Classics of Russian Literature | Russian Grotesque - Overcoats to Dead Souls (Lecture 9)

Lecture 9: Gogol’ was a tremendously restless person. Right after his success as a playwright, he set off for Western Europe, where his memories of rural Russia, filtered through his half-crazy imagination, produced an unforgettable series of grotesque and comic characters under the deceptive title of Dead Souls. Despite its morbid-sounding title, the novel gives a fascinating picture of a Russian plut (“rogue”), Chichikov. The very sibilant repetition in the name tells a great deal. In his rickety yet mighty troika, Chichikov slithers his way through the Russian provincial gentry, with a wondrously crooked plan, more than worthy of any world-class shyster. Later, Gogol’ tried to bring his rogue to virtue, with a lack of success that was clearly predictable: Paradise was not for this inveterate denizen of hell. Gogol’ did manage to irritate mightily his erstwhile friends and readers. A short time after receiving a missive from the great critic Belinsky, a letter that would have torn the hide off a hog, Gogol’ died with leeches hanging from his magnificent nose.

Suggested Reading:
Nikolai Gogol’, Dead Souls (a novel called a “poem”), with commentary at the end of the Norton edition.
Francis B. Randall, Vissarion Belinsky.