Exploring Gogol by Robert A Maguire
For the past 150 years, critics have referred to 'the Gogol problem', by which they mean their inability to account for a life and work that are puzzling, often opaque, yet have proved consistently fascinating to generations of readers. This book proceeds on the assumption that Gogol's life and work, in all their manifestations, form a whole; it identifies, in ways that have eluded critics to date, the rhetorical strategies and thematic patterns that create the unity. These larger concerns emerge from a close study of the major texts, fictional and nonfictional, and in turn are set in a broad artistic and intellectual context, Russian and European, with special attention to German philosophy, the visual arts, and Orthodox Christian theology.
"This is a wonderful book, the culmination of many years of reading and meditation, of intense engagement with the enigma of Gogol. . . We have a believable, convincing picture of a real man, seen against a broad background of the ideas and artistic fashions afloat in his age."—Hugh McLean, University of California, Berkeley "A thoughtful, clever, and imaginative analysis of Gogol's art, and one that breaks significant new ground. . . . Maguire has produced a distinctive and elegant contribution to Anglo-American Gogol criticism."—Journal of European Studies
Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol was born in 1809; his family were small gentry of Ukrainian cossack extraction, and his father was the author of a number of plays based on Ukrainian popular tales. He attended school in N�zhin and gained a reputation for his theatrical abilities. He went to St Petersburg in 1829 and with the help of a friend gained a post in one of the government ministries. Gogol was introduced to Zhukovsky, the romantic poet, and to Pushkin, and with the publication of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831) he had an entr�e to all the leading literary salons. He even managed for a short period to be Professor of History at the University of St. Petersburg (1834-5). Diary of a Madman and The Story of the Quarrel between Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich appeared in 1934, The Nose in 1836, and The Overcoat in 1842. Gogol also wrote the play The Inspector (1836), Dead Souls (1842), and several moralizing essays defending the Tsarist regime, to the horror of his liberal and radical friends. He lived a great deal abroad, mostly in Rome, and in his last years became increasingly prey to religious mania and despair. He made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1848, but was bitterly disappointed in the lack of feeling that the journey kindled. He returned to Russia and fell under the influence of a spiritual director who told him to destroy his writings as they were sinful. He burned the second part of Dead Souls, and died in 1852 after subjecting himself to a severe regime of fasting.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780804723206 |
| ISBN 10 | 0804723206 |
| Title | Exploring Gogol |
| Author | Robert A Maguire |
| Series | Studies Of The Harriman Institute |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Stanford University Press |
| Year published | 1995-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 432 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |