The reader can be present in the work directly, being concretized and localized in its text. Authors sometimes think about their readers and also have conversations with them, reproducing their thoughts and words. In this regard, it is legitimate to talk about reader's image as one of the facets of artistic “objectivity”. Outside of the live communication of the narrator with the reader, the stories of L. Stern, Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, and the prose of N.V. are unimaginable. Gogol, M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, I.S. Turgenev.
Another, even more significant, universal form of artistic refraction of the perceiving subject is the latent presence in the integrity of the work of his imaginary reader, more precisely, the “concept of the addressee.” The reader-addressee can be a specific person (Pushkin’s friendly messages), or the public contemporary to the author (numerous judgments of A.N. Ostrovsky about the democratic viewer), and some distant “providential” reader, about whom O.E. spoke. Mandelstam in the article “About the interlocutor”.
The reader-addressee was carefully examined by West German scientists (Konstanz) in the 1970s (H.R. Jauss, W. Iser), who formed the school of receptive aesthetics ( German Rezeption - perception). M. Naumann (GDR) worked in the same vein at the same time. These scientists proceeded from the fact that artistic experience has two sides: productive (creative, creative) and receptive (sphere of perception). Accordingly, Jauss and Iser believed that there are two types of aesthetic theories: traditional theories of creativity (manifested primarily in art) - and a new theory of perception, created by them, which puts at the center not the author, but his addressee. The last one was called implicit reader, latently present in the work and to it immanent. The author (in the light of this theory) is primarily characterized by the energy of influencing the reader, and it is this that is given decisive importance. The other side of artistic activity (the generation and imprinting of values and meanings) is relegated to the background (although not rejected) by supporters of receptive aesthetics. In the composition of verbal and artistic works, the program of influence on the reader embedded in them is emphasized. impact potential(German: Wirkungspotenzial), so that the structure of the text is considered as appeal(address to the reader, message sent to him). Representatives of receptive aesthetics argue that the impact potential invested in a work determines its perception by a real reader.
§ 3. Real reader. Historical and functional study of literature
Along with the potential, imaginary reader (addressee), indirectly and sometimes directly present in the work, reading experience as such is interesting and important for literary studies. Really existing readers and their groups have very different, often dissimilar attitudes towards literature and requirements for it. These attitudes and demands, orientations and strategies can either correspond to the nature of literature and its state in a given era, or diverge from them, and sometimes quite decisively. By receptive aesthetics they are designated by the term horizon of expectations, taken from sociologists K. Mannheim and K. Popper. The artistic effect is considered as the result of a combination (most often conflicting) of the author’s program of influence with perception carried out on the basis of the horizon reader expectations. The essence of a writer’s activity, according to H.R. Jauss, is to take into account the horizon of reader expectations, and at the same time violate these expectations, to offer the public something unexpected and new. At the same time, the reading environment is thought of as something deliberately conservative, while writers are seen as breakers of habits and renewers of the experience of perception, which, we note, is not always the case. In the reading environment, affected by avant-garde trends, authors are expected not to adhere to rules and norms, not to follow something established, but, on the contrary, to make recklessly bold shifts and destruction of everything familiar. The horizons of readers' expectations are unusually diverse. From literary works They expect hedonistic satisfaction, shocking emotions, admonitions and teachings, and expression of well-known truths, and broadening of horizons (knowledge of reality), and immersion in the world of fantasy, and (which most corresponds to the essence of the art of eras close to us) aesthetic pleasure in organic combination with an introduction to the spiritual world of the author, whose work is marked by originality and novelty. This last type of reader expectations can rightfully be considered hierarchically the highest, the optimal setting of artistic perception.
The outlook, tastes and expectations of the reading public largely determine the fate of literary works, as well as the degree of authority and popularity of their authors. “The history of literature is not only the history of writers but also the history of readers,” noted N.A. Rubakin, famous book scholar and bibliographer at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries.
The reading public, with its attitudes and preferences, interests and outlook, is studied not so much by literary scholars as by sociologists, constituting the subject of the sociology of literature. At the same time, the impact of literature on the life of society, its understanding and comprehension by readers (in other words, literature in the changing socio-cultural contexts of its perception) is the subject of one of the literary disciplines - historical-functional study of literature(the term was proposed by M.B. Khrapchenko in the late 1960s).
The main area of the historical-functional study of literature is the existence of works in great historical time, their life over the centuries. At the same time, it is also important to consider how the writer’s work was mastered by the people of his time. The study of responses to a newly appeared work is a necessary condition for its comprehension. After all, authors, as a rule, turn primarily to the people of their era, and the perception of literature by its contemporaries is often marked by the extreme severity of reader reactions, be it sharp rejection (repulsion) or, on the contrary, warm, enthusiastic approval. Thus, Chekhov seemed to many of his contemporaries as “the measure of things,” and his books as “the only truth about what was happening around.”
The study of the fate of literary works after their creation is based on sources and materials of various kinds. This is the number and nature of publications, circulation of books, the availability of translations into other languages, and the composition of libraries. These are, further, written responses to what was read (correspondence, memoirs, notes in the margins of books). But the most significant in understanding the historical functioning of literature are statements about it that “come out to the public”: reminiscences and quotes in newly created literary works, graphic illustrations and director’s productions, as well as responses to literary facts by publicists, philosophers, art historians, literary critics and critics . It is to the activity of the latter, which constitutes invaluable evidence of the functioning of literature, that we turn.
Literature has always been “culture-centric,” as indicated by the term itself (lat. literature - written, from litera - letter): a set of written and socially significant texts, in a narrower sense - only fiction, form of word art. Therefore, within the framework of culture, there is great importance artistic activity as its ancient and fundamental component. Literature has the most essential features of art, which were formed at its birth and preserved in all its forms.
Unlike other types of art, literature has a special intermediary function (mediator) thanks to the verbal form, i.e. it can combine artistic and systemic-logical forms of human exploration of the world. It can impart this property to some synthetic types and genres of art - theater, opera, song, etc.
Literary history as a science - one of the sections of humanitarian knowledge about literature, including the philosophy of literature (i.e. the definition of goals, objectives, guidelines, ontology, epistemology, axiology of literature), aesthetics of literature (understanding of beauty), ethics of literature (understanding moral ideal), sociology, poetics, psychology, pedagogy, economics of literature and a number of other areas, all of which intersect and do not exist separately from one another.
The history of literature today appears to be a relatively new science, dating back no more than two centuries. However, for thousands of years, humanity has, in one way or another, recorded information about its development. Legends about ancient rulers, sages, singers, storytellers - Tutankhamun, Orpheus, Homer, Confucius and Zarathustra - existed orally and were then written down. Biographies of Provençal troubadours (13th century) and the first biography of Shakespeare (N. Rowe, 1709) are largely based on legends. The real and the documentary organically mixed with the fantastic, history was represented in the personalities of the authors, the main thing was not separated from the secondary.
In parallel, another source of the science of literature developed - poetics as normative theory (Aristotle, Horace, N. Boileau, etc.). In particular, since the time of Aristotle, the prevailing belief in the immutability of eternal laws literary creativity, special attention was paid genre classification and style codification.
The third important source of literary history is literary criticism, reaching great heights already by the 18th century.
The pinnacle of realization of the possibilities of the history of literature as a science at the end of the 20th century. can be considered "The History of World Literature", prepared by a team of famous Russian scientists (M.: Nauka, 1983-1994).
To the main literary methods of studying the literary process should include:
- - bibliographic method, created by Sh.-O. Sainte-Beuve, who interpreted a literary work in the light of the biography of its author;
- - cultural-historical method, developed by I. Ton in the 1860s, consisted of analyzing an array of works based on identifying the determination of literature - the rigid action of three laws ("race", "environment" and "moment") that shape culture;
- - comparative historical method (currently comparative studies, based on this method is experiencing a new rise) has established itself to end of the 19th century V.;
- - sociological method, which took shape in the first decades of the 20th century, had a huge influence on the science of literature, when literary phenomena were considered as derivatives of social processes. The vulgarization of this method (“vulgar sociologism”) has become a famous brake on the development of literary criticism;
- - formal method proposed by domestic literary scholars (Yu.N. Tynyanov, V.B. Shklovsky, etc.). singled out as main problem studying the form of a work. On this basis, the Anglo-American "new criticism" 1930-1940s, and later - structuralism, which makes extensive use of quantitative research indicators;
- - system-structural method, akin to structuralism, formed in the works of the Tartu school (Yu.M. Lotman and others); the largest structuralists (R. Barth, J. Kristeva and others) in their later works moved to positions poststructuralism (deconstructivism), proclaiming the principles of deconstruction and intertextuality;
- - typological method declared itself in the second half of the 20th century: unlike comparative studies, which studies contact literary interactions, representatives of this method examined the similarities and differences in literary phenomena not on the basis of direct contacts, but by determining the degree of similarity of the conditions of cultural life;
- - historical-functional And historical-genetic methods declared themselves at the same time: the first put at the center the study of the peculiarities of the functioning of literary works in the life of society, and the second - the discovery of sources literary phenomena;
- - historical-theoretical method, which emerged in the 1980s, has two aspects: on the one hand, historical and literary research acquires a pronounced theoretical sound; on the other hand, science affirms the idea of the need to introduce historical moment into theory. The method made it possible to identify a significant amount of data to present the development of culture as a change of stable and transitional periods.
- - "literary process" as a term appeared in the late 1920s. to characterize the historical existence, functioning and evolution of literature as a whole perceived in the context of culture. Each period of literature gives rise to its own type of writer and his worldview, and also asserts its own specific image of a person;
- - genre (system of genres), conveying the measure and character of convention in art, is a historically understandable type of form-content unity in literature;
- - artistic method - this is a system of principles of selection, assessment and perception of reality; it is based on the concept of the world, man and art and the moral and aesthetic ideal;
- - direction - the most general typological association of writers of a certain era based on the similarity of artistic method;
- - currents - a more subtle differentiation of writers into groups within one direction, literary phenomena that have not formed into directions;
- - style - characteristics of the form of the work (composition, language, methods of creating characters, etc.) and the aspect of the individual, the special.
The history of literature appears in one of the ways studying cultural tradition. Modern theory intertextuality, which considers any test as composed of pre-existing texts, has attracted increased attention to the problem of the traditional nature of literary creativity. The history of literature can thus be described using personal models. Among the most fruitful can be named: the model of Homer (an example of imitation is “The Aeneid” of Virgil), the model of Anacreon (Anacreontism in world poetry of the 17th-19th centuries), the model of ancient playwrights-tragedies (tragedies of French classicism), the model of " Divine Comedy"Dante (" Dead souls"N. Gogol), Petrarch's model (Petrarchism), Shakespeare's model ( European romanticism, “Boris Godunov” by A. Pushkin), many personal models of the 20th century. (Joyce, Proust, Kafka, Camus, Hemingway, Brecht, etc.).
The literary direction, closely related to the ideas of M. Bakhtin, received further development in the works of A. Beletsky, M. Khrapchenko, B. Meilakh. As a result of the activities of these scientists, the main methodological approaches– historical-functional and system-functional. The term “historical-functional approach” was introduced by M. Khrapchenko and is focused on studying the perception of certain works of art historical eras readers of different social, professional status and age. The scientist wrote: “The historical-functional approach means the study of literary phenomena that are remarkable in their influence on the readership and, above all, of course, the most viable, if one may say so, works of art.” B. Khrapchenko compared this approach with the socio-genetic one, which explores the deep connections of literary creativity with the era without relating the literary process to the readership. Admitting the possibility of studying the functioning of a work united only by reader assessments, the scientist at the same time recognized that the separation from genetic research leads to one-sided knowledge and the possibility of “being captured by impressionism and subjectivism.” An example of this position was the position of Gornfeld, which declared the complete independence of the reader from the author’s guiding activity, the freedom of the reader’s interpretation of the work. “A great work of art at the moment of its completion,” wrote A. Gornfeld, “is only a seed. It can fall on rocky soil and not sprout, it can give stunted sprouts under the influence of bad conditions, it can grow into a huge, majestic tree... But still, possibilities are revealed only in history.” B. Khrapchenko called the position of the Kharkov scientist extremely subjective, since this was required official point view on psychological school in general and on its individual representatives in particular. However, Gornfeld's reasoning did not go beyond the framework of the historical-functional approach, and the reader's assessment of the real audience was included in the field of theoretical study. According to the historical-functional method, the perception of fiction is formed by the directed action of the artistic system. The study and generalization of the reader's experience of certain historical eras allows us to trace the mutual influence of national literatures, the perception of individual literary forms and genres, changes in reader sympathies and tastes at a certain historical stage in the development of literature. It was proposed to study the ways in which literature influences the life of society, in particular the lives of readers, with the help of reviews, private correspondence, memoirs, and diaries of contemporary readers. Appeals to the literature of the past in the form of citations, film adaptations, translations and other receptions were recognized as a significant source of studying the historical reader. The historical-functional approach assumed the study of “the life of a work through the centuries,” while the systemic-functional approach involved an analysis of the system of influence techniques embedded in the work. Both methods were based on the idea of reader significance in artistic space; the first - real, and the second - implicit (the reader to whom the real author addresses his text). During the times of ideological monism, functional approaches were a progressive phenomenon, productive for the development of literary theory. A. Beletsky is considered a supporter of the historical-functional method, while his attitude towards the reader is rather focused on systemic-functional analysis, since the scientist’s main attention was aimed at studying the generalized image of the reader, and not the real recipient. A. Beletsky in the 20s pointed out the prospects of actively studying the reader and his role in literary process. Following N. Rubakin, he repeated the definition of literature, which has become widespread: “The history of literature is not only the history of writers, but also the history of readers.” A. Beletsky identified those areas of functioning of readers, the manifestations of which form artistic value literary eras. Firstly, this is a comparison of the aesthetic value of works for readers - contemporaries and readers of future generations. Secondly, a classification of literary phenomena of each era according to reader social, cultural and psychological groups. A. Beletsky used the term “fictitious reader” to designate a generalized reader, to whom the author directs “the techniques of his creativity and poetics” and who, in turn, influences artistic system writer. The scientist included future potential readers into a special group of readers, among whom he singled out those who “impose their ideas on the author”; those who “impose their images on the author” and those who “take up the pen.” The scientific perspectives outlined by Beletsky significantly expanded the scope of the historical-functional method with reader powers equal to the author. The reader, according to A. Beletsky’s theory, is capable of not only perceiving the author’s ideas and images, but also changing them. The ideas and perspectives of the scientist were not fully realized in scientific research of that time. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the study of the reader received a predominantly sociological direction. Much theoretical and experimental work on the study of reader problems began only in the 70s with the research of V. Prozorov, B. Corman, Yu. Levin, O. Nikiforova, L. Slavina, P. Yakobson, Yu. Borev, M. Gay, V. Bryukhovetsky, R. Gromyak, G. Sivokon and others, whose methodological positions also tend to the historical-functional approach.
Literature
Bakhtin of Dostoevsky's poetics. M.: Soviet writer, 2013. 364 p. method in the history of literature / Transl. and after. M. Gershenzon. M.: Partnership Mir, 1911. 428 p. Likhachev of literature as a system // VI International Congress of Slavists. Prague, 2015. P.3-10
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Sinyak, Elena Valerievna. Poem by N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls" in historical and functional light: dissertation... candidate philological sciences: 10.01.01. - Moscow, 2005. - 172 p.
Introduction
2. Chapter 1. The problem of historical and functional study of a literary work 17
3. Chapter 2. Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the assessments of pre-revolutionary literary critics 41
4. Chapter 3. Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the assessments of Soviet literary scholars 66
5. Chapter 4. Poem “Dead Souls” in modern literary criticism 102
5. Conclusion 150
6. Bibliography 161
Introduction to the work
N.V. Gogol is known to everyone as the author of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, “The Government Inspector” and other wonderful works, as a brilliant satirist, but he would never have taken the place that he occupies among Russian writers if not for the poem “Dead Souls”. First conceived as funny joke“Dead Souls” became the writer’s life’s work, and yet the first and part of the second volume that have come down to us are only a “porch” to the grandiose plan of the “palace” of the entire poem. By creating them, the author would like, by his own admission, for all his previous creations to be destroyed. Obviously, because only “Dead Souls” can show him as the writer he imagined himself to be.
Biography of N.V. Gogol has been the subject of research for many literary critics and scientists, but even today it does not fully reflect the writer’s life path. Almost all researchers agree that the author of the poem “Dead Souls” was a rather secretive person who was frank with people only as much as he considered necessary. One of the writer’s closest friends, Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov, says about him: “Very few knew Gogol as a person. Even with his friends he was not completely or, better to say, always frank... In a word, no one knew Gogol completely. Some friends and acquaintances, of course, knew him well; but they knew, so to speak, in parts. It is obvious that only the combination of this knowledge can constitute a whole, complete knowledge and definition of Gogol” (3, 204). These words of Aksakov could not more fully characterize the huge number of works about N.V. Gogol and his poem “Dead Souls” in particular, in which each of the authors defends his point of view, relying on certain facts from the writer’s life or his words, and each of the researchers is right in his own way.
Work on the first volume of “Dead Souls” was started by Gogol back in 1835 in St. Petersburg, and even then the first chapters of the poem made an impression on A. S. Pushkin. Continuation of work on the poem by the writer
I have already started working abroad. This is what he writes to Zhukovsky: “Autumn in Vevey has finally arrived, beautiful, almost summer. It became warm in my room, and I began to write “Dead Souls,” which I had begun in St. Petersburg... This will be my first decent thing, a thing that will bear my name” (27, 173).
Gogol always complained about his health, saying that he was built differently from other people. He traveled a lot because... moving and changing surroundings did him good. While in Paris, Gogol writes to Zhukovsky: “The “Dead” (“Souls”) flow alive... and it completely seems to me that I am in Russia: in front of me is everything that is ours, our landowners, our officials, our officers, our men, our huts , - in a word, all Orthodox Rus'.” (27, 173). This letter is dated November 12, 1836, and already there are mystical notes in it, which will subsequently sound stronger and stronger: “Someone invisible is writing in front of me with a powerful rod.” In 1837, in Rome, Gogol was surprised by the news of Pushkin’s death. Gogol writes: “My life, my highest pleasure died with him (With Pushkin)... I did nothing, I wrote nothing without his advice. Everything good I have, I owe it all to him. And my present work is his creation” (27.178).
Financial situation of N.V. Gogol’s experience abroad left much to be desired: he was constantly forced to seek funds for himself from friends, and in addition, his health deteriorated: “... I just feel worse: light in my pockets and heaviness in my stomach” (27, 193). In general, according to many researchers, Gogol’s illness and his work, in particular the creation of “Dead Souls,” were in the closest relationship. The nature of the writer’s illness is not clear, but even at that time doctors believed that its root was based on a “severe nervous disorder,” and I.D. later came to the same opinion in his works. Ermakov and V.F. Chizh. On the one hand, Nikolai Gogol’s illness forced him to work more; in his letters, the writer quite often talks about his concern that he will not have enough
time to finish your work. On the other hand, illness stopped all his endeavors and forced him to constantly move from place to place.
In September 1839, Gogol returned to Russia. In the winter of the same year, the writer reads the first four chapters from the poem “Dead Souls,” which were a great success: “The general laughter little struck Gogol, but the expression of unfeigned delight, which was apparently on all faces at the end of the reading, touched him... He was satisfied” (27, 221). In the spring of 1840, Gogol reads the fifth and sixth chapters of the poem to his close friends, which met with rave reviews from listeners.
In the summer of 1840, the writer travels abroad again. While in Rome, he works on a poem: “... I am engaged in transfers, corrections and even the continuation of “Dead Souls”” (27, 248). However, as before, after an attack of illness, mystical moods grow in him. At this time, Gogol’s financial situation is deteriorating again, he goes into debt, hoping to soon publish the poem “Dead Souls” and return the money. Together with P.V. Annenkov, the author completely rewrites the poem. The writer's health never returned to normal abroad, and he returned to Russia in the fall of 1841, having completed work on the first volume of the poem.
In Moscow, the poem does not pass censorship, so Gogol sends it to St. Petersburg. This event leads to an exacerbation of the writer’s illness, because... He connects all his hopes for the future precisely with the seal of “Dead Souls”: “I was sick, very sick, and still sick internally to this day. My illness is expressed by such terrible attacks as have never happened to me before” (27, 278). The writer’s painful state also affects relationships with friends: “... Pogodin began to complain strongly about Gogol: about his capriciousness, secrecy, insincerity, even lies, coldness and inattention to his masters, i.e. to him, to his wife..." (27, 280). ST. Aksakov also cites other cases of oddities in Gogol’s behavior, which cannot be explained by anything other than illness.
Censorship removed “Kopeikin” from the poem, which, according to Gogol, was a great loss for him that could not be made up for, so the author decided to remake the story. Afterwards, the poem does not meet any obstacles from censorship and is sent to print. The first volume of the poem “Dead Souls” was published in 1842. Gogol wrote the continuation of the poem for the rest of his life.
Poem by N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls" belongs to the greatest works of Russian literature. To the creativity of N.V. Many studies have been devoted to Gogol and his poem in particular; considerable experience has been accumulated, varied in interpretation and in need of comprehension and study.
And now the work of N.V. Gogol is the subject of research. Authors of dissertations in the specialty Russian literature also turn to individual works writer and to all creativity in general. There are studies of a comparative nature, such as, for example, a dissertation for the degree of candidate of philological sciences Gorskikh N.A. “N.V. Gogol and F. Sologub: poetics of the material world” (60) or the work of N.A. Bakshi “The hero is an “eccentric” in Austrian and Russian literature of the 19th century (Grillparzer, Gogol, Leskov, Rosegger)” (7). Creativity N.V. Gogol is studied not only by literary criticism. For example, the dissertation research of Lyalina A.V. “The evolution of students’ attitudes towards the creativity of N.V. Gogol in school course Literature" (111) was carried out at the Department of Methods of Teaching Russian Language and Literature of the Russian State pedagogical university named after A.I. Herzen. Shcheglova L.V. a dissertation was written for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy “Problems of self-knowledge and cultural identity in Russian philosophy of the 30s - 40s of the 19th century (P.Ya. Chaadaev and N.V. Gogol)” (200).
To date, a huge amount of material has been accumulated about the poem “Dead Souls”. Throughout the existence of the poem, the interest of literary scholars in it did not wane, and in lately intensified even more, and many interesting and original books were published. Gogol left
He left behind many mysteries to which answers have not yet been found: what is the role of illness in his work, his attitude towards religion, the content and burning of the second volume of the poem. This determines the constant interest of scientists in the writer’s work, because there is still no research that would fully and comprehensively cover the poem “Dead Souls.” Despite the differences in the views of researchers from Gogol’s contemporaries to the Soviet era, two main principles can be distinguished.
Most of Gogol's contemporaries represented the author of the poem "Dead Souls" as a satirist, an exposer of social and human vices. The works of researchers of this era are very interesting and deep, for example, the works of V. G. Belinsky, on which many scientists rely. The perception of Gogol as a satirical writer prevailed not only among the contemporaries of the author of the poem, it was also followed by many generations of researchers, and in Soviet era This point of view was considered the only correct one. Literary scholars examined and explained the artistic features of the poem, the system of images, the arrangement of characters, artistic techniques from this position. Gogol as a thinker, in fact in a broad sense The researchers never learned this word. The author’s works, written after the poem “Dead Souls,” were consigned to oblivion, and only by the beginning of the twentieth century the image of N.V. Gogol as a religious thinker, citizen, and publicist was in some way restored.
Scholars of the first quarter of the twentieth century argued about the nature and motives of Gogol's work. At this time, the writer is viewed as a mystic, a religious fanatic, and a person with a sick psyche. Researchers of this period claim that the creations of N.V. Gogol is the fruit of his sick imagination and illusions. The world of characters and images begins to be judged as not real, but invented by the writer himself, a fantastic and irrational mirage. But in this case, why are the images of the poem so real that they seem to come to life? Many researchers of this period
they talk about the magic of Gogol’s images, which fascinate, like some kind of witchcraft power; after all, even the censor Nikitenko was so carried away by the poem that he first acted as a reader, and then studied it again as a censor. Among the studies of the early 20th century, however, there are very interesting works, for example, Andrei Bely, whose theory of fiction is recognized by many literary scholars of our time.
Modern researchers take a different approach to the study of the poem “Dead Souls”. Without denying Gogol the satirist, they study the author of the poem as a thinker, as a writer with a very complex and often contradictory artistic world. Literary critics, first of all, talk about the diversity of the poem and believe that this work combines philosophical, moral, satirical, social aspects. If one aspect is made dominant, then a complete analysis will not work. In the poem “Dead Souls” everything is in the most vibrant connection and harmony.
Researchers of our time, who are also far from consensus, trying to consider the deep, not lying on the surface, properties of the poem. Currently, scientists are beginning to analyze the works of N.V. Gogol, written after the poem “Dead Souls”, and do not consider them only as the fruit of the writer’s creative crisis. This is the reason for the appearance in modern literary criticism of many works analyzing various aspects the writer’s creativity, and unflagging interest in the poem “Dead Souls”. Researchers see in Gogol not only a satirist, but also a religious thinker who is familiar with the works of outstanding philosophers and religious figures. The poem raises so many questions and problems that even now this work cannot be fully comprehended.
Poem by N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls" as a work of genius cannot be interpreted unambiguously. This was the mistake of their predecessors, who tried to find the relationship between the poem and
social situation or state of mind writer, only the surface aspects of the poem were considered. In the process of working on the poem, the author, by his own admission, comes to Christ, to those eternal, unshakable principles and foundations human life, which, according to the writer, are undeservedly forgotten and overshadowed by new ones philosophical teachings. It is in the Bible that Gogol draws spiritual strength; he is convinced that everything that happens in life can be found in this book, and asks his friends to read the Bible more often.
In the poem “Dead Souls” Gogol raises such deep questions of existence, the title already speaks of this, such as life and death, spiritual life and unspiritual life. The author touched upon eternal questions and eternal themes, which do not depend on the current situation in politics and society, the key to understanding of which the writer left in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” and “Author’s Confession”. Until now, this key has not been found, and there have been only attempts to find the answer to “Dead Souls,” so the study of the poem still represents a wide field of activity for scientists today. Modern researchers have made a big step towards unraveling the mysteries of the poem; many generations of literary scholars will continue to find new aspects; interest in Gogol’s work will not wane.
For a century and a half now, the poem “Dead Souls” has been discovered by new generations of readers and literary scholars. Each era gives its own interpretation to the ideas and issues raised in the poem. This makes it possible to consider of this work from the point of view of the historical-functional approach.
One aspect of this approach is to consider the dynamics of opinions from the moment the work was written to the moment of research and disclosure of the modern sound of the poem. There is another task of the historical-functional approach - the study of the characteristics of the perception of a work by a specific reading environment.
One of the first scientists involved in the historical-functional approach in Russian literature was Academician M.B. Khrapchenko, who expressed the idea of considering reader interpretation as a task of literary criticism. The theoretical basis and main objectives of the method were formulated by Professor, Doctor of Philology L.P. Egorova in the work “Functional Study of Literature”, section of the book “Problems of the Functional Study of Literature. Classic literature and modernity" (152, 16-47). However, the idea of the method was not further developed, and it was unfairly forgotten. Currently, interest in the historical-functional approach is growing, as modern literary scholars are rethinking the entire classical heritage, in particular N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”. Only this method has the apparatus to consider and explain the dynamics of opinions, starting with Gogol’s contemporaries and ending with literary scholars of our time.
Working on the historical-functional approach, Soviet scientists paid a lot of attention to the problem of interpretation. There are two fundamentally different points of view on understanding the essence of a literary work.
One of them says that initially the work does not have any value, but is filled with meaning when the text is read by the reader, who participates in creativity on equal terms with the writer. Proponents of this point of view believe that literary images abstract and exist only in the mind of the reader, who subjectively interprets them depending on his cultural, aesthetic and other views.
Another point of view suggests that a literary work is not constructed in the mind of the reader, but is interpreted, and cannot be viewed in isolation from reality (past or present). A literary work in itself is valuable, because... carries within itself
charge of ideas of a writer who reveals his spiritual world and conveys the moral and social ideas of his time, and the reader can already interpret them in accordance with his worldview.
From this point of view, the poem “Dead Souls” presents rich material for research. The images of the poem are far from the “empty vessel” that Gogol calls on readers to fill, but are vitally real, although, naturally, many details of life and everyday life remain in the past. They can be interpreted in accordance with our modernity; for example, the image of Chichikov, a clever and assertive businessman, becomes especially relevant. The images of the poem are so real that the reader encounters them virtually every day, but at the same time, these images and details have become different: instead of “dead souls,” a different product is now in use, officials serve in other institutions.
Changed social system society, technological progress has brought a lot of new things into daily life, people’s consciousness has changed, and their understanding of the poem’s images has changed accordingly. Modernity has also made adjustments to the nature of the interpretation of the content of N.V.’s work. Gogol. Literary scholars distinguish several levels in it: social, aesthetic, spiritual. Our contemporaries I.A. Vinogradov, V.A. Voropaev, S.A. Peacocks highlight the spiritual and philosophical aspects poems.
The poem “Dead Souls” itself, as a work of genius, lives in time, but time affects the work, making its own adjustments to its interpretation; depending on social and historical events, the poem is interpreted differently, and Gogol’s entire work as a whole. Each generation of scientists finds exactly what they want to see and what reflects their ideas, so there will not and cannot be an unambiguous and unified interpretation of “Dead Souls”. Based on more or less compelling arguments, one can only express an opinion that will reflect one of the many aspects of the poem. Each era places emphasis on
any semantic level: the writer’s contemporaries and scientists of the Soviet period concentrated their attention on satire and social content, literary scholars of the first quarter of the twentieth century - on the religiosity and mysticism of the writer, our contemporaries - on spiritual sense poems.
Such different interpretations are possible within the framework of the historical-functional study of literature, for which the theory of interpretation is one of the most important components. The historical-functional approach allows the coexistence of the opinions of, for example, Vasily Rozanov and Vladimir Voropaev: from the point of view of the first, Gogol is almost an antichrist, and from the point of view of the second, a martyr. All researchers express only their own rather subjective point of view, and the historical-functional approach accommodates everything, since it studies the life of a literary work in different eras.
A work of art is revealed to readers gradually; over time, the interpretation of the literary text changes. Each era interprets the text in its own way, and any, even the most daring interpretation, enriches knowledge about the work, and the more interpretations are analyzed, the closer the comprehension of the meaning of the work.
All of the above allows us to determine the goals and objectives of the study. The goals of this study are, on the one hand, to study the possibilities of historical-functional analysis of literature, and on the other hand, new look on the work of N.V. Gogol and the poem “Dead Souls” in particular. The choice of the poem “Dead Souls” is not accidental, because V in this case Another goal is being pursued - to make a feasible contribution to the further study of N.V.’s work. Gogol. Achieving the goals requires solving a number of problems:
Explore theoretical foundations historical-functional approach to understanding literature, to outline its capabilities and scope
applications, as well as advantages over other methods of analyzing literary works;
consider the possibilities of using the method on the text of N.V.’s poem. Gogol’s “Dead Souls”, analyze the research about “Dead Souls” accumulated since the appearance of the poem, because within the framework of the historical-functional approach, this material, like the poem itself, becomes the subject of study;
use the theoretical apparatus of the historical-functional method in the work in order to identify the possibilities of the method for literary studies in general and Gogol studies in particular;
summarize the results obtained.
Research material. The assigned tasks required the study of extensive literary material. Analysis of works, dedicated to creativity N.V. Gogol and the poem “Dead Souls” in particular, allows us to show the effectiveness of the historical and functional study of a literary work.
The methodological and theoretical basis of the dissertation is the provisions of leading Russian literary scholars, among them the works of M.M. Bakhtin, L.P. Egorova, D.S. Likhacheva, N.V. Osmakova, M.B. Khrapchenko, as well as the latest achievements in the field of hermeneutics as the science of understanding texts, presented in the works of H.-G. Gadamer and P. Ricoeur.
A hermeneutic approach to the problem of understanding texts and, accordingly, a historical-functional approach to the study of literary works have been implemented.
The scientific novelty of the work is due to the consideration of the poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” using the historical-functional method, which implies a number of distinctive features:
Allows the researcher to avoid a one-sided view of
work;
The object under study becomes more complex, because In addition to the text of a literary work, this role is also played by works devoted to its study;
it becomes possible to consider how the text functioned at one time or another, to trace the dynamics of reader interpretation;
takes the interpreter to more high level perception of a literary work, in this case the poem “Dead Souls”;
does not limit the literary critic to the rigid framework of a particular method, because the process of interpretation is endless..
The practical significance of the dissertation research lies in the possibility of using a multifaceted approach to the perception of N.V.’s poem. Gogol's "Dead Souls" and the writer's work in general, testing for specific example The abstract ideas of historical-functional analysis and the possibility of applying the historical-functional approach to the work of other writers are enough. Work structure:
Introduction
Chapter 1. The problem of historical-functional study of a literary work
Chapter 2. Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the assessment of pre-revolutionary literary scholars
Chapter 3. Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the assessments of Soviet literary scholars
Chapter 4. Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in modern literary criticism
Conclusion
Bibliography.
The “Introduction” provides a rationale for the topic of the dissertation, showing its scientific novelty and relevance at the present stage of Gogol studies. The current problem of studying the creativity of N.V. is considered. Gogol and his poem, the possibility of solving it using a historical-functional approach, the scientific and practical significance of the dissertation work is revealed. Huge number literature devoted to the study of the writer’s creativity, different points of view on the poem “Dead Souls” makes it possible and necessary to use historical-functional analysis. On the one hand, the method will allow achieving high-quality new level perception of the poem and avoid one-sided perception of it, and on the other hand, analyze the dynamics of interpretation of the poem “Dead Souls” for more than a century and a half.
The first chapter, “The Problem of the Historical-Functional Study of a Literary Work,” talks about the formation of the method, the theoretical basis on which it is based, the possibilities in comparison with other approaches to the study of literature, and also outlines the boundaries of the practical study of the poem “Dead Souls” with its help. Thus, the result of this chapter, on the one hand, is proof of the possibilities and relevance of using the historical-functional method in general, and on the other, the selection and classification of practical materials for the study of N.V.’s poem. Gogol's "Dead Souls".
The second chapter “Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the Assessment of Pre-Revolutionary Literary Critics” is devoted to the study of the works of researchers of N.V. Gogol from 1842, the time of the first edition of Dead Souls, to the Soviet period. The chapter examines the work of researchers: ST. Aksakova, K.S. Aksakova, V.G. Belinsky, SP. Shevyreva, P.A. Pletneva, F.B. Bulgarina, O.I. Senkovsky, N.I. Grecha, N.G. Chernyshevsky, A.A. Grigorieva, I.S. Turgeneva, F.M. Dostoevsky, N.A. Nekrasova, L.N. Tolstoy, M.E. Saltykova-
Shchedrina, P.A. Kulisha, A.N. Pypina, D.S. Merezhkovsky, V.V. Rozanova, N.A. Kotlyarevsky, V.Ya. Bryusov, A. Bely, V.V. Gippius, I.D. Ermakova.
The third chapter “Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the Assessments of Soviet Literary Critics” is devoted to the study of the works of K.P. Proffera, V.V. Zenkovsky, K.V. Mochulsky, V.E. Ermilova, N.L. Stepanova, M.B. Khrapchenko, SI. Mashinsky, V.N. Turbina, I.V. Kartashova, Yu.V. Manna.
The fourth chapter, “The Poem “Dead Souls” in Modern Literary Studies,” shows what trends are in the study of the work of N.V. Gogol exist today. In modern literary criticism, we can conditionally distinguish three areas within which the work of Gogol scholars is carried out. Modernity is highlighted in a separate chapter primarily because it is the one that lags the most in time from the moment of publication of the poem “Dead Souls”, and from the point of view of historical-functional analysis, time lag plays an important role in the study of a literary work, because allows the researcher to use the experience of other researchers already accumulated over all this time. The chapter examines in detail the works of such scientists as A.N. Lazareva, S.A. Pavlinov, M.Ya. Weiskopf, A.I. Ivanitsky, I.I. Garin, V.A. Voropaev, I.A. Vinogradov, I.A. Esaulov, their works embody any of the trends in modern literary criticism. In addition, the work of E.K. Tarasova, where the researcher examines the works of German-speaking literary scholars about the works of N.V. Gogol and his poem in particular.
The “Conclusion” summarizes the results of previous chapters to answer the question of whether the goal of the work has been achieved - to show the possibilities of historical-functional analysis using the example of N.V.’s poem. Gogol "Dead Souls".
The bibliography contains 200 sources.
The problem of historical and functional study of a literary work
A literary work appears in a certain period of time with its cultural and aesthetic views, social and everyday characteristics, i.e. the literary and historical processes constantly interact. At first glance it may seem that this is a one-way process, historical events determine the ways of development of literature, then a literary work is important and necessary only at the moment when it is written. In this case, the work of A.S. Pushkina, N.V. Gogol, M.Yu. Lermontov and other Russian writers would be local in time and would not need to be studied and covered at the present time. However, the work of Russian writers of the nineteenth century made a huge contribution to Russian culture of that time, on the basis of which, in turn, modern cultural values were formed.
Thus, the question arises about the functioning of literature in time, i.e. about the impact of literary works on the consciousness of a modern reader and researcher (or a reader and researcher of another time period), which leads to a slightly different understanding of the work and its meaning, determined by the era and the evolving worldview of readers.
The solution to this issue, according to M.B. Khrapchenko, “is a special task of literary criticism. In contrast to the socio-genetic examination of literary phenomena, this aspect of the study should be called the historical-functional study of verbal art...” (193, III, 237). Academician M.B. Khrapchenko was the first in Soviet literary criticism to talk about the historical-functional approach to the study of literary works. According to the scientist, in Soviet literary criticism, the study of the social and aesthetic effectiveness of literature, the study of the internal energy that is characteristic of a literary work and finds its expression in the impact on the reader, comes to the fore. This is also relevant for modern literary criticism.
The method received further conceptual development in the work of L.P. Egorova “Problems of the functional study of literature” (152), where the author examined the theoretical basis for the historical-functional approach, its capabilities and methods. L.P. Egorova works on this topic and is currently in Stavropol state university, paying great attention the problem of literary interpretation of literary works, for example, in the article “Fundamentals of literary interpretation” (70).
Scientists have drawn attention to the fact that the same literary work is accepted and understood by literary scholars, and accordingly by the majority of readers, in different ways: “The history of literature has accumulated many facts indicating different perceptions in different eras both the work of major writers in general and their individual works” (193, III, 224). From this we can conclude that each era brings its own nuance to the understanding of a literary work. But this raises the question of the possibility of studying a work using a historical-functional approach, because not all literary works have stood the test of time. The answer to it was formulated by L.P. Egorova: “...the principle of the functional approach is to study not all works, but only those that have survived their time...” (152.21).
M.B. Khrapchenko notes: “The functional study of literature is based on the analysis of assessments, judgments of representatives of various layers of readers, prominent public figures, cultural figures, etc.... It is known that between the judgments of criticism and the attitude of the readership to works of art Quite significant discrepancies often arise. Therefore, when studying the processes of the influence of literature, it is impossible to limit ourselves to critical judgments and assessments.” (42, 7). Thus, the scientist actually introduces the concept of interpretation into the historical-functional approach.
An important role in this approach to the study of a literary work, in the opinion of L.P. Egorova, plays on the concept of literary interpretation and “...objective, existing independently of the reader’s perception, content of the work” (152, 29). M.B. made similar conclusions. Khrapchenko, saying that “no matter how significant the differences in the perception of the work may be, they do not give reason to doubt its existence as a real phenomenon with its own specific properties and features” (193, III, 239).
It is important to note that other major Soviet literary scholars also dealt with the problem of the perception of literary works by different generations of readers and the “life” of literary works in time. N.V. Osmakov published a series of books and collections of articles by various authors devoted to this problem; in his articles, the researcher noted that the historical-functional approach to the study of literature should go further than the historical-genetic approach, popular at that time. Both of these methods should interact with each other, which will allow scientists to take a fresh look at the works being analyzed.
Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the assessments of pre-revolutionary literary scholars
On May 21, 1842, the first volume of N.V.’s poem was published. Gogol's "Dead Souls" - this work became a major event in social and literary life Russia. The time when the first volume of Dead Souls came out of print is an era when literature becomes a social force, when the most advanced and daring ideas for that era are preached in literary circles. One of the most significant figures working at that time was V. G. Belinsky, whose judgments have still not lost their relevance, were used by Soviet and are used by many modern literary scholars.
V.G. Belinsky and N.V. Gogol did not know each other well and belonged to various literary circles, each of them had his own circle of friends who did not like each other, so it is impossible to say that Belinsky had any serious influence on Gogol. Aesthetic views Belinsky were formed on the basis of German philosophy, but the critic did not just propagate these views - it was not just borrowing other people's thoughts.
Based on the philosophy of Hegel and Schelling V.G. Belinsky develops his own view of society, literature and the tasks of literature in Russian society. For the critic, the work of Nikolai Gogol was one of the confirmations of his literary views and thoughts about the fate of Russian literature and its tasks in modern society.
In the article “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” (12, II, 892-911), Belinsky says that Gogol “was the first to look boldly and directly at Russian reality” (12, II, 901). Further, the literary critic notes that with this work the writer introduced something significantly new and important into his work. In his opinion, in the poem the writer took such a great step that everything he had written so far seems weak and pale. The critic sees the essence of this great step in the predominance of subjectivity.
By subjectivity, Belinsky understands “that deep, comprehensive and humane subjectivity that in the artist reveals a person with a warm heart, a sympathetic soul and spiritual-personal selfhood” (12, II, 903). According to the critic, it permeates the entire poem through and through and reaches high lyrical pathos. From this it is clear how great value Belinsky attaches importance to the role of literature in the development of society, and the author’s primary task is to convey to the reader the harsh truth of life.
The literary critic believes that the author in the poem “Dead Souls” objectively reflects Russian reality and exposes the vices that infect it. According to Belinsky, the artist, in addition to the correct tact of reality, must also have ardent convictions and deep beliefs. These views of the brave public figure will form the basis of many Soviet critical works about Gogol.
Thus, considering the poem “Dead Souls”, V.G. Belinsky receives visual confirmation of his ideas and believes N.V. Gogol, the founder of a new literary movement in Russian literature, the most promising and important for that time. Based on “Dead Souls,” the critic asserts one of the most important provisions of his concept of realism: the objectivity of art must be combined with the passionate protesting subjectivity of the artist.
Rejecting the philosophy of art for art's sake, Belinsky demands from the artist works that would reflect modern social trends and ideas. Art should not only reproduce life, but also actively influence it. According to Belinsky, the role of the writer is not passive and neutral contemplation of reality, but active participation in social and civil life humanity, i.e. from the point of view of the critic, in the poem Gogol takes the position of an active public and ridicules the vices of his contemporary society. Belinsky, thus, anticipates Chernyshevsky's famous formula about art, which, in the latter's opinion, is called upon to pass judgment on the phenomena of life.
Gogol revealed life to the smallest detail, to which he gave a general character. That is why Belinsky concludes that “there was no work more important for the Russian public” (12, II, 901). He defined the poem as “a purely Russian, national creation, snatched from a hiding place folk life..." (12, II, 903), spoke of the author of the poem as "a Russian national poet in the entire space of this word" (12, II, 905). This is also very important for Belinsky, because that time, the 40s of the 19th century, was characterized by the spread of translated foreign literature in Russia, which, despite the “fresh” social ideas, reflects a different way of life, a different society and other morals, and “Dead Souls” literally “breathe” Russia, everything in them is Russian, everything is native.
However, from the very first reviews of the poem, Belinsky begins to express concern about the romantic-patriotic pathos of the writer, his strange, in the critic’s opinion, promises for the next volumes of the poem. The author of the articles expresses his concerns, saying that it is better to limit ourselves to reflecting reality than to show Russian life in subsequent volumes as it has never been. Belinsky repeatedly promised to write a large article about Gogol and give a detailed analysis of his book, to put all the articles together, but he never did this. It is likely that he, like no one else, understood the complexity art world Gogol's poem. The critic wrote: “Moreover, like any deep creation, “Dead Souls” are not fully revealed from the first reading, even for thinking people: reading them a second time, it’s as if you are reading a new, never-before-seen work” (12, II, 905-906) .
The Soviet period in Gogol studies began with the systematic destruction of free thought and dissent, which naturally does not bring diversity to the literary and critical thought. How can one characterize the Soviet period in the study of the work of N.V. Gogol? This era, despite special conditions The work of literary scholars, however, has brought a lot of positive things into the study of N.V.’s work. Gogol and his poem “Dead Souls”. First of all, I would like to quote the words of G.M. Malenkov, who addressed the following: Soviet writers: “We need Soviet Gogols and Shchedrins, who, with the fire of satire, would burn out of life everything that is negative, rotten, dead, everything that slows down the movement forward” (112, 73). Thus, the main task for Soviet literary scholars was formulated - the theoretical development of the problems of satire. A year after the 19th Party Congress, when Stalin was no longer alive, the satirist Yuri Blagov wrote an epigram about Malenkov’s statement: We are for laughter, but we need kinder Shchedrins and such Gogols so that they don’t touch us. This epigram reflects the duality Soviet politics in relation to literature: formally, writers were called upon to work in the genre of satire, but the life of people in the country of the Soviets could not become the subject of satirical statements. The writer’s work and, first of all, the first volume of his poem “Dead Souls” are examined from the point of view of their satirical content. The poem is considered a work that stigmatized the tsarist regime and exposed the social ills of Gogol’s contemporary Russia, and the writer himself becomes a fierce fighter against vice. Soviet literary scholars justifiably use the works of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and others as a basis for theoretical research. literary critics(Herzen, Dobrolyubov, etc.), advocating a critical direction in literature in the second half of the nineteenth century. For Soviet literary critics, they become revolutionary democrats, and their critical articles take not a polemical, but a propaganda character. At this time, literary scholars such as V. Ermilov, SM. Mashinsky, N.L. Stepanov, M.B. Khrapchenko and others. However, I would like to note that if Ermilov characterizes Chichikov as follows: “ Main character“Dead Souls” Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, the darling of society, represents the most complete embodiment of the type of smooth, nasty person hated by Gogol, a most decent gentleman, under whose well-bred guise hides disgusting filth” (75, 341), then, for example, Khrapchenko believes that Chichikov “represents a person who carries other life principles” (194, 343). As can be seen from the above, even in Soviet times there were works of various nature. Many researchers, avoiding issues of social and political satire, turned to the analysis of Gogol’s artistic techniques, studied the language of his works, studied the theory of literature in general, and developed new methods for analyzing literary works. Soviet era Gogol studies can be divided into two stages. The first stage, the 30-50s of the twentieth century, is a time when the Communist Party exercised strict control over literature and determined the path of its development. There was a unity of opinions, the only correct theory of literature and the only correct point of view on the work of N.V. Gogol. Since the beginning of the 60s, this trend has been declining: such outstanding scientists as M.M. are working in the field of literary theory. Bakhtin, D.S. Likhachev, Yu.M. Lotman, M.B. Khrapchenko, Yu.V. Mann. Academician M.B. Khrapchenko is the founder of the historical-functional approach in literature; this scientist also worked a lot in the field of studying Gogol’s work. Book by M.B. Khrapchenko “Gogol’s Works” (194) has been reprinted many times and contains a lot of true and interesting things for studying the work of N.V. Gogol. The scientist devotes two chapters to the poem “Dead Souls”, and later a separate publication, in which he analyzes the images of landowners, collective image city, speaks of the all-Russian scale of the poem. The main artistic techniques and methods used by Gogol in creating these images are also outlined here. The analysis of the second volume of the poem takes up much less space and comes to the conclusion that the author is in a severe creative crisis, and spiritual prose is illuminated in the light of the writer’s contradictory views. In general, Khrapchenko concentrates all the reader’s attention on the first volume of the poem, and N.V. Gogol considers “one of the founders critical realism"(194, 546) But at this time it was not possible to express a different point of view on the second volume of the poem “Dead Souls” and especially on “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” This example clearly shows how the era leaves its mark on the interpretation of the writer’s work. A similar situation, dictated by time, develops in the works of many Soviet literary scholars: perfectly analyzing negative images landowners and officials, artistic techniques and methods, Gogol’s satire, they evasively explain the appearance of the second volume of the poem and “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” by the contradictory worldview of the writer and his environment in recent years life. An example of this is the work of N.L. Stepanova “N.V. Gogol. Creative path" (175).
The poem “Dead Souls” in modern literary criticism
In the past, when studying the work of N.V. Gogol and the poem “Dead Souls” in particular, researchers often went to extremes. Without denying the greatness of Gogol as a writer, some said that Gogol was a satirist, ridiculing social vices and denouncing social order, others - that Gogol is a mystic, a religious fanatic, a “mysterious dwarf”. In modern literary criticism, this trend is gradually smoothing out. In my opinion, modern researchers of Gogol’s work are trying to find a “golden mean”. They try to consider Gogol, first of all, as a writer with a complex, often contradictory nature, with a complex spiritual world and a complex attitude towards people and society.
One of the most interesting modern works about the work of N.V. Gogol is “The Spiritual Experience of Gogol” by A.N. Lazareva (104). This work was published as part of a series of books published by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, therefore this work does not contain a literary analysis of the writer’s works, but rather reveals to the reader the evolution of Gogol’s worldview. As mentioned above, Gogol’s work has always been a subject where different points of view, often polar to each other, collided, therefore the researcher considers his main task to be to comprehend the work of N.V. Gogol as a single whole, developing according to its own laws, which are still inaccessible to understanding. The author of the study says: “Will combining contradictory approaches bring us closer to true understanding of a subject? This is often done, citing the inconsistency of the very nature of the subject being studied. But this means that instead of taking on the tension of a contradiction and the task of resolving it, they get rid of this work, from the concern of comprehending the subject. The statement that Gogol’s spiritual world is “woven” from contradictions may sound elegant, but a reference to “inconsistency” cannot serve as an explanation of the subject being studied. The recorded contradiction itself needs an explanation and prompts us to look for its source” (104, 27). Work by A.N. Lazareva is devoted to this problem in the works of N.V. Gogol, namely the resolution of visible and invisible contradictions in the creative and life path of the writer. The researcher analyzes the evolution of Gogol’s consciousness: “In the development of Gogol’s consciousness, I distinguish three stages or stages: aesthetic, ethical and religious. Establishing a logical connection between the designated steps and the transition from one to another will serve as a justification for the unity of the analyzed worldview” (104, 28). Thus, the main idea of this study is to show that the creative path of N.V. Gogol is not a set of paradoxes and contradictions, but the fruit of the development of his spiritual consciousness, and spiritual consciousness is not the writer’s attitude to religion, but his worldview as a whole.
The aesthetic period in the spiritual development of the writer is in first place for the researcher from the point of view of chronology and the evolution of the writer’s worldview. Most significant place in the works of N.V. Gogol, according to A.N. Lazareva, is occupied by humor, which along with it goes through a difficult life path, while experiencing such metamorphoses that often misled researchers. “Laughter for the sake of laughter” - this is how one can characterize the aesthetic period in the writer’s work. In “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” Gogol laughs himself, makes the reader laugh - he does everything so that the images of his characters, events, and plot cause laughter. Everything is subordinated to this goal, everything laughs and shares its fun with the reader, Gogol’s humor carries a charge of kindness, mischief, and sly fun. In the story “Old World Landowners,” Gogol’s humor seems to be the same, but already has a slightly different shade - it emanates melancholy, and from melancholy it’s a stone’s throw to disappointment and depression.
Having overcome this obstacle, the writer finds that his previous laughter was empty and meaningless, from this moment a new period begins in his life, which A.N. Lazarev singles out as ethical. This period reaches its apogee in “The Inspector General,” where Gogol’s laughter already becomes caustic and bilious, often turning into sarcasm. The writer's humor here becomes a tool with which social vices and ulcers are exposed. This is precisely the weapon with which Gogol intends to fight; in this he sees his calling as a writer and citizen, and the author of the poem “Dead Souls” considers his work as service to the state, as a duty to Russia. Then comes the most significant and interesting stage in the evolution of Gogol’s worldview - the transition from the ethical stage to the religious one.
In the process of transition to the religious stage of development of spiritual consciousness, the first volume of “Dead Souls” comes out from the writer’s pen, where humor has a different coloring than in “The Inspector General” or “Petersburg Tales”. According to A.N. Lazareva, Gogol’s humor undergoes following changes: “...from crafty, friendly and mischievous to satirical, bitter and condemning “laughter through tears”; from entertaining and everyday immediate to having serious and social significance - this is the general outline development trend of Gogol's laughter in artistic creativity"(104, 33). However, social satire is not the last step in the evolution of Gogol’s humor: the poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” reflects a transitional period in the writer’s worldview, because The humor in the poem, compared, for example, with “The Inspector General,” is not so socially colored - this is no longer an accusatory satire castigating vices, but a bitter, compassionate laughter. The next step in the development of the writer’s humor was laughter directed inward, into the consciousness of each of the readers - thus, the transition of Gogol’s spiritual consciousness from the ethical to the religious stage occurs.