Features of Gogol's prose. Artistic features in the work of Gogol

Narrative features in N.V. Gogol's story "The Overcoat"

FEATURES OF NARRATORY IN N.V. GOGOL
"OVERCOAT"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
1. Historical reference 4
2. Features of the disclosure of the idea of ​​the story 5
3. Narrative Features 6
4. The image of a "significant person" in story 9
CONCLUSION 12
REFERENCES 13
INTRODUCTION
Among the remarkable figures of Russian and world culture, a place of honor belongs to Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. ingenious master poetic word, he created great works that captivate with the depth and truthfulness of their images, the power of creative generalization of life, and artistic perfection.
It is known that the works of great writers, in terms of the depth of content, the meaning of artistic images, go far beyond the historical time when they appeared. The largest artistic creations live for centuries and millennia, arousing the interest of many generations of readers, giving them aesthetic pleasure. This happens because creative generalizations outstanding artists words illuminate universal problems, help people of different historical periods understand many very dissimilar phenomena of life.
Each new era judges the writer in its own way, perceiving in his work close to her artistic principles. The historical existence of literary phenomena is very complex. Here often periods of wide interest in the writer, his works are replaced by decades and even centuries of a decrease or extinction of interest in them. With all that, over time, there is a process of gradual disclosure of the artistic potential of classical works. In the emergence of this potential, the decisive role belongs to the talent, the individuality of the artist, his connections with reality. That is why finding out the place of the writer in the movement of life, in the development of society and literature is very important not only for understanding his originality, but also for clarifying the fate of his work. Ignoring the historical approach to the artistic heritage gives rise to subjectivism, all sorts of arbitrary judgments and "concepts".
1. Historical background
The idea of ​​"The Overcoat" first arose in Gogol in 1834 under the impression of a clerical anecdote about a poor official who, at the cost of incredible efforts, fulfilled his old dream of buying a hunting rifle and lost this gun on the very first hunt. Everyone laughed at the joke, says P. V. Annenkov in his memoirs. But in Gogol, this story caused a completely different reaction. He listened to her and bowed his head thoughtfully. This anecdote sunk deep into the soul of the writer, and it served as an impetus for the creation of one of the best works of Gogol.
Work on The Overcoat began in 1839 abroad and was roughly completed in the spring of 1841. Initially, the story was called "The Tale of the Official Stealing the Overcoat."
"The Overcoat" occupies a special place in the cycle of St. Petersburg stories. Popular in the 1930s, the story of an unfortunate, needy official was embodied by Gogol in a work of art, which Herzen called "colossal".
With his story, Gogol first of all dissociated himself from the development of a plot about a poor official, which was characteristic of the reactionary writers of the 30s, and was their target for ridicule and vulgar scoffing. The polemical address was indicated by Gogol quite clearly: Bashmachkin "was what is called the eternal titular adviser, over whom, as you know, they worked hard and sharpened enough various writers who have a commendable habit of attacking those who cannot bite."
2. Features of the disclosure of the idea of ​​the story
"The Overcoat", like Gogol's other stories about humiliated person, is in succession with Pushkin's "Station Master". Based on the creative experience of Pushkin, Gogol created deeply original artistic generalizations in St. Petersburg stories. The author's focus stationmaster"there was an image of sharp clashes of a" small "man with nobles, the mighty of the world this, clashes that resulted in the collapse of the hero's happiness. Gogol more broadly reflected the social inequality of "small" people, showing not only their defenselessness, but also the harsh struggle for everyday existence. Gogol's depiction of the life fate of the heroes is inextricably merged with the disclosure of constant social oppression, which, dooming the "little" person to suffering, mercilessly disfigures him, erasing the living human individuality.
That deep drama that is imbued with "The Overcoat" is revealed, on the one hand, in the depiction of the ordinary and-on the other-in showing the "shocks" of the hero. On this internal clash, the development of the plot in the story is built primarily. "That's how it went peaceful life a man who, with four hundred salaries, knew how to be satisfied with his lot, and would have reached, perhaps, to a ripe old age, if there weren’t various disasters scattered on the road of life, not only titular, but even secret, real, court and all sorts of advisers. The story about the acquisition of an overcoat is everyday life, revealed in its dramatic tension.An ordinary, ordinary phenomenon appears in the form of a "disaster"; an insignificant event, as in a focus, concentrates a reflection of the essential aspects of reality.
The tension and drama of these clashes make the ending of the story organic, into which the author introduces fantasy. Fiction in "The Overcoat" is a necessary element of revealing the main idea of ​​the story.
3. Characteristic features of the narrative
"The Overcoat" is one of those works in which the writer resorts to the method of narration on behalf of the narrator. But the narrator in The Overcoat is not at all like Rudy Panka, who carries with him a special, sharply expressed manner of narration; he does not look like the narrator from the story about the quarrel, which is distinguished by its bright "characteristic". In "The Overcoat" the narrator is not brought to the fore, but at the same time this image is clearly felt in the story. “Where exactly the inviting official lived, unfortunately, we cannot say; memory is beginning to change us greatly, and everything that is in Petersburg, all the streets and houses have merged and mixed up so much in the head that it is very difficult to get something decent from there. form". While retaining the features of some external innocence, the narrator in "The Overcoat" is far from the "spontaneity" of narrators belonging to the patriarchal world.
"The Overcoat" is by no means written in the manner of a tale; nevertheless, in a number of places, Gogol subtly notes the linguistic features of the narrator: "... Akaky Akakievich was born against the night, if only memory serves, on March 23 ... Mother was still lying on the bed opposite the door, but right hand there was a godfather, a most excellent man, Ivan Ivanovich Eroshkin, who served as a head clerk in the senate, and a godfather, the wife of a district officer, a woman of rare virtues, Arina Semyonovna Belobryubyakova ";" in this state, Petrovich usually very willingly yielded and agreed, every time he even bowed and thanked. Then, it is true, the wife would come, crying that her husband was drunk and that's why he got it so cheaply; but you used to add one dime, and it's all in the bag."
The image of the narrator carries a clearly expressed sympathy for the humble, common man. Along with this, the writer, in separate episodes of the narrative, expresses in a direct, immediate form his attitude towards the hero of the work. This determines the lyric-pathetic stream of the story, which is revealed both in the words about the cruel "inhumanity" and in reflections in connection with the death of Akaky Akakievich ("the creature disappeared and disappeared").
Creating "The Overcoat", Gogol relied on his enormous creative achievements in the use of wealth vernacular. Unlike a number of his other works, the writer in this story almost did not turn to a pictorial and concrete description of life, the "environment" of the hero, which made it possible to clearly outline his psychological appearance. The most important creative task that Gogol set himself in "The Overcoat" was, first of all, to convexly show the microscopic world of the humiliated hero, and then to characterize the relationship of the repressed person with those around him. social world. Consistently carrying out this creative task, Gogol achieved an amazing concentration of verbal expression, extraordinary accuracy artistic word. “There, in this rewriting, he saw some kind of his own diverse and pleasant world. Pleasure was expressed on his face;
some letters he had favorites, to which if he got to me, he was not himself: he laughed, and winked, and helped with his lips, so that in his face, it seemed, one could read every letter that his pen drew.
The richness and accuracy of Gogol's metaphor is an integral feature of the description of the actions of the hero, the events of his life. “Akaky Akakievich for some time began to feel that he was somehow especially strongly baked in his back and shoulder, despite the fact that he tried to run across the legal space as soon as possible. He finally thought if there were any sins in his overcoat Having examined her carefully at home, he discovered that in two or three places, namely on the back and on the shoulders, she became an exact sickle. An aptly found word, an expressive metaphor very often seems to sum up a whole narrative episode. “He returned home in the happiest mood, threw off his overcoat and hung it carefully on the wall, admiring once again the cloth and lining, and then purposely pulled out, for comparison, his old hood, completely spread out. He looked at him, and he even laughed : such was the difference! And for a long time later at dinner he kept smiling, as soon as the position in which the hood was located came to his mind.
Describing the real place of the hero in public life, his attitude to reality, the writer widely uses the method of internal comparisons, which becomes the organizing principle in the construction of the sentence itself, in the selection of its lexical composition. “If rewards were given to him in proportion to his zeal, he, to his amazement, perhaps even would have ended up in state councilors; but he served, as the wits, his comrades, put a buckle in his buttonhole and acquired hemorrhoids in the lower back.”
Internal mappings in narrative speech"Overcoats" are distinguished by great diversity, they are built on the collision of the imaginary and the real, the sublime and the prosaic. "Fire sometimes showed in his eyes, even the most daring and courageous thoughts flashed through his head: maybe put a marten on his collar." Or: "Thanks to the generous help of the Petersburg climate, the disease went faster than expected, and when the doctor appeared, he, feeling his pulse, found nothing to do but prescribe a poultice, the only thing already so that the patient would not be left without a beneficent medical assistance
The use of internal comparisons in the structure of a sentence or a whole group of sentences is often combined with underlining, "playing" on one stressed word. If Akaky Akakiyevich looked at anything, he saw his clean lines written out in even handwriting on everything, and only if, from nowhere coming from, the horse’s muzzle was placed on his shoulder and blowing a whole wind into his cheek with his nostrils, then he only noticed that he's not in the middle of the line, but rather in the middle of the street."
4. The image of a "significant person" in the story
Gogol brilliantly uses the "play" of words for the expressive characterization of heroes, phenomena of social reality. In this sense, the disclosure of various semantic shades of the word "significant", which appears in the description of a "significant person", is very interesting. “You need to know that one significant person recently became a significant person, and before that time he was an insignificant person. However, his place was not considered significant even now in comparison with others, even more significant. But there will always be such a circle of people for whom the insignificant in in the eyes of others, there is already significant. However, he tried to increase the significance by many other means. Mapping in different connections"significant" with "insignificant" gives an ironic character to the story about a high-ranking person.
For satirical purposes, Gogol with great skill combines seemingly mutually exclusive semantic meanings of words and achieves a remarkable effect. "The police made an order to catch the dead man, by all means, alive or dead, and punish him, as an example to others, in the most severe way." Permanent Formula zealots of order about the capture and punishment of the guilty appears here in its comic absurdity.
The image of a "significant person" shows the cruelty of representatives of power and law. Drawing the insults to which Akaky Akakievich was subjected in the department, Gogol showed "how much inhumanity there is in man, how much ferocious rudeness is hidden in refined and educated secularism."
Gogol creates a satirically generalized type of person - a representative of the bureaucratic power of Russia. His position is not essential, this is the boss in general. The way it behaves with Bashmachkin, all "significant persons" behave.
The scene at the general's is the ideological culmination of the story. Here, the social tragedy of the "little man" in the conditions of autocratic Russia is shown with the greatest force.
It is characteristic that Gogol does not even give a name to this hero of his. Unlike Bashmachkin and Petrovich, the “significant person” is depicted with satirical colors: “The methods and customs of a significant person were solid and majestic, but not polysyllabic. and at last word he usually looked very significantly into the face of the one to whom he spoke ... His usual conversation with the lower ones resounded with severity and consisted of almost three phrases: "How dare you? Do you know with whom you are talking? Do you understand who is standing in front of you?"
In his relations with the "lower ones", in his social practice, the "significant person" expresses the prevailing "norms"; his personal qualities do not play at the same time in any way significant role. "He was in the shower a kind person, good with comrades, helpful ...", "but as soon as he happened to be in a society where there were people at least one rank lower than him, there he was just at least out of hand."
The personification of brute and brutal force, the "significant person" cares only about the inviolability of the "foundations", that there is not even a hint of free thought. Bashmachkin's appeal to a "significant person" for help arouses the wrath of a high-ranking person. When Bashmachkin timidly remarks: "... I dared to bother Your Excellency because the secretaries of that ... unreliable people ..." - a storm of indignation falls upon him. “What, what, what?” said a significant person. “Where did you get such a spirit from? where did you get such thoughts from? what kind of rampage has spread among young people against bosses and superiors!”
Very strong impression, which produces this scolding of Bashmachkin, causes the complete satisfaction of the "significant person". He is intoxicated with the thought that "his word can even deprive a person of feelings."
Scenes depicting a "significant person" expand and generalize the impact of the social order that predetermined the course of Akaky Akakievich's entire life and led him to his death. One of the editions of the "Overcoat" contains the following lines: "But we, however, completely ignored main reason of all misfortune, namely a significant person. "Undoubtedly, this place was modified by the writer under the pressure of censorship requirements, in the printed text it acquired a different edition. "But we, however, completely left one significant person, who, really, is hardly was not the cause of a fantastic direction, however, of a completely true story.
Bashmachkin's meeting with a "significant person" is shown in "The Overcoat" as a clash not with a bad person, but with the "usual" order, with constant practice"those in power". Bashmachkin suffers not from the inhumanity of individual people, but from the lack of rights in which he is placed by his social standing. Depicting a "little" person in the "Overcoat", Gogol acted as great humanist. His humanism was not abstract and contemplative, but active, social character. The writer defended the rights of those people who are deprived of them in society. The words "I am your brother" were a reflection of the ideas of social justice, social equality.
Akaky Akakievich is drawn by a man who dutifully bears his heavy cross in life without raising his voice of protest against the cruelties of society. Bashmachkin is a victim who is unaware of the tragedy of his situation, who does not think about the possibility of a different life. In the original version of the epilogue of the story, the writer bitterly noted the resignation to fate, the resignation of Bashmachkin. "A creature disappeared and disappeared, protected by no one and dear to no one, not interesting to anyone, not even turning the gaze of a natural observer on itself and only dutifully enduring clerical ridicule and never in all his life uttered a murmur at his fate and did not know Is there a better fate in the world?
The "humility" of the hero of "The Overcoat" by no means signified Gogol's reconciliation with reality. Showing the hero as an uncomplaining victim of society, the writer expressed his bold protest against the social order.
CONCLUSION
Based on the principles of realism and democratic humanism, Gogol's artistic works had a huge impact on the development of public self-consciousness, the spiritual culture of Russia and other countries. His work was a significant effective factor in the growth of advanced social thought.
Gogol's literary activity was characterized by ideological and creative contradictions, especially strong in the last period of his life. These contradictions have often been used and are used in our time in order to interpret the life and literary path of Gogol, his artistic heritage in a spirit of open conservatism. However, this kind of interpretation comes into irreconcilable conflict with the truth. The main direction of Gogol's creative activity had as its source not false views, which in one way or another affected his works, but progressive, emancipatory ideas, so clearly expressed in them. It was not prejudices and delusions that determined the content, the essence of the writer's creative creations, but their deep vital truth, remarkable artistic discoveries made by him.
Gogol's realistic masterpieces are a major contribution to the treasury of Russian and world literature. The artistic generalizations created by the writer have become the property of all progressive mankind and arouse the keenest interest of readers. various nationalities. Gogol boldly asserted new creative principles, which had a wide influence on literature, received their further development in the works of outstanding Russian writers and writers of other countries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Mashinsky S. Art world Gogol. M. : "Enlightenment", 1971
2. N.V. Gogol: History and Modernity: On the 175th Anniversary of the Birth / Comp. V.V. Kozhinov, E.I. Osetrov, P.G. Palamarchuk. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1985.
3. Khrapchenko M. B. Nikolai Gogol. literary path. greatness of the writer. - M. Sovremennik, 1984.

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INTRODUCTION

Fundamentally important role in the formation Human XXI century, which will participate in the development of a civilized community of people, plays literature as a special kind of art. It fills the spiritual niche, being responsible for the inner needs of the individual. It is literature that forms an individual capable of solving creative problems, striving for a search. Accordingly, the requirement for the reader, the quality of reading, increases. As is known, reading activity- this is the ability to "collect an imaginary whole of meaning without eliminating its complexity and without moving away from it" (H.L. Borges).

Creativity N.V. Gogol, numerous literary studies have been devoted to, significant methodological experience has been accumulated, diverse in interpretations and ways of comprehending the material. However, schoolchildren, being in search of " final meaning"," integrity ", still face one motive of mystery, penetrating all the texts of N.V. Gogol.

The aesthetic, poetic complexity of the artistic world of the writer of the 19th century creates meaningful and stylistic barriers when reading, without overcoming which it is impossible to comprehend the "paradoxes" of N.V. Gogol, full of contradictions and charm inner world. The stylistic imbalance, the metaphorical nature of Gogol's writing, first of all, alert students, amuse, and sometimes cause protest and a feeling of rejection.

This term paper is the study of methods for analyzing the characters of the play by N.V. Gogol "Inspector"

1. Explore educational literature on this topic.

2. Analyze the problem of the play "The Government Inspector".

3. Consider and characterize the characters of the play "The Government Inspector".

4. Draw conclusions on the topic studied and make recommendations.

5. Draw up an outline of a literature lesson in grade 8 based on the play "The Inspector General"

The study of the artistic features of the writer V.N. Gogol

Characteristics of the features of N.V. Gogol in the works of Russian scientists

The appearance of Gogol's work was historically natural. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Russian literature faced new, major tasks. The rapidly developing process of the disintegration of serfdom and absolutism evoked in the advanced strata of Russian society an increasingly persistent, passionate search for a way out of the crisis, awakened the idea of ​​further ways of Russia's historical development. Gogol's work reflected the growing dissatisfaction of the people with the feudal system, their awakening revolutionary energy, their desire for a different, more perfect reality. Belinsky called Gogol "one of the great leaders" of his country "on the path of consciousness, development, progress."

Gogol's art arose on the foundation that was erected before him by Pushkin. In "Boris Godunov" and "Eugene Onegin", " The Bronze Horseman"And" The Captain's Daughter "the writer made greatest discoveries. The amazing skill with which Pushkin reflected the fullness of contemporary reality and penetrated the secrets of the spiritual world of his heroes, the insight with which he saw in each of them a reflection of the real processes of social life, the depth of his historical thinking and the greatness of his humanistic ideals - all these facets of his personality and his work, Pushkin discovered new era in the development of Russian literature, realistic art.

Gogol was convinced that in the conditions of contemporary Russia, the ideal and beauty of life can be expressed, first of all, through the denial of ugly reality. This was exactly what his work was, this was the originality of his realism [Mashinsky S.I. Artistic world of Gogol - M.: Enlightenment, p.5.].

Of all the variety of literature about Gogol created by Russian writers (immigrants of the first wave), the most significant are the books of K.N. Mochulsky " spiritual path Gogol ”(1934), professor protopresbyter V.V. Zenkovsky “N.V. Gogol" (1961) and V.V. Nabokov "Nikolai Gogol" (1944).

They largely determined Gogol's thought not only in the West, but also in Russia. Along with these studies, there are a number of less voluminous works that also contributed to the study of the life and work of the great Russian writer. These are the works of S.L. Frank, Archpriest G.V. Florovsky, I.A. Ilyina, D.M. Chizhevsky, P.M. Bitsilli, V.N. Ilyin. Let us also name the publications of V.K. Zaitsev, V.F. Khodasevich, A.M. Remizova, G.I. Gazdanova, G.A. Meyer, Yu.P. Annenkova, A.L. Bema, R.V. Pletnev, Abbot Konstantin (Zaitsev) - articles in which there are observations useful for the science of Gogol. It should be noted that almost all those who wrote about Gogol in exile as one of the most important sources used the book by V. Veresaev "Gogol in Life" (1933), which, for all its merits, does not contain documents in the necessary completeness [Voropaev V. Gogol in criticism of Russian emigration. - p.19.].

As the basis of his research “The Spiritual Path of Gogol” (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1934; 2nd ed., 1976; reprinted in the book: Mochulsky K. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. - M., 1995) K. V. Mochulsky put the words of the writer, expressed in a letter to his mother in 1844: "Try to see me better as a Christian and a person than a writer." Considering Gogol not only a great artist, but also a teacher of morality, a Christian ascetic, Mochulsky sets the goal of his research to evaluate the religious feat of the writer. Speaking about Gogol's childhood, the author makes a number of remarks concerning, first of all, the features of his spiritual appearance. “Gogol did not belong to those chosen ones who are born with love for God,” writes Mochulsky, “the patriarchal religiosity surrounding his childhood remained alien and even hostile to him. Faith had to come to him in a different way, not from love, but from fear ”(K. Mochulsky“ Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky ”). From this position, the researcher concludes: “In the soul of Gogol, the experience of cosmic horror and the elemental fear of death are primary ...” [Voropaev V. Gogol in criticism of Russian emigration. - p.18.]

Gogol's work is socially conditioned. His views were formed among the small landed nobles, oppressed both “from above” and “from below”: “from above” - by large feudal lords, who treated their almost ruined brothers in class arrogantly, and sometimes simply mockingly (remember Pushkin, his Dubrovsky and Troekurov). From here, "from above," the formidable new industry of some kind was approaching the ill-fated small landowners. But there, "above", in the public sphere, which is difficult to access for a small landowner, high education was also concentrated, the treasures of world philosophy and world art were mastered there. Pushkin's Troyekurov labored there, but there, even higher up, were the princes Trubetskoy, the princes Volkonsky - the leaders of the Decembrists. The petty landowner peered into the life of the "tops" inquisitively, and preoccupied, and with apprehension, and with a natural desire to learn from these "tops" the best that they possessed, to compete with them on an equal footing. And "from below" - the peasants, whose grumbling in different forms and to varying degrees disturbed him, frightened him or pushed him to naive attempts to reconcile everyone and everything [Turbin V.N. Heroes of Gogol. - Moscow "Enlightenment", 1983. - p.22.].

But even the small landowner was indispensable to our history; and this necessity arose precisely from the intermediate nature of his position in society. Staying, so to speak, "at the bottom of the tops", he lived "at the top of the bottoms". Be that as it may, the rays of spiritual wealth that the “tops” possessed reached him. At the same time, the small landowner, unlike his brother, the city dweller, the aristocrat, communicated with the people directly, daily. Voice of the people, testaments folk thought were not an abstraction for him. The people in his eyes appeared in the person of those 20-30 "souls" who fed him and whom he fed in any way, who made up his fortune and for whom he was responsible to himself and to the empire. The complex agricultural cycle, the annual and daily cycle of the sun, bad weather or a bucket and the hopes and tragedies associated with them - all this the small landowner experienced in the same way as the people experienced from time immemorial. Proximity to the primordial and original in human life made his world very simple. In this simplicity, a remarkable spiritual strength was laid down [Turbin V.N. Heroes of Gogol.- M.: Enlightenment, 1983.-p.23.].

The more complexities around us, the closer Gogol is to us. The clearer is the beauty and depth of its simplicity, which becomes more relevant every day.

The original family. Happiness to those who have it big and friendly; bad for those who don't have it. But even if for some reason it doesn’t exist, some, albeit the smallest, family that arose and then disappeared, unable to save itself, gave birth to us. And around us are families: in nature, in society. And we simply cannot help but think of ourselves as part of a family.

Finally, our neighbor is original. It is primordial even now, because the neighbor accompanies us from the place of birth to the place of our last rest: we were barely born, and this and that was already placed next to us, and this was our first neighbor, then involuntarily forgotten by us. And in our conscious life? Friendship of neighbors, enmity between them, love of a neighbor for a neighbor. The neighborhood of schoolboys in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, the mournful neighborhood of prisoners in the tsarist prisons and fortresses, the wary neighborhood of landlords in different-sized landholdings, the neighborhood of peasants in the countryside - an innumerable tangle of neighborhoods. Neighborhood is also a concrete historical phenomenon, the social content here is very variable; but the very fact of neighborhood, the very necessity of it for a person has an enduring character. [Ibid., p.34.]

IN everyday life laughter lives in different qualities. When a person commits himself to the life of the spirit, "laughter dies in him." Art is a matter of the soul. Gogol is “permeated with sincerity” not only in works of art, but also when it concerns “moral-religious issues”. He has at his disposal two main means - "fantasy and laughter." Rushing towards the spiritual, Gogol tears "the framework of art, not fitting into them." There is a "duel between the 'poet' and the 'moralist'". Gogol's laughter is carefree, Gogol's fantasy is carefree. But how much it already contains and how much even this laughter and this fantasy teach. In terms of soul, Gogol's laughter already partly possesses "great religious and moral power, invariably greater than Gogol's fantasy." Explaining The Inspector General, Gogol reduces the strength of the "learning" of his laughter, giving it the functions of a "religiously colored supreme moral court." In the Church-Christian consciousness, the role of satire and laughter is negligible. “Human art, no matter how convincingly it speaks of the heavenly, no matter how attractively it depicts, remains earthly. At best, it only leads a person to the spiritual world.” Gogol “brings the vulgarity of life he observed to the limit - and reconciles the reader with it. At least - while the reader is under the spell of his artistic gift. ”[ Voropaev V. Gogol in criticism of Russian emigration. - p.19.]

There is a completely natural logic in how the assessment of Gogol's works has changed historically. At the first stage of the functioning of works, the subject of discussion, debate and even struggle (democratic and aesthetic criticism) becomes what distinguishes the text from the background of generally accepted literary norms, and at the same time - the question of the right of creativity to recognition, to a certain niche in literary space. At the next stage, the attention of readers moves to another plane: aspects of the correlation of creativity with real life(gallery of recreated types, positions of heroes, meaning of conflicts). At the same time aroused interest art form, features of language, style. The complexity, integrity of the artistic structure of the work was clarified: genre, stylistic specificity. [ Esin A.B. Principles and methods of analysis literary work. - M.: Vlados, 1998.- p.112.

Composition

Gogol began his creative activity like a romantic. However, he turned to critical realism, discovered in it new chapter. As a realist artist, Gogol developed under the noble influence of Pushkin, but was not a simple imitator of the founder of new Russian literature.

The originality of Gogol was that he was the first to give the broadest image of the county landowner-bureaucratic Russia and the "little man", a resident of St. Petersburg corners.

Gogol was a brilliant satirist who scourged the "vulgarity of a vulgar person", exposing to the utmost the social contradictions of contemporary Russian reality.

The social orientation of Gogol is also reflected in the composition of his works. The plot and plot conflict in them are not love and family circumstances, and the events public interest. At the same time, the plot serves only as an excuse for a broad depiction of everyday life and the disclosure of characters-types.

Deep insight into the essence of the main socio-economic phenomena of his contemporary life allowed Gogol, a brilliant artist of the word, to draw images of enormous generalizing power.

For the purposes of the bright satirical image Heroes are served by Gogol's careful selection of many details and their sharp exaggeration. So, for example, portraits of the heroes of "Dead Souls" were created. These details in Gogol are mostly everyday: things, clothes, housing of heroes. If in romantic stories Gogol are given underlined scenic landscapes, giving the work a certain elation of tone, then in his realistic works, especially in “ Dead souls”, the landscape is one of the means of describing the types, characteristics of the heroes. The subject, social orientation and ideological coverage of the phenomena of life and the characters of people determined the originality literary speech Gogol. The two worlds depicted by the writer - the folk collective and the "existents" - determined the main features of the writer's speech: his speech is enthusiastic, imbued with lyricism when he talks about the people, about the homeland (in "Evenings ...", in "Taras Bulba ", V digressions"Dead Souls"), then it becomes close to live colloquial (in everyday paintings and scenes of "Evenings ..." or in narratives about bureaucratic-landowner Russia).

The originality of Gogol's language lies in the wider use of common language, dialectisms, and Ukrainianisms than that of his predecessors and contemporaries.

Gogol loved and subtly felt folk colloquial speech, skillfully applied all its shades to characterize his heroes and phenomena of public life.

The character of a person, his social status, profession - all this is unusually clearly and accurately revealed in the speech of Gogol's characters.

The strength of Gogol the stylist is in his humor. In his articles on Dead Souls, Belinsky showed that Gogol's humor "consists in opposition to the ideal of life with the reality of life." He wrote: "Humor is the most powerful tool of the spirit of negation, which destroys the old and prepares the new."

Since the end of the 20s. a number of journal articles and individual books appear on issues of Russian, Ukrainian and Slavic ethnography, and editions of monuments are published one after another folk art: "Little Russian Songs" by M. A. Maksimovich (1827-1834), "Zaporozhye Antiquity" Revised. Iv. Sreznevsky (1834, 1835, and 1838), the three-volume Tales of the Russian People by I. P. Sakharov (1836-1837) and many others. etc. At the same time, the “Collection of Russian Songs” by Peter Kireevsky, published later, was being prepared.

In line with this still emerging ethnographic movement, Gogol finds himself as an artist, creates and publishes his first narrative cycle, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.

Gogol was born and raised in Ukraine and until the end of his life he considered it his micro-homeland, and himself a Russian writer with a “Khokhlatsky” leaven.

Coming from the medium of the middle-class Ukrainian nobility, he knew well its rural and urban life, from a young age was burdened by the provincial-serf "poverty" and "earthlyness" of this life, admired the folk-poetic traditions of the "Cossack antiquity", which then lived not only among the people, but also revered in some "old-world" noble families, including in the house of a noble and highly educated distant relative future writer - D. P. Troshchinsky, an ardent admirer and collector of Ukrainian "old times".

"Evenings" amazed contemporaries with its incomparable originality, poetic freshness and brightness. Pushkin’s review is known: “... everyone was delighted with this lively description of a singing and dancing tribe, this fresh pictures Little Russian nature, this cheerfulness, simple-hearted and at the same time crafty.

How amazed we were at the Russian book that made us laugh, we who have not laughed since the time of Fonvizin! The mention of Fonvizin is not accidental. This is a hint that the simple-hearted gaiety of "Evenings" is not as simple-minded as it might seem at first glance.

Belinsky, who greeted Belkin's Tale very coldly, greeted Evenings, also - and earlier than Pushkin - noting in them a combination of "gaiety, poetry and folk."

"Merry nationality" sharply distinguished "Evenings" from the usual naturalistic depiction of the serf life of the Russian and Ukrainian villages in the so-called "common people" stories of that time, in which Belinsky rightly saw a profanation of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bnationality.

Gogol happily avoided this danger and did not fall into the other extreme - the idealization of "folk mores", finding a completely new angle of their image. It can be called mirror reflection poetic, life-affirming consciousness of the people themselves. The “living”, in Pushkin’s words, “description of the singing and dancing tribe” is literally woven from the motifs of Ukrainian folklore, drawn from its various genres - heroic-historical “dooms”, lyrical and ritual songs, fairy tales, anecdotes, crib comedies.

This is the artistic authenticity of the cheerful and poetic people of Gogol's first narrative cycle. But his poetic world is permeated with a hidden longing for the former Zaporizhzhya liberty of the enslaved, like all the "tribes" of the Russian Empire, the "Dikan Cossacks", which forms the epic beginning and the ideological unity of all the stories included in it.

Romantically bright in its national coloring, the poetic world of "Evenings" is devoid of another obligatory attribute of the romantic epic - historical, temporal locality. historical time each story has its own, special, sometimes definite, and in some cases, for example, in May Night, conditional. But thanks to this, the national character (according to the philosophical and historical terminology of the 1930s and 1940s, the “spirit”) of the Cossack tribe appears in Evenings from the side of its ideal, invariably beautiful essence.

Its immediate reality is the linguistic consciousness of the people in all the stories of the cycle. The predominantly verbal characterization of the characters gives the fantastic style of "Evenings" the "pictorial style" previously unknown to Russian prose, noted by Belinsky, and belongs to the number of Gogol's most promising innovations.

A tale is a means of delimiting the author's speech from the speech of his characters, in "Evenings" - from popular vernacular, which thereby becomes both a means and an object. artistic image. Russian prose knew nothing of the kind before Gogol's Evenings.

The stylistic norm of the colloquial element of "Evenings" is rustic innocence, under the mask of which lies the abyss of "Khokhlatsky" cheerful slyness and mischief. In combination with one another, the whole comedy of "Evenings" is concluded, mainly verbal, motivated by the artistic fiction of their "publisher", "beekeeper" Rudy Pank, and a number of storytellers related to him.

The preface to Evenings, written on behalf of Rudy Panok, characterizes their "publisher" as the bearer of the speech norm, not by the author, but by his storytellers and heroes. And this norm remains unchanged in all stories of the cycle, which also emphasizes the constancy of the fundamental properties national character"Dikan Cossacks" in all historical circumstances.

So, for example, vernacular, and thus spiritual appearance characters of the "Sorochinsky Fair" and "The Night Before Christmas" do not differ from each other, despite the fact that the action of the first story is related to the present, takes place before the eyes of the author, and the action of the second is timed to late XVIII century, by the time when the government decree promulgated in 1775 was being prepared, according to which the Zaporizhzhya army was deprived of all its liberties and privileges.

In the breadth of the historical time covered by the "Evenings", their lyrical and ethnographic beginnings merge into one, acquire an epic scale.

“The Night Before Christmas” opens the second part of “Evenings”, which was published at the beginning of 1832. And if the epic of the first part (“Sorochinsky Fair”, “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, “May Night”) declares itself only historical overtones folk fantasy, oral and poetic “tales” and “fables”, then the stories of the second part, together with the “Missing Letter” that concludes the first part, have a fairly clearly defined historical space - from the era of the struggle of the “Cossack people” against Polish domination (“Terrible Revenge”) to its serf modernity (“Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt”).

So history merges with modernity on the principle of contrasting the beauty of the heroic past of the freedom-loving "tribe" with the ugliness and dullness of its serfdom.

Exactly the same ideological and artistic connection exists between the stories of Gogol's second cycle, Mirgorod (1835). If two of them are old world landowners"and especially" The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich "- stylistically and thematically adjoin the story about Shponka, then the other two - "Viy" and "Taras Bulba" - are on a par with the vast majority of the stories of "Evenings" , have in common with them a bright poetic flavor.

It is no coincidence that Gogol gave "Mirgorod" the subtitle "Continuation of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", thus emphasizing the ideological and artistic unity of both cycles and the very principle of cyclization. This is the principle of the contrast between the natural and the unnatural, the beautiful and the ugly, high poetry and base prose of national life, and at the same time, of its two social poles - the folk and the local.

But both in "Evenings" and in "Mirgorod" these social polarities are attached to different eras national existence and correlate with each other as its beautiful past and ugly present, and the present is depicted in its immediate feudal "reality", and the past - as it is imprinted in the people's consciousness, deposited in the national "spirit" of the people and continues to live in its legends, beliefs, legends, customs.

Here is the most important feature artistic method Gogol - his philosophical historicism, the Walter-Scott beginning of the writer's work.

The image of popular movements and customs is one of the most promising innovations historical novels W. Scott. But this is only the historical background of their action, the main "interest" of which is the love affair and the fate of the personal heroes of the story, voluntary or involuntary participants in the depicted historical events, connected with it.

The national character of Gogol's Ukrainian stories is already essentially different.

The national specificity and historical projection of their Cossack world act as a form of critical comprehension of the “poverty” and “earthness” of contemporary Russian life for the writer, recognized by the writer himself as a temporary “lulling” of the national spirit.

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983

Artistic features in the work of Gogol

Gogol began his creative activity as a romantic. However, he soon turned to critical realism and opened a new chapter in it. As a realist artist, Gogol developed under the beneficial influence of Pushkin. But he was not a simple imitator of the ancestor of new Russian literature.

The originality of Gogol was that he was the first to give the broadest image of the county landowner-bureaucratic Russia and the "little man", a resident of St. Petersburg corners.

Gogol was a brilliant satirist who scourged the "vulgarity of a vulgar person", exposing to the utmost the social contradictions of contemporary Russian reality.

This social orientation of Gogol is also reflected in the composition of his works. The plot and plot conflict in them are not love and family circumstances, but events of social significance. At the same time, the plot in Gogol serves only as a pretext for a broad depiction of everyday life and the disclosure of characters-types.

Deep insight into the essence of the main socio-economic phenomena of contemporary life allowed Gogol, brilliant artist words, draw images of great generalizing power.

The names of Khlestakov, Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich and others became household names. Even the minor faces drawn by Gogol on the pages of his works (for example, in "Dead Souls"): Pelageya, the serf girl Korobochka, or Ivan Antonovich, the "jug snout", have great strength generalizations, typicalities. Gogol emphasizes in the character of the hero one or two of his most significant features. Often he exaggerates them, which makes the image even more vivid and convex.

The goals of a vivid, satirical depiction of heroes are served by Gogol's careful selection of many details and their sharp exaggeration. So, for example, portraits of the heroes of "Dead Souls" were created. These details in Gogol are mostly everyday: things, clothes, housing of the hero.

If in Gogol's romantic stories emphatically picturesque landscapes are given, giving the work a certain elation of tone, then in his realistic works, especially in "Dead Souls", the landscape is one of the means of depicting types, characteristics of heroes.

The subject, social orientation and ideological coverage of the phenomena of life and the characters of people determined the originality of Gogol's literary speech.

The two worlds depicted by Gogol - the folk collective and the "existents" - determined the main features of the writer's speech: his speech is enthusiastic, imbued with lyricism when he talks about the people, about the homeland (in "Evenings", in "Taras Bulba", in lyrical digressions of "Dead Souls"), then it becomes close to live colloquial (in everyday paintings and scenes of "Evenings" or when the story is about bureaucratic-landowner Russia).

The originality of Gogol's language lies in the wider use of common language, dialectisms, and Ukrainianisms than that of his predecessors and contemporaries. Gogol loved and subtly felt folk colloquial speech and skillfully applied all its shades to characterize his heroes and phenomena of social life.

1) the periodic structure of the phrase, when many sentences are combined into one whole (“Taras saw how the Cossack ranks became vague and how despondency, indecent for the brave, began to quietly hug the Cossack heads, but was silent: he wanted to give everything time to get used to them and to despondency, induced by farewell to his comrades, and meanwhile, in silence, he was preparing at once and suddenly to wake them all, shouting in a Cossack way, so that again and with greater force than before, courage would return to everyone’s soul, which only the Slavic breed is capable of, a wide a mighty rock before others, like the sea before shallow rivers”);

2) the introduction of lyrical dialogues and monologues (such, for example, is the conversation between Levko and Ganna in the first chapter of May Night, the monologues are appeals to the Cossacks of Koshevoy, Taras Bulba, Bovdyug in Taras Bulba);

3) an abundance of exclamatory and interrogative sentences (for example, in the description of the Ukrainian night in May Night);

4) emotional epithets that convey the power of the author's inspiration, born of love for native nature (description of the day in the "Sorochinsky Fair") or to folk collective("Taras Bulba").

Gogol uses folk speech in different ways. IN early works(in "Evenings") its bearer is the narrator. The author puts into his mouth both vernacular (everyday words and phrases), and such appeals to listeners who are familiarly good-natured, characteristic of this environment: “Honestly, I’m already tired of talking! what do you do

The character of a person, his social status, profession - all this is unusually clearly and accurately revealed in the speech of Gogol's characters.

The strength of Gogol the stylist is in his humor. Gogol's humor - "laughter through tears" - was due to the contradictions of the Russian reality of his time, mainly - the contradictions between the people and the anti-people essence of the noble state. In his articles on Dead Souls, Belinsky showed that Gogol's humor "consists in opposition to the ideal

life with the reality of life. He wrote: "Humor is the most powerful tool of the spirit of negation, which destroys the old and prepares the new."