In response to Aksakov's remark that modern Russian life does not provide material for comedy, Gogol said that this is not true, that comedy is hidden everywhere, that, living in the midst of it, we do not see it; but that “if the artist transfers it into art, onto the stage, then we will laugh at ourselves.” It seems that this phrase is general meaning Gogol's innovations in dramaturgy: the main task is the transfer of comedy Everyday life to the stage. As Grigoriev said in one of his articles, “it is obvious that a new ore was discovered by the great poet, the ore of analysis of everyday ordinary reality *. This choice of subject matter dictated artistic media. Gogol's plays are comedies, but comedies opposed to classical works this genre, firstly, in terms of plot (in comparison with high comedy), and secondly, the types derived in Gogol’s comedies are contrasted with the types of plays of that time. Instead of cunning lovers and intractable parents, living, everyday national characters. Gogol banishes murder and poison: in his plays, madness and death become the result of gossip, intrigue, and eavesdropping. Gogol rethinks the principle of “unity of action” as the unity of the plan and its execution by the main character. In Gogol's plays, it is not the hero who controls the plot, but the plot, which develops logically gambling, carries the hero. The hero’s goal is opposed by the end result, approaching the goal turns out to be moving away from it “at a huge distance” (“Vladimir of the third degree”).

Gogol creates a situation unusual for the play: instead of one personal or domestic intrigue, the life of an entire city is depicted, which significantly expands the social scale of the play and makes it possible to realize the goal of writing the play: “to collect everything bad in Russia into one pile.” The city is extremely hierarchical; the development of all comedy is concentrated within it. Gogol creates an innovative situation when a city torn apart by internal contradictions becomes capable of integral life, thanks to a general crisis, a general feeling of fear of higher powers. Gogol covers all sides public life management, but without “administrative details”, in a “universal human form”. In “Theatrical Travel” it is said: “humanity is found everywhere.” In his comedy, with a wide system of officials, a wide range of spiritual properties is displayed: from the good-natured naivety of the postmaster to the trickery of Strawberry. Each character becomes a symbol of sorts. But a certain psychological property correlates with the character not as his main feature, but rather as a range of certain mental movements (the postmaster, as Gogol himself says, “is only a simple-minded person to the point of naivety,” but with no less simple-minded malice, when reading Khlestakov’s letter, he repeats three times: “The mayor is stupid, like a gray gelding”). All the characters’ feelings are transferred from artificial to the sphere of their real manifestation, but at the same time human life is taken by the writer in all its depth. And when Bobchinsky says to Khlestakov: “I humbly ask you, when you go to St. Petersburg, tell all the different nobles there: senators and admirals, that your Excellency, or Excellency, lives in such and such a city, Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky. Just say: Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives.” Gogol shows in this request the desire to “mean his existence in the world,” the highest moment of his life.

In his play, Gogol tries to limit comic effects. “The Inspector General” is a comedy of characters. We laugh, according to Gogol, not at the “crooked nose” of the characters, but “at the crooked soul.” The comic in the play is subordinated to the depiction of types and arises from the manifestation of their psychological and social properties.

In “Theatrical Travel” Gogol writes: “Yes, if we take the plot in the sense in which it is usually taken, then it definitely does not exist. But it seems it’s time to stop relying on this eternal tie. Now the drama is more strongly tied to the desire to get an advantageous place, to “shine and outshine, at all costs, the other, to mark for neglect, for ridicule. Isn’t it now more important to have electricity, money capital, and a profitable marriage than love? “So, Gogol abandons the traditional structure of the play. Nemirovich-Danchenko quite clearly expressed the new principles of constructing the play: “The most remarkable theater masters could not begin the play except in the first few scenes. In “The Inspector General” there is one phrase: “I invited you, gentlemen, in order to convey the most unpleasant news: the inspector is coming to us,” and the play has already begun. The denouement is similar. Gogol finds stage movement in surprises, which manifest themselves in the characters themselves, in the versatility human soul, no matter how primitive it may be. External Events the play is not moving. A general thought, an idea is immediately set: fear, which is the basis of action. This allows Gogol to dramatically change the genre at the end of the play: with the revelation of Khlestakov’s deception, the comedy turns into tragedy.”

If in 1832 Gogol wrote to Pogodin: “Drama lives only on the stage. Without it, she is like a soul without a body,” then in 1842 Gogol prefaced his play with the epigraph “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked,” clearly intended for the reader, which gave critics a reason to talk about the general lack of stage presence of the comedy. And, although comedy is indeed very difficult for stage embodiment, and Gogol himself wrote about dissatisfaction with its productions, the comedy was still intended specifically for the viewer. The principle of the “fourth wall” is observed, except for: “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself!” there are no replicas to the hall. But Gogol, for the first time in Russian comedy, paints not a separate island of vice, into which virtue is about to flow, but a part of a single whole. In fact, he does not have a denunciation, as in the comedy of classicism; the critical beginning of the play is that his model of the city can be expanded to an all-Russian scale. The broad vital significance of the “Inspector General” situation is that it could arise almost anywhere. This is the vitality of the play.

;font-family:"Times New Roman"" xml:lang="en-EN" lang="en-EN">Gogol's innovation as a playwright

In response to Aksakov's remark that modern Russian life does not provide material for comedy, Gogol said that this is not true, that comedy is hidden everywhere, that, living in the midst of it, we do not see it; but that “if the artist transfers it into art, onto the stage, then we will laugh at ourselves.” It seems that this phrase contains the general meaning of Gogol’s innovation in drama: the main task is to transfer the comedy of everyday life to the stage. As Grigoriev said in one of his articles, “it is obvious that a new ore was discovered by the great poet, the ore of analysis of everyday ordinary reality *. This choice of subject matter also dictated artistic means. Gogol's plays are comedies, but comedies are contrasted with classical works of this genre, firstly, in plot (in comparison with high comedy), and secondly, the types derived in Gogol's comedies are contrasted with the types of plays of that time. Instead of cunning lovers and intractable parents, living, everyday national characters appeared on the stage. Gogol banishes murder and poison: in his plays, madness and death become the result of gossip, intrigue, and eavesdropping. Gogol rethinks the principle of “unity of action” as the unity of the plan and its execution by the main character. In Gogol's plays, it is not the hero who controls the plot, but the plot, developing according to the logic of a game of chance, carries the hero. The hero’s goal is opposed by the end result, approaching the goal turns out to be moving away from it “at a huge distance” (“Vladimir of the third degree”).

Gogol creates a situation unusual for the play: instead of one personal or domestic intrigue, the life of an entire city is depicted, which significantly expands the social scale of the play and makes it possible to realize the goal of writing the play: “to collect everything bad in Russia into one pile.” The city is extremely hierarchical; the development of all comedy is concentrated within it. Gogol creates an innovative situation when a city torn apart by internal contradictions becomes capable of integral life, thanks to a general crisis, a general feeling of fear of higher powers. Gogol covers all aspects of the social life of management, but without “administrative details”, in a “universal human form”. In “Theatrical Travel” it is said: “humanity is found everywhere.” In his comedy, with a wide system of officials, a wide range of spiritual properties is displayed: from the good-natured naivety of the postmaster to the trickery of Strawberry. Each character becomes a symbol of sorts. But a certain psychological property correlates with a character not as his main feature, but rather as a range of certain mental movements (the postmaster, as Gogol himself says, “is only a simple-minded person to the point of naivety,” but with no less simple-minded malice, when reading Khlestakov’s letter, he repeats three times: “The mayor is as stupid as a gray gelding”). All the feelings of the characters are transferred from the artificial to the sphere of their real manifestation, but at the same time, human life is taken by the writer in all its depth. And when Bobchinsky says to Khlestakov: “I humbly ask you, when you go to St. Petersburg, tell all the different nobles there: senators and admirals, that your Excellency, or Excellency, lives in such and such a city, Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky. Just say so: Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives.” Gogol shows in this request the desire to “mean his existence in the world,” the highest moment of his life.

In his play, Gogol tries to limit comic effects. “The Inspector General” is a comedy of characters. We laugh, according to Gogol, not at the “crooked nose” of the characters, but at “the crooked soul.” The comic in the play is subordinated to the depiction of types and arises from the manifestation of their psychological and social properties.

In “Theatrical Travel” Gogol writes: “Yes, if we take the plot in the sense in which it is usually taken, then it definitely does not exist. But it seems it’s time to stop relying on this eternal tie<...>. Now the drama is more strongly tied to the desire to get an advantageous place, to “shine and outshine, at all costs, the other, to mark for neglect, for ridicule. Isn’t it now more important to have electricity, money capital, and a profitable marriage than love? “So, Gogol abandons the traditional structure of the play. Nemirovich-Danchenko quite clearly expressed the new principles of constructing the play: “The most remarkable theater masters could not begin the play except in the first few scenes. In “The Inspector General” there is one phrase: “I invited you, gentlemen, in order to convey the most unpleasant news: the inspector is coming to us,” - and the play has already begun. The denouement is similar. Gogol finds stage movement in surprises, which manifest themselves in the characters themselves, in the versatility of the human soul, no matter how primitive it may be. External events do not move the play. A general thought, an idea is immediately set: fear, which is the basis of action. This allows Gogol to dramatically change the genre at the end of the play: with the revelation of Khlestakov’s deception, the comedy turns into tragedy.”

If in 1832 Gogol wrote to Pogodin: “Drama lives only on the stage. Without it, she is like a soul without a body,” then in 1842 Gogol prefaced his play with the epigraph “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked,” clearly intended for the reader, which gave critics a reason to talk about the general lack of stage presence of the comedy. And, although the comedy is indeed very difficult for stage implementation, and Gogol himself wrote about dissatisfaction with its productions, the comedy was still designed specifically for the viewer. The principle of the “fourth wall” is observed, except for: “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself!” there are no replicas to the hall. But for the first time in Russian comedy, Gogol paints not a separate island of vice, into which virtue is about to flow, but a part of a single whole. In fact, he does not have a denunciation, as in the comedy of classicism; the critical beginning of the play is that his model of the city can be expanded to an all-Russian scale. The broad vital significance of the “Inspector General” situation is that it could arise almost anywhere. This is the vitality of the play.

Gogol's innovation in the comedy "The Inspector General". Changes in the latest edition of Revezor (1842). Interpretation of the comedy's ending

For the first time in 1836, the comedy “The Inspector General”. About the plot, get it. Gogol from Pushkin, one can judge from the surviving notes of the poet. Gogol not only criticized and ridiculed the vices of Tsarist Russia, but also called on viewers and readers to look into their souls and think about universal human values. Gogol called his comedy a play, “ bullying public abuses.” "Innovation dramatic conflict comedy “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol” (I.I. Murzak, A.L. Yastrebov): Novat-vovo of Gogol’s dramaturgy consists of 1) introducing new solutions to comedy genre. Ancient and dramatic practice up to the 19th century interpreted the conflict as a clash of situations. and negative.started. The law prevailed over vicious action. The originality of Gogol's dramatic decisions is concluded. The point is that the place of the ideal in the conflict of The Inspector General remains vacant.

The subject of art Officials become masters, viewed as figures who generalize social types, expose the bureaucratic system and are so far from the ideal that laughter turns out to be the most effective form of their perception. Example: The life of the city is immersed in a state of arbitrariness and lawlessness. The mayor looks into the merchants' shops as if it were his own home. The judge takes bribes with greyhound puppies. The postmaster reads other people's letters out of curiosity. The trustee of charitable institutions is little concerned about the suffering people entrusted to his care. Doctor Gibner doesn’t understand a word of Russian. Contrast this world with concrete. valid positive position Persian would mean creating another classic drama. Gogol makes a thematically bold decision, contrasting the types of criminal everyday life with the image of fictitious retribution. The result is a spectacular self-exposure of grotesque characters. Fear prompts officials to seek salvation by revealing both the secrets of others and their own, thereby exposing the depravity of social practice. 2) The novelty of “The Inspector General” lay, in particular, in the fact that Gogol restructured the type of stage intrigue: now it was driven not by a love impulse, as in a traditional comedy, but by an administrative one, namely: the arrival in the city of an ostensibly high person - the auditor. 3) Breaking tradition, Gogol abandoned the usual hierarchy of main and minor characters. On the contrary, in his play, in all the vicissitudes of the action, there was not one, not several characters, but their entire host. Off-stage characters were also added here / I.I. Murzak, A.L. Yastrebov/. 4) One of the central places in the conflict is occupied by the image of Khlestakov, a “significant person” against his will, who does not fully understand who he is mistaken for. Instead of the traditional types of a conscious deceiver-adventurer, Gogol chooses the type of a “non-cheating liar”, incapable of any deliberate actions, and at the same time successfully fulfilling the role suggested to him by circumstances. Khlestakov’s psychological and at the same time dramatic conflict lies in the fact that he is a braggart and a liar, whose actions are not subordinate to any selfish or deliberate plan, but are instead subject to the power of society. His lie thus becomes neither a passion nor a craft, it is just simple-minded. 5) It is also important to note that the speech of the same hero changes depending on the situation, which creates the comedy of the whole situation as a whole. To what extent did the draft editions of The Inspector General meet these great tasks of Gogol the innovator? The whole comedic concept of "The Inspector General" is general outline already existed initially, i.e. in 1836. However, Khlestakov and the mayor, the officials were different in this edition than in the final one. On the one hand, they were much more connected with the conventional stage schemes of that time, on the other hand, they did not yet have those characteristic personal qualities that we now know. The official position of these persons and their characters were different. Abuses and arbitrariness in this edition are spoken about through the mouth of the mayor himself. It's unnatural. The mayor here is not at all the same one we know: he is not smart, not dexterous, not smart enough. Having subsequently made the mayor an intelligent and resourceful person, Gogol emphasized the absurdity of the situation and made the satire more acute. It was important for Gogol to show that it was not the mayor’s stupidity that made Khlestakov an auditor, but his fear, the fear of retribution for his sins. In Act IV, after the merchants complain about him, when the mayor throws himself on his knees before the “auditor,” he is also pitiful: “Your Excellency, don’t destroy me! Don't ruin it! Don’t destroy it!” .

Zhukovsky “Gogol’s Realism”: The main blow of Gogol’s satire is aimed at the environment, at the way of life. In fact, the small town depicted in the comedy and not named is located anywhere and everywhere in Nicholas I's Russia. An attempt by commentators to find it on a map of the empire was unsuccessful; This is how it should have happened. The image of Gogol's town is constructed as an image truly typical of that era. Everything here is the same as everywhere else.

The silent scene can be interpreted as the denouement of the previous conflict and as the beginning of a new one. The characters are fixed in poses, naib. accurately conveying their characters. This is an artist. The author's decision formally captures the vice, makes it the subject of public viewing, and typifies the phenomenon. V.G. Belinsky about Gogol “The finale of Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General””: The mayor was furious that he allowed himself to be deceived by a boy, whom “not a single merchant, not a single contractor could deceive; he deceived swindlers after swindlers.” How suddenly the appearance of the gendarme with the news of the arrival of the true auditor interrupts this comic scene and, like thunder breaking out at their feet, makes them petrify with horror and thus perfectly closes the whole of the play.

The novelty of The Inspector General lay, in particular, in the fact that Gogol restructured the type of stage intrigue: now it was driven not by a love impulse, as in traditional comedy, but by an administrative one, namely: the arrival in the city of an ostensibly high-ranking person - the auditor. “You just don’t need to forget that there is an auditor in everyone’s head. Everyone is busy with the auditor. Everyone's fears and hopes are swirling around the auditor. characters“, he wrote in “A warning for those who would like to play The Inspector General properly” (1836). Subsequently, this beginning struck the director Nemirovich-Danchenko: “one first phrase... And the play has already begun. The plot is given and its main impulse is given – fear.”

Moreover, as often happens, the new turned out to be well forgotten by the old. Gogol himself explained in “Theatrical Tour after the Presentation of a New Comedy” (a small-form play begun in 1836 as a response to the premiere of “The Inspector General”): “At the very beginning, comedy was social, folk creation. At least, this is how her father, Aristophanes, showed her. Afterwards she entered the narrow gorge of a private plot, introduced a love affair, the same indispensable plot.”

A similar evolution of comedy was also depicted by August Schlegel in “Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature” (1809-1811) and Friedrich Schlegel in “History of Ancient and new literature" Also in “Professor Pogodin’s Lectures on Guerin” (Part 2, 1836), in which Gogol was keenly interested, the definition of ancient Attic comedy as political appeared. Subsequently, Vyacheslav Ivanov wrote in detail about the analogy between Aristophanes’ comedy and The Inspector General, comparing the nameless town of the mayor with the comedic City of Aristophanes (the article, written under the influence of Roman conversations with Vs. Meyerhold, was reminiscent of the famous Meyerhold production of The Inspector General, where, due to the removal of the scenes and fences, which made it possible to see everything that was happening in the background, a mystical doubling of the drama took place). However, in his comedy Gogol did not completely abandon the love affair: in the same “Theatrical Travel”, in which he tried to comprehend the experience of “The Inspector General,” the love affair was not ridiculed in general, but only because it uses hackneyed, far-fetched techniques.

Breaking tradition, Gogol also abandoned the usual hierarchy of main and secondary characters. On the contrary, in his play, in all the vicissitudes of the action, there was not one, not several characters, but their entire host. Off-stage characters were also added here, filling the entire conceivable space of the city (remember, for example, the scene from the fourth act, when a “figure in a frieze overcoat” is “exhibited” through the opened door, which is interrupted by the intervention of Osip: “Get off, go! Why are you bothering? "). Gogol himself called this a “general” plot, contrasting it with a “private plot” built on a love affair. “No, comedy should knit itself together, with its entire mass, into one big, common knot. (...) Every hero is here; the flow and progress of the play produces a shock to the entire machine: not a single wheel should remain rusty and not useful.”

Gogol already wrote about the need for a plot that goes beyond the scope of personal fate, the setting of all characters without exception in the face of a generally significant, fatal event for them, in his review of the painting by K. Bryullov, which Yu. V. Mann proposes to consider as another source of dramatic conflict "Inspector" and peculiar short summary structural principles of the play. The plasticity of petrification as a visual expression of the general shock additionally united aesthetic principles Bryullov's painting and Gogol's comedy.

The situation of the auditor itself and the conflict associated with it were rethought in the comedy. qui pro quo. Instead of much more traditional types: a conscious deceiver-adventurer or an accidental person who, through a misunderstanding, finds himself in a false position, but does not derive benefits from it - Gogol chooses the type of “non-cheating liar”, incapable of any deliberate actions, and at the same time successfully fulfilling what is dictated to him by circumstances role. Khlestakov’s psychological and at the same time dramatic conflict lies in the fact that he is a braggart and a liar, whose actions are not subject to any selfish or deliberate plan, but are instead subject to the force of circumstances. His lie thus becomes neither a passion nor a craft, it is just simple-minded and unprofessional. Gogol himself in 1836, in “An excerpt from a letter written by the Author shortly after the first presentation of “The Inspector General” to one writer,” explained that his hero is not a liar by profession, that is, he does not at all seek to deceive, but seeing that he is being listened to , speaks more cheekily, from the heart. Khlestakov's lie reveals his true nature: he speaks completely frankly and, lying, expresses himself exactly as he is. Gogol calls this lie “almost a kind of inspiration,” “it’s rare that someone won’t have it at least once in their life.”

This is precisely what explains Khlestakov’s success in the city of N (a professional fraudster would have been exposed much faster), and at the same time the strange effect of the play, when an apparently completely vaudeville situation suddenly acquires existential implications. The hero, who according to more traditional logic should have controlled events, is subordinated to them in Gogol in the same way as other characters, who are now equalized in terms of ignorance of the real course of things. The biggest swindler in the city (Gorodnichy) is defeated not by an even more skilled opponent, but by a man who made no conscious effort to do so.

The role of the servant also changes. Gogol's Osip no longer acts as an assistant in the master's love affairs, as was the case, for example, with Moliere. Even less is he the embodiment of common sense, commenting on the owner’s actions from the point of view of an unspoiled consciousness, as was the case in Catherine’s comedies. He is a complement to the master’s character and at the same time his false mirror: the same hedonism, the same home-grown aesthetics of comfort. Thus, Osip’s “haberdashery” treatment is nothing more than a low-level version of Khlestakov’s famous ability to endlessly vulgarize everything and everyone. As D. Merezhkovsky wrote, “the greatest thoughts of humanity, entering Khlestakov’s head, suddenly become lighter than fluff.” One of the main thoughts of the 17th and 18th centuries, the thought of Montaigne, Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau about the “state of nature”, about the “return of man to nature” turns into a call for the mayor to retire “under the shade of the streams”, Epicurean freethinking “is reduced in Khlestakov into the saying of new positive wisdom: “After all, that’s what you live for, to pick flowers of pleasure.” But some traditional moves (the servant-assistant) are still comedically reinterpreted by Gogol: isn’t this where Osip’s habit of “reading moral lectures to himself for his master” comes from?

Such elimination of the figure of reasoning and reasoning as such had another effect in Gogol: the traditional division of characters into vicious and virtuous was overcome. However, as a relic of Catherine’s type of comedy, one can consider the final remark of the Governor, “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself!..” (cf. in Catherine II’s play “About Time” the maxim of the maid Mavra: “We condemn everyone, we value everyone, we mock and slander everyone, but we don’t see that we ourselves are worthy of laughter and condemnation.”

When working on The Inspector General, Gogol deliberately reduced manifestations of crude comedy (such as, for example, brawls and blows, which were originally present in the text, were removed from the final edition of the play). Of the farcical scenes in the play, only one remains: the scene of Bobchinsky’s fall at the door (in general, the very name Bobchinsky, in combination with Dobchinsky, goes back to the folklore archetype: Thomas and Erema). The eavesdropping scenes, which are usually a source of comedy, are also reimagined. So, when Bobchinsky overhears the conversation between Gorodnichy and Khlestakov, this does not lead to the disclosure of the secret (he only hears what would have become known to him anyway). Transformation and reduction comic techniques moves comic beginning into the sphere of psychological interaction of characters. “Gogol finds stage movement in surprises, which manifest themselves in the characters themselves, in the versatility of the human soul, no matter how primitive it may be.”

Paradoxically, for all his innovation, Gogol quite strictly adhered to the canons of classicist drama. This includes speaking names, characteristic of the comedies of classicism, directly indicating a vice: Derzhimorda (“hits you so that you just hold on”, Lyapkin-Tyapkin (cases going on in court are a blunder), Khlestakov (“extraordinary lightness in thoughts”), etc.

Going against romantic aesthetics, which fought to overthrow the shackles of three unities (a demand extremely harshly formulated by V. Hugo in the “Preface” to “Cromwell” - a position to which Pushkin was not alien), Gogol scrupulously adheres to all unities. Perhaps the only weak deviation we see is only in one position: instead of one location, the comedy features two - a room in a hotel and a room in the mayor's house. As for the unity of time, here Gogol clearly adheres to the classic law, although in a weakened version: traditionally it was possible to strictly observe unity - no more than 24 hours, which, in particular, was prescribed “ Poetic art» Boileau; less strict version assumed no more than 36 hours, i.e. one and a half days. If we remember that the fourth and fifth acts of “The Inspector General” represent the events of the next day, then it becomes clear that the action of the comedy fits into one and a half days. As for the unity of action, it is obvious that this is also observed. Moreover, as already mentioned, it is on the unity of action, understood as the unity of the situation, that the whole comedy rests.

Compositionally, the play was also very carefully constructed. In total it consisted of five acts. The climax came exactly in the middle: in the 6th phenomenon of the 3rd act, consisting of 11 phenomena. The participants in the conflict were symmetrically introduced into action: in the first act Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky talked with each of the townspeople, in the fourth act the officials took turns paying visits to Khlestakov. In the fifth act there followed a new presentation of all the characters, but now indirect, through the prism of Khlestakov’s perception, writing a letter Tryapichkin. Needless to say, how symmetrically Gogol built the final silent scene with the mayor “in the middle in the form of a pillar...”. As Andrei Bely wrote, “the plot is removed, the plot is a circle... The last phenomenon returns to the first; both here and here there is fear: the middle is a swollen darkness.”

At the same time, the denouement that occurred in the fifth act, naturally marking the finale, at the same time fulfilled the role of a new climax, which was expressed by a silent scene, close in genre to the popular one at the end of the 18th century. early XIX V. “living pictures”, introduced into theatrical and secular use by J. L. David and J. B. Isabey. However, it was here that Gogol deviated from the laws of plausibility: the scene, according to the author’s instructions, was supposed to last from one and a half to two or three minutes and contained a plurality of meanings, up to the eschatological meaning of the highest, Divine judgment. Its most important feature was the general petrification of the characters.

The innovation of The Inspector General is that the play marked the beginning of a new type of comedy - a comedy of social mores and characters.

The new social content of the play required
new artistic embodiment,
Therefore, Gogol moves away from the existing “comedy of errors”
and "sitcoms" and creates new type dramas.

How does this novelty manifest itself?
If we talk about the composition of the work,
then, first of all, it is the boldness of the plot.

The first phrase about the arrival of the auditor causes everyone to
shock and gives rise to fear, which brings everyone together and deprives them of common sense.

The ending of the play corresponds to the unusually bold premise.

First the postmaster comes with the news that the official
whom everyone took for an auditor, was not an auditor,
and then, at the height of passions, a gendarme appears,
which in one phrase makes a stunning impression
and unleashes the action.

We can talk about double decoupling.

Looking at the composition, we see that one situation is
the beginning and end of the play, the beginning and the denouement.

But if at the beginning of the play the message about the auditor causes a flurry of activity
and general unity, then in the end the postmaster’s news first separates everyone,
and the appearance of the gendarme again unites, but at the same time deprives movement
and leads to petrification.

Comedy comes full circle.

In addition to the novelty of the beginning and ending, the novelty of the general structure of the dramatic action, which consistently, from beginning to end, follows from the characters, is also interesting.

N.V. Gogol’s desire for generalization resulted, according to his own definition,
in the "prefabricated city of all dark side»

This city is consistently hierarchical, its structure is pyramidal - “citizenship - merchants - officials - city landowners - the mayor at the head.”

Only Khlestakov and Osip stand outside the city.

The choice of characters is based on the desire to maximally cover aspects of public life and government (judicial proceedings, education, health care, postal services, social security, police). Of course, the structure of the city is not reproduced entirely accurately, but the author did not need this

« Prefab city"is integral in itself, and at the same time the border between it and the space outside the “walls” of the city is blurred, which is also an innovation

In “The Inspector General” (in contrast to the closed space of the same “Minor”) one gets the feeling that the norms of such a life are ubiquitous.

Khlestakov.
This is not the traditional image of a rogue, to which drama is accustomed, this is a new type, a new phenomenon in literature, which later became common noun.

The innovation of Gogol's dramatic solutions lay, first of all, in the fact that he left the place of the ideal in the conflict of The Inspector General vacant. The classical tendency of contrasting the negative with the positive, which existed at that time, was revised by the author. Gogol does not simply change the component antitheses.

Subject artistic comprehension characters of officials become, generalizing social types and exposing the bureaucratic system by the very fact of their existence. At the same time, the grotesque is the most effective form of condemnation of Russian reality of that time.

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