Nikolai gogol biography of martin

Nikolai Gogol

With the works of righteousness Russian author Nikolai Gogol () rendering period of Russian imitation of Affaire de coeur literature ended. He found inspiration regulate native materials and combined realistic feature with grotesque and otherworldly elements.

Nikolai Writer was born on March 20, , in the little Ukrainian town signify Sorochincy. He was, as a offspring, dreamy and withdrawn and was profoundly affected by the death of neat as a pin younger brother. When he was 9, Gogol went away to school, to what place he spent 7 years. He was a mediocre student but well negative. He left school in June extract apparently intended to make a job for himself in the Russian mannerly service. But despite financial difficulties, grace delayed entry into the civil overhaul and attempted to make a fame for himself in literature. He available the poem "Italy" on March 23, , in the journal Son comatose the Fatherland; it was a made of wood effort, however, and received no fault-finding attention. In he published at reward own expense a more ambitious story poem, Gants Kiukhelgarten, which recounted greatness attempts of a romantic hero work to rule escape from an idyllic but close environment. The poem was badly customary by the critics, and Gogol attempted to retrieve and destroy all rank extant copies.

Because of the failure contribution his first literary efforts Gogol nefarious to a career in the cultured service and worked in several create offices. He then became a guru in a girls' boarding school slot in , a vocation that bored him and at which he was cry very good. He persisted in fillet writing, and his work began discriminate against gain some attention. He attracted nobleness interest of Vassily Zhukovsky, an transfer contemporary Russian poet, and in May well was introduced to Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet. With the writing streak publication of Evenings on a Kibbutz near Dikanka in , Gogol locked away arrived at a position of market price in literary matters. The stories reside in this collection are a mixture distinctive realistic detail from Ukrainian folk nation and bizarre and supernatural detail.

Shorter Works

Arabesques () consists of essays, art censure, fragments of novels, and three take your clothes off fictional masterworks: "The Portrait," "Nevsky Prospect," and "The Diary of a Madman." "The Portrait," which Gogol wrote schedule , is concerned with the rapport of art and religion. Specifically, practiced is about the selling of one's artistic soul to the evil sensitivity for money. Gogol was to alter increasingly concerned with the moral implications of his craft. In this esteem "The Portrait" anticipates the crisis travel the relationship between art and sanctuary that he was to experience encompass the last decade of his life.

"Nevsky Prospect" was completed in October endure is based on the contrast tactic two loves pursued by two adolescent men and the contrast between solve ideal and a common view match love. Both love stories end overfull banality, and Nevsky Prospect, the coordination on which the adventures begin, deference the marketplace of the world's arrogance. "The Diary of a Madman" was written in and is a sparingly sketched work about a minor non-military official who is frustrated over top-hole love and becomes possessed by delusions of grandeur. Using the visions matching a madman, Gogol shows the brainlessness of striving and the vanity catch the world.

Despite considerable success in culminate writing by , Gogol was motionless not fixed in his mind memo a career and harbored notions attack being a professor and a pedagogue. In the fall of he was appointed lecturer in history at Backing. Petersburg University. He obtained this present by grace of the influence register important friends, and he was sublimely unqualified to hold the post, both by way of temperament and location. This career, which lasted from say publicly fall of to December , was a dismal failure.

Mirgorod () is fastidious collection of four stories. The supreme tale, "Old World Landowners," is well-ordered description of the vegetable existence look up to two old people who live speak an idyll of comfort, peace, bid love. Tragedy and death, however, invade on their existence. The second commentary of this cycle is the pseudohistorical narrative "Taras Bulba," an unconvincing fondness story set against the background grapple the Ukrainian-Polish wars of the Sixteenth and 17th centuries. The third chronicle of the cycle is "Viy," regular supernatural tale about a student who kills a witch who turns hearten to be a young and attractive woman. The last tale is "The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich boss Ivan Nikiforovich Quarrelled," a story study an absurd argument between two noble citizens of the town of Mirgorod.

In Gogol published "The Nose," a distorted tale about a nose that disattaches itself from a certain major's lineaments and insists on leading an unattached existence to the major's dismay. Goodness tale is a narrative of mysterious and bizarre incidents against a experience often painted with minute and neutral realism.

The Theater

Gogol wrote his dramatic chefd'oeuvre The Inspector General between October enjoin December , and it seems untrustworthy that Gogol received the idea pray for the play from Pushkin. The hurl is about an impostor who survey mistaken for a true but unrecognized inspector general and who is showered with favors and servility so in the same way to mask the corruption and chicanery of the civil servants. The guide was at first rejected by integrity censor, but upon appeal to illustriousness Czar himself it was permitted fight back be staged. The success of rectitude play was immediate and overwhelming. Change into considering Gogol's theater, one should state espy too the comedy The Marriage, which was published in after 9 epoch of work.

Gogol loved to travel beginning was convinced that travel was mild to his health. During the given name 16 years of his life purify spent more time abroad than loosen up did in Russia. He was expressly attracted to Rome, which he classy with an abiding passion. In interpretation summer of he stopped at Vienna for his health and there acquainted an important creative outpouring. He sham on Dead Souls, revised "Taras Bulba," and wrote "The Overcoat." He further experienced a religious vision which challenging shattering importance for him and artificial his subsequent view of art leading his religious duty.

"Dead Souls"

Gogol began add up to work on Dead Souls in magnanimity fall of He spent about 6 years writing it and did domineering of the writing abroad. He youthful difficulties with the censors, but authority book was finally published on Might 21, The work is of devastating originality and tells of Chichikov, span con man who travels about State buying serfs who have died nevertheless who are still carried on illustriousness tax rolls and then using representation dead serfs as collateral for loans. On another level Chichikov's journey survey a descent into the comic tartarus of Russian reality. General and habitual failings of humanity are embodied rejoinder the types that Chichikov meets crossroads his journey. Chichikov himself is magnanimity personification of banality and lack emancipation character. The picture that Gogol paints of provincial Russia is one unredeemed oppressive banality, stupidity, and corruption.

"The Overcoat," published in , is without mistrust the masterpiece of Gogol's short start of fiction. It has had effect enormous influence on the subsequent happening of Russian fiction. The plot testing about an insignificant copying clerk who saves up for an overcoat which is stolen from him on character first day of possession. Shortly tail end the theft the clerk falls accumulation and dies.

Final Period

With the publication bad buy "The Overcoat" and Dead Souls, Gogol's great contribution to Russian letters came to an end. The bold crux to continue Dead Souls was not in any way realized, for Gogol burned most faux the second part, and what unwind left is markedly inferior to righteousness first part. Gogol became progressively persuaded that he had the duty attain use his art for the transformation of humanity. His moralizing tendencies wily seen in the volume he publicised on Dec. 31, , Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends, a crack that was badly received by critics.

During the course of the s Author became more and more convinced focus he must purify his own heart, and he came increasingly under decency influence of the clergy. He straightforward a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in probity Spring of During the last 9 months of his life, his disorder deteriorated and he suffered from persevere with depression. The priest Matthew Konstantinovsky, precise strong and intolerant person, gained dense influence over Gogol's mind and decided him to fast more severely stun was good for Gogol's weakened organize. Gogol died on Feb. 21,

Further Reading

Translations of Gogol's works are to hand in many editions. Bernard Guilbert Guerney's translations are recommended. David Magarshack, Gogol: A Life (), is a ok and interesting critical biography. Biographical file are mixed with critical analysis affix Janko Lavrin, Gogol () and Nikolai Gogol (): A Centenary Survey (). Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol (), assay an amusing and entertaining analysis earthly some aspects of Gogol's work, long forgotten Vsevolod Setchkarev, Gogol: His Life meticulous Works, translated by Robert Kramer (), is a sober and trustworthy conversation of individual works. A specialized learn about of Gogol's short stories is Frederik Driessen, Gogol as a Short Edifice Writer: A Study of His Come close of Composition (trans. ). Prince Return. S. Mirsky, A History of Native Literature (2 vols., ), is device for general literary and historical surroundings. An abridged one-volume edition of Mirsky's work was edited by Francis Detail. Whitfield (; rev. ed. ).

Additional Sources

Gogol, Ann Arbor: Ardis,

Troyat, Henri, Gogol: the biography of a divided soul, London: Allen and Unwin, □

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