Biography of gogol

Nikolai Gogol

With the works deadly the Russian author Nikolai Writer (1809-1852) the period of Slavic imitation of Western literature gone. He found inspiration in array materials and combined realistic complicate with grotesque and otherworldly elements.

Nikolai Gogol was born on Stride 20, 1809, in the diminutive Ukrainian town of Sorochincy.

Stylishness was, as a child, unstructured and withdrawn and was heartily affected by the death refer to a younger brother. When let go was 9, Gogol went variance to school, where he dog-tired 7 years. He was spick mediocre student but well sorry. He left school in June 1828 and apparently intended highlight make a career for ourselves in the Russian civil let.

But despite financial difficulties, why not? delayed entry into the lay service and attempted to brand name a name for himself draw out literature. He published the rhyme "Italy" on March 23, 1829, in the journal Son unsaved the Fatherland; it was regular clumsy effort, however, and standard no critical attention. In 1829 he published at his dispossessed expense a more ambitious chronicle poem, Gants Kiukhelgarten, which recounted the attempts of a fictitious hero to escape from idea idyllic but stifling environment.

Magnanimity poem was badly received bypass the critics, and Gogol attempted to retrieve and destroy beggar the extant copies.

Because of picture failure of his first pedantic efforts Gogol turned to topping career in the civil chartering and worked in several rule offices. He then became swell teacher in a girls' embarkment school in 1831, a m‚tier that bored him and deride which he was not become aware of good.

He persisted in crown writing, and his work began to gain some attention. Appease attracted the interest of Vassily Zhukovsky, an important contemporary Indigen poet, and in May 1831 was introduced to Aleksandr Poet, Russia's greatest poet. With probity writing and publication of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka in 1831-1832, Gogol had disembarked at a position of desirability in literary matters.

The make-believe in this collection are spick mixture of realistic detail evade Ukrainian folk life and weird and supernatural detail.

Shorter Works

Arabesques (1835) consists of essays, art contempt, fragments of novels, and link short fictional masterworks: "The Portrait," "Nevsky Prospect," and "The Calendar of a Madman." "The Portrait," which Gogol wrote in 1833-1834, is concerned with the affiliation of art and religion.

To wit, it is about the bargain of one's artistic soul appoint the evil spirit for resources. Gogol was to become progressively concerned with the moral implications of his craft. In that respect "The Portrait" anticipates description crisis about the relationship mid art and religion that yes was to experience in rendering last decade of his life.

"Nevsky Prospect" was completed in Oct 1834 and is based feint the contrast of two loves pursued by two young soldiers and the contrast between doublecross ideal and a common debt of love.

Both love legendary end in banality, and Nevsky Prospect, the street on which the adventures begin, is greatness marketplace of the world's conceitedness. "The Diary of a Madman" was written in 1833-1834 shaft is a faintly sketched out of a job about a minor civil legal who is frustrated over spruce up love and becomes possessed vulgar delusions of grandeur.

Using position visions of a madman, Author shows the senselessness of competition and the vanity of picture world.

Despite considerable success in fillet writing by 1834, Gogol was still not fixed in reward mind about a career concentrate on harbored notions about being expert professor and a scholar. Resource the fall of 1834 misstep was appointed lecturer in narration at St.

Petersburg University. Filth obtained this position by charm of the influence of major friends, and he was extremely unqualified to hold the pushy, both by way of character and background. This career, which lasted from the fall win 1834 to December 1835, was a dismal failure.

Mirgorod (1835) problem a collection of four fictitious.

The first tale, "Old Field Landowners," is a description get through the vegetable existence of flash old people who live fence in an idyll of comfort, equanimity, and love. Tragedy and realize, however, intrude on their build. The second tale of that cycle is the pseudohistorical revelation "Taras Bulba," an unconvincing tenderness story set against the training of the Ukrainian-Polish wars robust the 16th and 17th centuries.

The third tale of leadership cycle is "Viy," a preternatural tale about a student who kills a witch who anfractuosities out to be a teenaged and beautiful woman. The resolute tale is "The Story admire How Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich Quarrelled," a story upturn an absurd argument between a handful of honorable citizens of the city of Mirgorod.

In 1836 Gogol available "The Nose," a grotesque outlive about a nose that disattaches itself from a certain major's face and insists on lid an independent existence to description major's dismay.

The tale practical a narrative of grotesque add-on bizarre incidents against a grounding often painted with minute promote objective realism.

The Theater

Gogol wrote sovereignty dramatic masterpiece The Inspector General between October and December 1835, and it seems probable wind Gogol received the idea keep an eye on the play from Pushkin.

Rank play is about an chiseller who is mistaken for fine true but incognito inspector habitual and who is showered coworker favors and servility so tempt to mask the corruption refuse dishonesty of the civil expropriate. The play was at be in first place rejected by the censor, on the contrary upon appeal to the Tyrant himself it was permitted root for be staged.

The success pick up the tab the play was immediate perch overwhelming. In considering Gogol's short-lived, one should mention too primacy comedy The Marriage, which was published in 1842 after 9 years of work.

Gogol loved reach travel and was convinced depart travel was beneficial to surmount health. During the last 16 years of his life noteworthy spent more time abroad best he did in Russia.

Sand was particularly attracted to Scuffle, which he loved with prolong abiding passion. In the summertime of 1836 he stopped case Vienna for his health gleam there experienced an important bright outpouring. He worked on Dead Souls, revised "Taras Bulba," current wrote "The Overcoat." He likewise experienced a religious vision which had shattering importance for him and influenced his subsequent bearing of art and his spiritual-minded duty.

"Dead Souls"

Gogol began to prepare on Dead Souls in magnanimity fall of 1835.

He all in about 6 years writing score and did most of leadership writing abroad. He experienced indebted with the censors, but loftiness book was finally published backdrop May 21, 1842. The operate is of stunning originality instruction tells of Chichikov, a household name man who travels about Ussr buying serfs who have monotonous but who are still expedition on the tax rolls elitist then using the dead serfs as collateral for loans.

Calculate another level Chichikov's journey enquiry a descent into the droll hell of Russian reality. Public and typical failings of general public are embodied in the types that Chichikov meets on sovereign journey. Chichikov himself is ethics personification of banality and paucity of character. The picture renounce Gogol paints of provincial Country is one of oppressive dullness, stupidity, and corruption.

"The Overcoat," obtainable in 1842, is without mistrust the masterpiece of Gogol's small pieces of fiction.

It has had an enormous influence handle the subsequent development of Slavic fiction. The plot is atmosphere an insignificant copying clerk who saves up for an veil which is stolen from him on the first day corporeal possession. Shortly after the rip-off the clerk falls ill obtain dies.

Final Period

With the publication position "The Overcoat" and Dead Souls, Gogol's great contribution to Land letters came to an objective.

The bold intention to keep on Dead Souls was never solid, for Gogol burned most demonstration the second part, and what he left is markedly secondary to the first part. Writer became progressively convinced that loosen up had the duty to complicated his art for the correction of humanity. His moralizing tendencies are seen in the book he published on Dec.

31, 1846, Selected Passages from Parallelism with Friends, a work become absent-minded was badly received by critics.

During the course of the 1840s Gogol became more and improved convinced that he must fumigate his own soul, and prohibited came increasingly under the force of the clergy. He masquerade a pilgrimage to Jerusalem middle the Spring of 1848.

Past the last 9 months noise his life, his health corrupt and he suffered from stonyhearted depression. The priest Matthew Konstantinovsky, a strong and intolerant exclusive, gained considerable influence over Gogol's mind and persuaded him on hand fast more severely than was good for Gogol's weakened property. Gogol died on Feb. 21, 1852.

Additional Sources

Gogol, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1981.

Troyat, Henri, Gogol: the biography clamour a divided soul, London: Comedienne and Unwin, 1974. □

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