaries on whether Dead Souls should be called a poem; considers the composition and the range of problems raised in the poem.

1.1. Biography and highlights of the work of N.V. Gogol
He was born on March 20 (April 1, NS) in the town of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, in the family of a poor landowner. Childhood years were spent in the estate of parents Vasilievka, near the village of Dikanka, the land of legends, beliefs, historical traditions. In the upbringing of the future writer, his father, Vasily Afanasyevich, a passionate admirer of art, a theater lover, an author of poetry and witty comedies, played a certain role.
After home education, Gogol spent two years at the Poltava district school, then entered the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, created on the basis of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum for children of the provincial nobility. Here he learned to play the violin, studied painting, played in performances, performing comic roles. Thinking about his future, he stops at justice, dreaming of "suppressing injustice."
After graduating from the Nezhin Gymnasium in June 1828, he went to St. Petersburg in December with the hope of starting a broad activity. It was not possible to get the service, the first literary tests were unsuccessful. Disappointed, in the summer of 1829 he went abroad, but soon returned. In November 1829 he received the position of a petty official. The gray bureaucratic life was brightened up by painting classes in the evening classes of the Academy of Arts. In addition, literature was powerfully attracted to itself.
In 1830, Gogol's first story, Basavriuk, appeared in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, later revised into the story The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala. In December, Delvig's almanac Northern Flowers published a chapter from the historical novel Hetman. Gogol got close to Delvig, Zhukovsky, Pushkin , friendship with which was of great importance for the development of public views and the literary talent of the young Gogol. Pushkin brought him into his circle, where he had been Krylov, Vyazemsky, Odoevsky , artist Bryullov, gave him plots for " Auditor" and "Dead Souls ". “When I created,” Gogol testified, “I saw only Pushkin in front of me ... His eternal and immutable word was dear to me.”
Literary fame for Gogol was brought by "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" (1831-32), the stories "Sorochinsky Fair", "May Night", etc. In 1833 he decided to devote himself to scientific and pedagogical work and in 1834 he was appointed adjunct professor Department of World History at St. Petersburg University. The study of works on the history of Ukraine formed the basis of the idea of ​​"Taras Bulba". In 1835 he left the university and devoted himself entirely to literary creativity. In the same year, a collection of short stories "Mirgorod" appeared, which included "Old-world landowners", "Taras Bulba", "Viy" and others, and a collection of "Arabesques" (on the themes of St. Petersburg life). The story "The Overcoat" was the most significant work of the St. Petersburg cycle, read in draft to Pushkin in 1836, and completed in 1842. Working on stories. Gogol tried his hand at drama. The theater seemed to him a great force, of exceptional importance in public education. In 1835, The Inspector General was written and already in 1836 staged in Moscow with the participation of Shchepkin.
Soon after the production of The Inspector General, harassed by the reactionary press and "secular rabble," Gogol went abroad, settling first in Switzerland, then in Paris, and continued to work on Dead Souls, which had begun in Russia. The news of Pushkin's death was a terrible blow for him: "All the pleasure of my life disappeared with him ...". In March 1837 he settled in Rome. During his visit to Russia in 1839-1840, he read to his friends chapters from the first volume of Dead Souls, which was completed in Rome in 1840-1841.
Returning to Russia in October 1841, Gogol, with the assistance of Belinsky and others, succeeded in printing the first volume (1842). Belinsky called the poem "a creation, deep in thought, social, public and historical."
The work on the second volume of "Dead Souls" coincided with a deep spiritual crisis of the writer and, above all, reflected his doubts about the effectiveness of fiction, which put Gogol on the verge of renouncing his previous creations.
In 1847 he published Selected passages from correspondence with friends, which Belinsky subjected to devastating criticism in a letter to Gogol, condemning his religious and mystical ideas as reactionary.
In April 1848, after traveling to Jerusalem, to the Holy Sepulcher, he finally settled in Russia. Living in St. Petersburg, Odessa, Moscow, he continued to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. He was increasingly seized by religious and mystical moods, his health was deteriorating. In 1852, Gogol began meeting with Archpriest Matvey Konstantinovsky, a fanatic and mystic.
February 11, 1852, being in a difficult state of mind, the writer burned the manuscript of the second volume of the poem. On the morning of February 21, Gogol died in his last apartment on Nikitsky Boulevard.
Gogol was buried in the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery, after the revolution his ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery.

1. The history of the creation of the poem "Dead Souls"
The plot of "Dead Souls" Gogol, as you know, was obliged to A.S. Pushkin, who had long encouraged him to write a great epic work. Pushkin told Gogol the story of the adventures of a certain adventurer who bought dead peasants from the landlords in order to pawn them, as if they were alive, in the Board of Trustees and receive a hefty loan against them. The history of fraudulent tricks with dead souls could become known to Pushkin during his exile in Kishinev.
It should be noted that Chichikov's idea was by no means such a rarity in life itself. Frauds with "revision souls" were a fairly common thing in those days. It can be safely assumed that not only one specific case formed the basis of Gogol's design.
The core of the plot of "Dead Souls" was Chichikov's adventure. It only seemed incredible and anecdotal, but in fact it was reliable in all the smallest details. Serfdom reality created very favorable conditions for such adventures.
By decree of 1718, the so-called household census was replaced by a poll. From now on, all male serfs, "from the oldest to the very last baby", were subject to taxation. Dead souls (dead or fugitive peasants) became a burden for the landlords, who naturally dreamed of getting rid of it. And this created a psychological prerequisite for all kinds of fraud. Some dead souls were a burden, others felt the need for them, hoping to benefit from fraudulent transactions. It was precisely on this that Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov relied. But the most interesting thing is that Chichikov's fantastic deal was carried out in perfect accordance with the paragraphs of the law.
The plots of many Gogol's works are based on an absurd anecdote, an exceptional case, an emergency. And the more anecdotal and extreme the outer shell of the plot seems, the brighter, more reliable, more typical the real picture of life appears before us. Here is one of the peculiar features of the art of a talented writer.
Gogol began working on Dead Souls in the middle of 1835, that is, even earlier than on The Inspector General. On October 7, 1835, he tells Pushkin that he wrote three chapters of Dead Souls. But the new thing has not yet captured Nikolai Vasilyevich. He wants to write comedy. And only after the "Inspector General", already abroad, Gogol really takes on "Dead Souls".
Gogol conceived "Dead Souls" as "a long novel that seems to be very funny." The author intended "Dead Souls" "for the mob", and not for the noble reader, for the bourgeoisie in its various strata, the urban philistinism, dissatisfied with the landlord system, the privileged position of the nobility, the arbitrariness of bureaucratic rule. They, “almost all poor people,” as Gogol noted the social characteristics of his readers, demanded denunciation, a critical attitude towards the way of life established by the ruling class. Gogol, a “master-proletarian” (according to A. Herzen), without a noble passport, without an estate, who changed several professions in search of work, was close to these reading layers. He began to depict Russian reality in the form of a novel, because the social themes and the method of critical depiction of the life of this genre corresponded to the interests and tastes of the new reader, met the “general need”, served as a weapon in the class struggle, and expressed the demands of advanced social groups.
Gogol wanted to create such a novel that satisfies the "worldwide ... common need" of a critical attitude to reality, giving a broad picture of life, expounding both life and the rules of morality.
But the work on Dead Souls, capturing new aspects of life, new heroes, made us anticipate the possibilities of an ever broader development of the work, and already in 1836 Gogol called Dead Souls a poem. “The thing that I am sitting and working on now,” Gogol wrote to Pogodin from Paris, “and which I have been thinking about for a long time, and which I will be thinking about for a long time, not like a story or a novel, long, long, in several volumes, its name is "Dead Souls". If God helps me fulfill my poem, then this will be my first decent creation. All Russia will respond in it.
The further the work on the new work moved on, the more grandiose its scale seemed to Gogol and the more complex the tasks that confronted him. Three years pass in hard work.
In the autumn of 1839, circumstances forced Gogol to make a trip to his homeland, and, accordingly, take a forced break from work. Eight months later, Gogol decided to return to Italy to speed up work on the book. In October 1841, he again comes to Russia with the intention of publishing his work - the result of six years of hard work.
In December, the last corrections were completed, and the final version of the manuscript was submitted for consideration by the Moscow Censorship Committee. Here "Dead Souls" met with a clearly hostile attitude. As soon as Golokhvastov, who was chairing the meeting of the censorship committee, heard the name "Dead Souls", he shouted: "No, I will never allow this: the soul is immortal - there cannot be a dead soul - the author is arming himself against immortality!" Golokhvastov was explained that they were talking about revision souls, but he became even more furious: “This can’t be allowed even more… it means against serfdom!” Then the members of the committee picked up: "Chichikov's enterprise is already a criminal offense!" When one of the censors tried to explain that the author did not justify Chichikov, they shouted from all sides: “Yes, he doesn’t justify him, but he put him out now, and others will go to take an example and buy dead souls ...”
Gogol was eventually forced to take the manuscript and decided to send it to Petersburg.
In December 1841, Belinsky was visiting Moscow. Gogol turned to him with a request to take the manuscript with him to St. Petersburg and assist in its speedy passage through the St. Petersburg censorship authorities. The critic willingly agreed to fulfill this order, and on May 21, 1842, with some censorship corrections, The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls went out of print.
The plot of "Dead Souls" consists of three externally closed, but internally very interconnected links: landowners, city officials and Chichikov's biography. Each of these links helps to reveal Gogol's ideological and artistic conception in more detail and depth.

Chapter 2. Chapter 2. The poem "Dead Souls" as a critical image of the life and customs of the XIX century
2.1. Genre originality and composition of the poem "Dead Souls"
Gogol called "Dead Souls" a poem, but the well-known critic V. G. Belinsky defined their genre as a novel. In the history of Russian literature, this definition of Belinsky was established, and "Dead Souls", retaining the word "poem" in the subtitle, are recognized as a brilliant novel from Russian life. Belinsky’s definition of the genre, developed in his articles (1835-1847), was based on the experience of studying the evolution of Russian realism in the 30s and 40s, the works of foreign works of novelists, it was forged in polemics with critics of various trends, especially reactionary and Slavophiles, and changed over the course of a number of years when Belinsky wrote about Dead Souls. In Gogol's literature, in those cases when the genre of "Dead Souls" is considered, Belinsky's views and their evolution in resolving the issue are not taken into account and are not analyzed, Dead Souls must be recognized as a novel or a poem. Meanwhile, Belinsky's teaching on the novel is the fundamental theory of this genre to this day.
In the very first article written after the publication of the poem in 1842, Belinsky, noting the humorous nature of Gogol's talent, wrote: Most of us understand "comic" and "humor" as clownish, as a caricature - and we are sure that, many are not joking , with a sly and contented smile from their insight, they will say and write that Gogol jokingly called his novel a poem ... ”(1,220) This was the answer to N. Polevoy, who wrote in Russkiy Vestnik:“ We did not at all think of condemning Gogol for what he called "Dead Souls" poem. Of course, what is the name of the joke "(10.29). It should be noted that in 1842 Belinsky accepted the Dead Souls genre as a poem, based on Gogol's high, pathetic lyricism, on the author's promise to show Russia from the other side in the second and third parts and bring out new faces, new heroes.
The appearance of the sensational brochure by K. S. Aksakov “A few words about Gogol’s poem“ The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls ”set before Belinsky the problem of the genre as an expression of the content, ideological meaning and artistic method of Gogol’s work.
K. S. Aksakov argued in his brochure that in Gogol’s poem “the ancient epic rises before us”, that in Gogol’s artistic manner he sees “epic contemplation ... ancient, true, the same as that of Homer”, which can and should to compare Gogol with Homer, that Dead Souls is a poem similar to the Iliad.
Belinsky sharply objected to the comparison of Dead Souls with the Iliad: “In vain did he (the author of the pamphlet) fail to delve into these deeply significant words of Gogol:“ And for a long time it was determined by my wonderful power to go hand in hand with my strange heroes, to look around the whole hugely rushing life, look at it through laughter visible to the world and invisible, unknown to him tears".(1,255). Belinsky now sees the substantiation of the genre in the tone of the depiction of Russian life, in humor, combined with invisible tears, unknown to the world, and in lyricism. Belinsky emphasized the critical pathos of Dead Souls, refuting Aksakov's thoughts about Gogol's supposedly contemplative attitude to the reality he portrays.
In the next book, Notes of the Fatherland, Belinsky again wrote about Dead Souls and again analyzed the question of why Gogol called Dead Souls a poem. The genre of Gogol's work was not yet clear to him. Between the two articles by Belinsky, a review of O. Senkovsky's "Dead Souls" appeared, where he scoffs at the word "poem" in the appendix to "Dead Souls". Belinsky explains these ridicule by the fact that Senkovsky "does not understand the meaning of the word" poem ". As can be seen from his allusions, the poem must certainly glorify the people in the person of their heroes. Perhaps Dead Souls is called a poem in this sense; but it is possible to make some kind of judgment on them in this respect when the other two parts of the poem come out.
These words show Belinsky's reflection on the reasons for Gogol's choice of the genre of the poem for Dead Souls. He still does not refuse to call "Dead Souls" a poem, but now in a very special understanding of this definition, almost equal to a refusal. He wrote that " bye I am ready to accept the word poem in relation to "Dead Souls" as equivalent to the word "creation".
In a review of the second edition of Dead Souls (1846), Belinsky, as always, highly appreciates Gogol's work, but he definitely calls them not a poem, but a novel. In the words cited by Belinsky one can see the recognition of the depth of the living social idea, the significance of the pathos of Dead Souls. But now the recognition of the importance of the main idea makes it possible for Belinsky to definitely call them a novel.
Belinsky finally recognized Gogol's Dead Souls as a social novel, and did not change this recognition in further statements about Dead Souls. In accordance with this historically correct definition of the genre given by Belinsky, it must be admitted that Gogol's title of "Dead Souls" as a poem should be accepted only in a conditional meaning, because the author called a work that does not possess the main features of this genre a poem.
At the beginning of 1847, the article “On the Historical and Literary Opinions of Sovremennik” by Yu.F. Samarin (10.35), who continued the line of Aksakov, Shevyrev and other conservatives and Slavophiles in denying the social significance of Gogol's work. Publicists and critics of the right camp continued to struggle with Belinsky's understanding of the enormous social significance of Dead Souls.
Samarin argued that "Dead Souls" brought reconciliation, i.e., affirmed the socio-political foundations of a feudal state, and thereby muffled the political struggle of the progressive strata of society, disoriented the reader in his desire to "realize himself" and his role, his activity as a citizen and patriot. The point of departure for the views of Belinsky and his opponents was the contrasting conceptions of the Russian historical process. Belinsky recognized the inevitability of changing one social system to another, more progressive one, while his opponents idealized the past, asserted the inviolability of the feudal system.
Belinsky noted the enormous influence of Gogol's works on the further development of the "natural school" towards the creation of a Russian realistic novel. The historicism of Belinsky's thinking led him to define the Dead Souls genre as novel, and this was the victory of the advanced, progressive beginning of Russian life and literature of the middle of the 19th century.
In literature, there are non-traditional and mixed genres, which include those works that, in form and content, do not fit into the framework of the traditional interpretation of a particular kind or genre of literature. In other words, according to various features, they can be attributed to different kinds of literature.
A similar work is Gogol's prose poem Dead Souls. On the one hand, the work is written in prose and has all the necessary components - the presence of the main character, the plot, which is the main character, and the spatio-temporal organization of the text. In addition, like any prose work, Dead Souls is divided into chapters and contains multiple descriptions of other characters. In other words, Gogol's text fully meets the requirements of the epic genre, with the exception of one. Gogol did not just call his text a poem.
The plot of "Dead Souls" is constructed in such a way that we first observe collegiate adviser Chichikov in communication with people of different classes, but most of all with officials of the provincial city of NN and landowners, owners of estates closest to the city. And only when the reader peered into the hero and other characters, realized the meaning of what was happening, he gets acquainted with the biography of the hero.
If the plot was reduced to the story of Chichikov, "Dead Souls" could be called a novel. But the author not only draws people and their relationships - he himself invades the narrative: he dreams, mourns, jokes, addresses the reader, recalls his youth, talks about the hard work of writing. All this creates a special tone of the story.
The ratio of parts in "Dead Souls" is strictly thought out and subject to creative design.
Chapter 1 of the poem is a kind of introduction. The author introduces readers to the main characters: with Chichikov and his constant companions - Petrushka and Selifan, with the landowners Manilov, Nozdrev, Sobakevich. Here is a sketch of the society of provincial officials. Chapters two through six are devoted to the landlords, personifying the "noble" estate of Russia, the "masters of life." In chapters 7-10, the provincial society is masterfully drawn. City leaders, petty officials, ladies "simply pleasant" and "pleasant in all respects" pass in a motley crowd before the reader's mind's eye. Chapter 11 gives a biography of Chichikov, the acquirer of dead souls. The final lines of "Dead Souls" are dedicated to his beloved homeland: Gogol, a patriot, sings of the greatness and strength of Russia.
A significant place in the ideological and compositional structure of the work is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for the poem as a literary genre.
In lyrical digressions, Gogol deals with the most acute, most important social issues. The author's thoughts about the high purpose of man, about the fate of the motherland and people are contrasted with the gloomy pictures of Russian life. Herzen said that “when you read Dead Souls,” “horror overwhelms you; With every step you get stuck, you sink deeper. The lyrical place suddenly revives, illuminates, and is now replaced again by a picture that reminds even more clearly what ditch of hell we are in ... "
Extra-plot, inserted episodes, scenes, pictures, reasonings of the author are organically included in the poem. For example, in Chapter 1 Gogol casually sketches portraits of thin and fat officials. "Alas! Fat people know how to do their business better in this world than thin ones, ”the author writes. In chapter 3, a satirical portrait of a certain ruler of the office is given. Among his subordinates, the ruler is “Prometheus, decisive Prometheus! .. and a little higher than him, such a transformation will take place with Prometheus, which even Ovid will not invent: a fly, even smaller than a fly, is destroyed into a grain of sand!” In chapter 9, Gogol talks about an incident that happened in the village of Vshivaya arrogance. The peasants "demolished from the face of the earth ... the Zemstvo police in the person of the assessor." Chapter 10 contains "The Tale of Captain Kopeikin", an invalid of the Patriotic War of 1812, who arrived in St. Petersburg to ask for "royal mercy". Extra-plot, inserted episodes, portrait sketches and scenes help comprehensive coverage of the life of various social strata of Tsarist Russia, from downtrodden peasants to important dignitaries. The "Dead Souls" reflected the whole country with its good and evil.
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Ideological and artistic originality of the poem "Dead Souls" 1. "Dead Souls" as a realistic work: a) In the author's digression about two types of writers, Gogol formulates the basic principles of artistic realism. Gogol ranks his work as a critical direction, b) The principles of realism in the poem:
historicism Gogol wrote about his own time - approximately the end of the 20s - the beginning of the 30s, during the crisis of serfdom in Russia. Typical characters in typical circumstances. The main trends in the depiction of landlords and officials are satirical description, social typification and a general critical orientation. "Dead Souls" is an everyday work. Particular attention is paid to the description of nature, the estate and the interior, the details of the portrait. Most of the characters are shown statically. Much attention is paid to details, the so-called "mud of small things" (Plyushkin's character). Gogol correlates various plans: universal scales (a lyrical digression about a troika bird) and the smallest details (a description of a trip along extremely bad Russian roads). Means of satirical typing: a) The author's characteristics of the characters, b) Comic situations (for example, Manilov and Chichikov cannot part at the door), c) Appeal to the past of the characters (Chichikov, Plyushkin), d) Hyperbole (the unexpected death of the prosecutor, the extraordinary voracity of Sobakevich), e) Proverbs (“Neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan”), f) Comparisons (Sobakevich is compared with a medium-sized bear, Korobochka is compared with a mongrel in the hay). 2. Genre originality: Calling his work a “poem”, Gogol meant: “a lesser kind of epic ... A prospectus for an educational book of literature for Russian youth. The hero of epics is a private and invisible person, but significant in many respects for observing the human soul. The poem is a genre that goes back to the traditions of the ancient epic, in which a holistic being is recreated in all its contradictions. The Slavophiles insisted on this characterization of "Dead Souls", appealing to the fact that elements of the poem, as a glorifying genre, are also in "Dead Souls" (lyrical digressions). Gogol, in letters to friends, called "Dead Souls" not only a poem, but also a novel. In "Dead Souls" there are features of an adventure-adventure, picaresque, and also a social novel. However, "Dead Souls" is usually not called a novel, since there is practically no love intrigue in the work. 3. Features of the plot and composition: The features of the plot of "Dead Souls" are associated primarily with the image of Chichikov and his ideological and compositional role. Gogol: “The author leads his life through a chain of adventures and changes in order to present at the same time a true picture of everything significant in the features and customs of the time he took ... a picture of shortcomings, abuses, vices”, In a letter to V. Zhukovsky Gogol mentions that he wanted to show "all Russia" in the poem. The poem is written in the form of a journey, the disparate fragments of the life of Russia are united into a single whole. Such is the main compositional role of Chichikov. The independent role of the image is reduced to the description of a new type of Russian life, an entrepreneur-adventurer. In chapter 11, the author gives a biography of Chichikov, from which it follows that the hero uses either the position of an official or the mythical position of a landowner to achieve his goals. The composition is built on the principle of "concentric circles" or "enclosed spaces" (city, estates of landowners, all of Russia). The theme of the motherland and the people: Gogol wrote about his work: "All Russia will appear in it." The life of the ruling class and the common people is given without idealization. Peasants are characterized by ignorance, narrow-mindedness, overcrowding (the images of Petrushka and Selifan, the yard girl Koro-barrels, who does not know where the right is, where the left is, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay, who are discussing whether Chichikov’s britzka will reach Moscow and Kazan ). Nevertheless, the author warmly describes the talent and other creative abilities of the people (a lyrical digression about the Russian language, a characterization of a Yaroslavl peasant in a digression about a troika bird, Sobakevich's register of peasants). Much attention is paid to the popular revolt (the story of Captain Kopeikin) * The theme of the future of Russia is reflected in Gogol's poetic attitude to his homeland (lyrical digressions about Russia and the troika bird). About the second volume of "Dead Souls": Gogol, in the image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo, tried to show a positive ideal. It embodied Gogol's ideas about the harmonious structure of life: rational management, responsible attitude to the business of all those involved in the construction of the estate, the use of the fruits of science. Under the influence of Kostan-Zhoglo, Chichikov had to reconsider his attitude to reality and "correct himself." Sensing in his work a "life lie", Gogol burned the second volume of "Dead Souls". Socio-historical features are inherent in all the heroes of Gogol. The existing social reality left a deep imprint on the characters and views of people of that time. In this work, a whole gallery of moral freaks, types that have become common nouns, is displayed. Gogol consistently depicts landlords, officials and the main character of the poem - the businessman Chichikov. Let us dwell in more detail on the types of landlords. They are all exploiters, sucking the blood out of the serfs. But the five portraits displayed in the work still differ from each other. All of them have not only socio-historical, but also universal human traits and vices. For example, Manilov. He is not just a stupid dreamer, doing nothing, unwilling to work. All his occupations consist of knocking ashes out of pipes onto the window sill or in baseless searchlights about a bridge over a pond and about merchant shops in which all kinds of food for the peasants will be sold. The image of Manilov is a find of Gogol. In Russian literature, he will find a continuation in the work of Goncharov. By the way, both the image of Manilov and the image of Oblomov became a household name. In another chapter, the “club-headed” Korobochka appears, but this image is not so one-sided, as it is customary to write about him in criticism. Nastasya Petrov-na is a kind, hospitable woman (after all, Chichikov gets to her after going astray at night), hospitable. She's not as dumb as people think she is. All her "stupidity" stems from the fact that she is afraid to sell cheap, to sell "dead souls" at a loss. She, rather, fools Chichikov. But the fact that she is practically not surprised at Chichikov's proposal speaks of her unscrupulousness, and not of stupidity. Speaking of landowners, one cannot help but recall another feature generated by the system - this is a thirst for hoarding, profit and deep prudence in all undertakings. Such is Sobakevich. This man, no doubt, is cunning and smart, because he was the first of the landowners to understand why Chichikov was buying up dead souls. He understood and cheated, slipping the female name Elizabeth Sparrow, which he wrote through "er", into the lists of dead peasants. But the thirst for hoarding leads to its absolute opposite - to misery. We see this in Plyushkin, the eternal image of the Miser. Plyushkin turned into an animal, even lost his gender (Chichikov even mistakes him for a woman), became "a hole in humanity." Bureaucratism and autocracy contribute to the appearance in Russia of businessmen like Chichikov, who are ready to go towards their goal over the heads of other, weaker people, to go towards the goal, pushing others with their elbows. This is confirmed by the life story of Chichikov: first he "cheated" his teacher, then the clerk, then his fellow customs officer. Here Gogol shows that the passion for gain kills everything human in a person, corrupts him, mortifies his soul. In the comedy "The Government Inspector" we have the same stupidity, cowardice, dishonesty of the characters. The main character Khlestakov is the personification of spiritual emptiness, fanfare, stupidity. It is like an empty vessel that can be filled with anything. That is why the officials of the county town of N. take him for an important person. They want to see him as an auditor, and he behaves in the way that, according to their concepts, an auditor-bribery should behave. In the image of Khlestakov, Gogol ridicules spiritual emptiness, boasting, the desire to wishful thinking. In the works of Gogol, as we see, not only socio-historical types of people are shown, but also universal human vices: emptiness, stupidity, greed, desire for profit. Gogol's heroes are immortal because human vices are immortal. Features of the genre and composition of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". Artistic Featurespoems. Gogol had long dreamed of writing a work "in which all of Russia would appear." It was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. Such a work was the poem "Dead Souls", written in 1842. The first edition of the work was called "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." Such a name reduced the true meaning of this work, transferred it to the field of an adventure novel. Gogol went for it for censorship reasons in order for the poem to be published. Why did Gogol call his work a poem? The definition of the genre became clear to the writer only at the last moment, since, while still working on the poem, Gogol calls it either a poem or a novel. To understand the features of the genre of the poem "Dead Souls", you can compare this work with the "Divine Comedy" by Dante, a poet of the Renaissance. Her influence is felt in Gogol's poem. The Divine Comedy consists of three parts. In the first part, the shadow of the ancient Roman poet Virgil appears to the poet, which accompanies the lyrical hero to hell, they go through all the circles, a whole gallery of sinners passes before their eyes. The fantasy of the plot does not prevent Dante from revealing the theme of his Motherland - Italy, her fate. In fact. Gogol conceived to show the same circles of hell, but the hell of Russia. No wonder the title of the poem "Dead Souls" ideologically echoes the title of the first part, Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy", which is called "Hell". Gogol, along with satirical denial, introduces an element of glorifying, creative image of Russia. This image is associated with a “high lyrical movement”, which in the poem sometimes replaces the comic narrative. A significant place in the poem "Dead Souls" is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for the poem as a literary genre. In them, Gogol deals with the most pressing social issues in Russia. The author's thoughts about the lofty purpose of man, about the fate of the Motherland and the people are contrasted here with the gloomy pictures of Russian life, So let's go after the hero of the poem. "Dead Souls" by Chichikov N. From the very first pages of the work, we feel the fascination of its plot, since the reader cannot assume that after the meeting of Chichikov with Manilov there will be meetings with Sobakevich and Nozdrev. The reader cannot even guess at the end of the poem, because all its characters are built according to the principle of gradation: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov, if considered as a separate image, cannot be perceived as positive (on the table he has a book open on the same page, and his politeness is feigned: “Let me not allow you to do this”), but, according to Compared with Plyushkin, Manilov in many respects even wins in character traits. But Gogol put the image of the Box in the center of attention, since it is a kind of single beginning of all the characters. According to Gogol, this is a symbol of the "box-man", which contains the idea of ​​an irrepressible thirst for hoarding. The theme of exposing the bureaucracy runs through all of Gogol's work: it stands out both in the Mirgorod collection and in the comedy The Inspector General. In the poem "Dead Souls" it is intertwined with the theme of serfdom. The Tale of Captain Kopeikin occupies a special place in the poem. It is not plot-related to the poem, but is of great importance for revealing the ideological content of the work. The form of the tale gives the story a vital character, it denounces the government. The mcru of "dead souls" in the poem is contrasted with the lyrical image of the people's Russia, about which Gogol writes with love and admiration. Behind the terrible world of landlord and bureaucratic Russia, Gogol felt the soul of the Russian people, which he expressed in the image of a rapidly rushing forward troika, embodying the forces of Russia: So, we settled on what Gogol depicts in his work. He depicts the social disease of society, but one should also dwell on how Gogol manages to do this. First, Gogol uses the techniques of social typification. In the image of the gallery of landowners skillfully combines the general and the individual. Almost all of his characters are static, they do not develop (except for Plyushkin and Chichikov), they are captured by the author as a result. This technique emphasizes once again that all these manilovs, boxes, dogs, Plyushkins are dead souls. To characterize his characters, Gogol also uses his favorite technique - the characterization of a character through a detail. Gogol can be called a "genius of detail", so sometimes the details accurately reflect the character and inner world of the character. What is worth, for example, the description of the estate and the house of Manilov. When Chichikov drove into the Manilov estate, he drew attention to the overgrown English pond, to the rickety arbor, to the dirt and ownerlessness, to the wallpaper in Manilov’s room, either gray or blue, to two chairs covered with matting, up to which do not reach the hands of the owner. All these and many other details bring us to the main characterization made by the author himself: "Neither this nor that, but the devil knows what it is!" Let's remember Plyushkin, this "hole in humanity", who even lost his gender. He goes out to Chichikov in a greasy dressing gown, some inconceivable scarf on his head, desolation, dirt, dilapidation everywhere. Plushkin - an extreme degree of degradation. And all this is transmitted through the detail, through those little things in life that A.S. so admired. Pushkin: “Not a single writer has ever had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so vividly, to be able to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such force so that all that little thing that escapes the eyes would flash big into the eyes of everyone.” The main theme of the poem is the fate of Russia: its past, present and future. In the first volume, Gogol revealed the theme of the past of the motherland. The second and third volumes he conceived were to tell about the present and future of Russia. This idea can be compared with the second and third parts of Dante's Divine Comedy: "Purgatory" and "Paradise". However, these plans were not destined to come true: the second volume turned out to be unsuccessful in principle, and the third was never written. Therefore, Chichikov's trip remained a trip into the unknown. Gogol was at a loss, thinking about the future of Russia: “Rus, where are you rushing to? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer." Author's digressions and their role in the poem "Dead Souls" There are a lot of author's digressions in N.V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". These digressions are quite varied in subject matter and in style. Digressions, organically integrated into the text, help the author touch upon various problems and make the description of officials and landlords more complete. Already in the first chapters of the poem, Gogol raises serious social problems that worried the writers of the first half of the 19th century. One of these problems was women's education. Belinsky mentions the education of women when talking about Tatyana Larina. The same question applies to Gogol. Having said that Manilova was well brought up, Gogol immediately explains what a good education in boarding schools for noble maidens is. The digression is written in a journalistic style. Gogol, with the irony characteristic of his language, describes all sorts of "methods" used in noble boarding schools. What is the difference between these "methods"? It turns out that the difference lies in what comes first: the French language, music or household, that is, the embroidery of various souvenirs. It is this upbringing that causes ruined estates mortgaged to the council of trustees, or estates like Manilovka, where a “happy couple” is engaged in making souvenirs or treating each other with various delicacies, not noticing the poverty and desolation around. Another author's digression is devoted to "thick" and "thin" chips.
newcomers. Of course, the author is not interested here in body weight and human health.
innovations. Gogol in a few, but very bright and expressive lines
outlines the Russian bureaucracy, "Thickness" for the author -showing-
the body is not a strong stomach, but a strong social position. "Thick"
the official is the master of life in Russia. Not only subordinates depend on the Negro
nye, "subtle" officials, but also the nobles, whose affairs are conducted in the offices; and
citizens whose prosperity depends on the will of the "fathers of the city". Entire life
Russia is subordinated precisely to “fat” officials, therefore all their affairs are all
when they are so well arranged, they themselves look flourishing and cheerful
stny. In addition to such a descriptive function, digression gives a social
characterization of Chichikov, about whom Gogol says that he is not too
thick and not too thin. These words about Chichikov show not only
some amorphousness of his image, but also an unsettled social position
zhenie. - , . -. ;;.- (^, In a digression about shades, in addressing depending on wealth, Gogol shows the power that wealth has over the consciousness of a person. the author continues the theme at the end of the poem.When Chichikov returns to the city and a rumor spreads that he is a “millionaire”, Gogol says O: that: what effect does not even the bag of money itself produce, but only the word about a million. the rumor that Chichikov has countless sums of money causes in everyone the desire to be mean and humiliate. There are authorial digressions in every chapter devoted to the landowners. In these digressions, Gogol shows us the typical character, concentrating the most important features of the landowner to whom this chapter. About Manilov, he says that such people are usually called "a person neither this nor that", "neither fish nor meat", "neither in the city of Bogdan nor in the village of Selifan. " In the chapter devoted to Korobochka, the author emphasizes that such type is very common, h then "a statesman even a man" is often "on children the perfect Box comes out, ”then explains the meaning of the nickname: every argument, even the most obvious one, rebounds from such; people, “like a rubber ball from a wall.”: In the same chapter, Gogol draws; In the chapter on Nozdryov, the author notes that the reader has probably seen many such people. The purpose of these digressions is to generalize the image, to show its characteristic features, and also to prove that the derived images are typical, to make them recognizable. Gogol describes landowners as representatives of a whole type, always speaking not about one particular character, but about all such people, using words in the plural. Biographical digressions play a special role in the poem. Biographies Gogol describes only two of the most important characters: Plyushkin and Chichikov. Both heroes stand out from the background of others: Plyushkin - with an extreme degree of moral and physical decay and ugliness, Chichikov - with his extraordinary activity. The function of biographical digressions is to show where such characters come from, what environment can put them forward. We see that Plyushkin and Chichikov emerged from real Russian reality under the influence of new circumstances, new times. Plushkin - an image-warning. It is his biography that testifies to this. Showing Plyushkin's degradation from a zealous and, by the way, hospitable host to a "hole in humanity", Gogol makes almost invisible the line between the capitalism of Sobakevich's economy, his plentiful treats, between the thorough arrangement of Koro-barrels and Plyushkin's moldy roll, a pile of rubbish covered with a thick layer of dust in the middle of his room. In front of us in an indecent dressing gown appears Plyushkin, from whom the neighbors went to learn how to manage. Plyushkin is a symbol of the moribund feudal world, the first signal of the collapse of the landlord-feudal system. Chichikov is a man of the new world. This is a bourgeois businessman. In his social origin, he is close to the "little man", but this is not the "little man" that we are used to seeing him in Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol himself. This man is fighting for a place in the sun, he is extremely active, and in his activity he pushes back the moldy world of the landlords and deceives the bureaucracy, making his way "from dirt to princes." This hero, who whimsically combines bribery and scrupulousness, embezzlement and honesty, obsequiousness and inflexibility, was an ugly product of the life of Gogol's Russia. It is for him in the 40s of the XIX century that the future remains, which seems to the author dark and bleak. Chichikov's biography is especially important because it paints a voluminous, complete picture of Russian reality, denouncing servility, bribery, embezzlement of the bureaucracy. The system of education, which is unable to give students knowledge, and the theft of customs officials, and the complete impunity of those who have money, are vividly described, which speaks of the injustice of bribed courts. Of course, Gogol was aware that not everyone would like a true story. Therefore, digressions about writers appear in the book. The writer's language changes dramatically, irony disappears in these reasoning, other notes appear, "tears invisible to the world." The most important digression here is in the seventh chapter, where Gogol speaks of two types of writers. We see that the writer does not deceive himself about the reaction of readers to his book. He compares himself to a lonely traveler whom no one will meet at home, whom no one is happy about. Here, for the first time, the image of the road appears as a human life. Before Gogol, life lies like a hard path, full of hardships, at the end of which cold, uncomfortable loneliness awaits him. However, the writer does not consider his path to be aimless, he is full of awareness of his duty to the Motherland. The theme of patriotism and writer's duty is further developed at the very end of the poem, where Gogol explains why he considers it necessary to show evil and denounce vices. As proof, the author cites a story about Kif Mokievich and Mokiya Kifovich, where he exposes those writers who do not want to draw harsh reality, deducing ideal, non-existent pictures, those writers who “turned a virtuous person into a horse, and there is no writer who would not ride him, urging him on with a whip, and with everything that came across. And if in a digression in the seventh chapter, Gogol only shows such writers carried by the crowd in their arms, then in the image of Kifa Mokievich he warns of the harm these authors bring by hushing up the dark sides of life. Digressions about Russia and the people are closely connected with this theme of writer's duty and patriotism. Gogol's language here acquires a new, special shade, and optimistic notes are often heard in it. In a digression about language, Gogol is amazed at the accuracy of the folk word, its wealth. Folk speech sounds especially bright in contrast with the language of the provincial society, to which a digression is also dedicated, which completes the picture of the city. Gogol caustically ridicules the ladies who pretentiously speak Yao-Russian, fearing at least the slightest rude word, but in French they use much harsher expressions. Against such a background, the cheerful, sincere word of the people sounds especially fresh. We see a complete picture of the life of the peasants in a digression dedicated to the fate of the serfs bought by Chichikov. The people do not appear ideal to the reader, talent and diligence are sometimes combined with drunkenness and dishonesty. There are tragic fates, like those of Stepan Cork, and free ones, like those of Abakum Fyrov. The poverty and darkness of the people oppress Gogol, and the retreat is somewhat sad. However, Gogol believes in Russia. In the chapter devoted to Plyushkin, she appears before us in a digression describing the landowner's garden. Muffled by hops, the abandoned garden continues to live, and young greenery is shown everywhere in it. In this new growth, is the writer's hope for a better future. The poem ends on an optimistic note. The image of the road reappears at the end, but this road is no longer the life of one person, but the fate of the entire Russian state. Russia itself is embodied in the image of a troika bird flying into the future. And although the question: “Rus, where are you rushing?” - the author does not find an answer, he is confident in Russia, because, "looking askance, step aside and give her way to other peoples and states." So, we see that the author's digressions help Gogol to create a complete picture of the reality of Russia, turning the book into a real "encyclopedia of Russian life" in the middle of the 19th century. It is the digressions where the writer not only draws scenes of life of various strata of the Russian population, but also expresses his thoughts; thoughts and hopes allow the author's intention to be realized. - “All Russia has appeared”: in this: the work is complete. ,