Dead souls." Genre, plot, composition

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is one of the most mysterious writers of the 19th century. His life and work are full of mysticism and secrets. Our article will help you prepare qualitatively for a literature lesson, for the Unified State Exam, test assignments, creative works according to the poem. When analyzing Gogol’s work “Dead Souls” in grade 9, it is important to rely on additional material in order to familiarize yourself with the history of creation, issues, and understand what artistic media used by the author. In “Dead Souls” the analysis is specific due to its substantive scope and compositional features works.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– 1835 -1842 The first volume was published in 1842.

History of creation– the idea for the plot was suggested to Gogol by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. The author worked on the poem for about 17 years.

Subject- the morals and life of landowners in Rus' in the 30s of the 19th century, a gallery of human vices.

Composition– 11 chapters of the first volume, united by the image of the main character – Chichikov. Several chapters of the second volume that survived and were found and published.

Direction– realism. The poem also contains romantic traits, but they are secondary.

History of creation

Nikolai Vasilyevich wrote his immortal brainchild for about 17 years. He considered this work the most important mission in his life. The history of the creation of “Dead Souls” is full of gaps and mysteries, as well as mystical coincidences. While working on the work, the author fell seriously ill, being on the verge of death, but he suddenly miraculously recovered. Gogol took this fact as a sign from above, which gave him a chance to finish his main work.

The idea of ​​“Dead Souls” and the very fact of their existence as a social phenomenon was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. It was Alexander Sergeevich, according to the author, who gave him the idea to write a large-scale work capable of revealing the entire essence of the Russian soul. The poem was conceived as a work in three volumes. The first volume (published in 1842) was conceived as a collection of human vices, the second gave the characters the opportunity to realize their mistakes, and in the third volume they change and find the path to the right life.

While in work, the work was edited by the author many times, its main idea, characters, plot changed, but only the essence was preserved: the problems and plan of the work. Gogol finished the second volume of “Dead Souls” shortly before his death, but according to some information, he himself destroyed this book. According to other sources, it was given by the author to Tolstoy or one of his close friends, and then lost. There is an opinion that this manuscript is still kept by the descendants of high society around Gogol and will someday be found. The author did not have time to write the third volume, but there is information about its intended content from reliable sources, the future book, its idea and general characteristics, were discussed in literary circles.

Subject

Meaning of the name“Dead Souls” is twofold: this phenomenon itself - the sale of dead serf souls, rewriting them and transferring them to another owner and the image of people like Plyushkin, Manilov, Sobakevich - their souls are dead, the heroes are deeply unspiritual, vulgar and immoral.

Main topic“Dead Souls” - the vices and morals of society, the life of a Russian person in the 1830s of the 19th century. The problems that the author raises in the poem are as old as the world, but they are shown and revealed in the way that is characteristic of a researcher of human characters and souls: subtly and on a large scale.

Main character- Chichikov buys from landowners long-dead, but still registered serfs, whom he needs only on paper. Thus, he plans to get rich by receiving payment for them from the board of guardians. Chichikov's interaction and collaboration with scammers and charlatans like himself becomes central theme poems. The desire to get rich in every possible way is characteristic not only of Chichikov, but also of many of the heroes of the poem - this is the disease of the century. What Gogol’s poem teaches is between the lines of the book - Russian people are characterized by adventurism and a craving for “easy bread.”

The conclusion is clear: the most correct way is to live according to the laws, in harmony with conscience and heart.

Composition

The poem consists of the complete first volume and several surviving chapters of the second volume. The composition is subordinated to the main goal - to reveal a picture of Russian life, contemporary to the author, to create a gallery of typical characters. The poem consists of 11 chapters, full of lyrical digressions, philosophical discussions and wonderful descriptions of nature.

All this breaks through the main plot from time to time and gives the work a unique lyricism. The work ends with a colorful lyrical reflection on the future of Russia, its strength and power.

The book was originally conceived as a satirical work, which influenced general composition. In the first chapter, the author introduces the reader to the residents of the city, to the main character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. From the second to the sixth chapters the author gives portrait characteristic landowners, their unique way of life, a kaleidoscope of quirks and morals. The next four chapters describe the life of bureaucrats: bribery, arbitrariness and tyranny, gossip, the way of life of a typical Russian city.

Main characters

Genre

To determine the genre of “Dead Souls”, it is necessary to turn to history. Gogol himself defined it as a “poem,” although the structure and scale of the narrative are close to the story and novel. A prose work is called a poem due to its lyricism: a large number lyrical digressions, notes and comments from the author. It is also worth considering that Gogol drew a parallel between his brainchild and Pushkin’s poem “Eugene Onegin”: the latter is considered a novel in verse, and “Dead Souls” is, on the contrary, a poem in prose.

The author emphasizes the equivalence of the epic and the lyrical in his work. Criticism has a different opinion about the genre features of the poem. For example, V. G. Belinsky called the work a novel, and this opinion is usually taken into account, since it is completely justified. But according to tradition Gogol's work called a poem.

Work test

Rating analysis

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Gogol made the first sketches of the future grandiose creation in the summer of 1835, at the same time the general plan of the poem took shape. Gogol planned to write three volumes. The first volume was supposed to be something like a “facade” of a huge structure (Gogol studied architecture and often used comparisons with this type of art). The writer intended to depict in the first volume a sad reality, a depressing life, “fractured and cold characters.” The second volume was planned differently: in it the author wanted to depict a changing Rus', people who were different, but better than the gallery of types in the first volume. In the heroes of the chapters of the second volume that have come down to us, we see the same Chichikov, whom the author persistently pushes to reform, landowners, whose images are symmetrical to the landowners of the first volume, but they are much more complex and promising. The third volume, according to Gogol’s plan, was supposed to “depict” a changed Russia, which had found its way to a full-fledged and happy life. The idea of ​​the poem and its structure, that is, the increasing optimistic tone in the depiction of the world, caused a comparison of “Dead Souls” with Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy”, also consisting of three parts: “Hell”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”.

The further fate of Gogol’s plan is as follows: while still working on the first volume, Gogol began sketching the second (1840), but was unable to complete it or write any coherent major part. From the second volume, only four chapters have survived in different editions. It is known that several people close to Gogol read individual finished chapters of the second volume, but ten days before his death, Gogol burned his manuscript. Gogol never started writing the third volume.

Gogol made the first mention of working on “Dead Souls” in a letter to Pushkin dated October 7, 1835: “I began to write “Dead Souls.” The plot stretches out into a long novel and, it seems, will be very funny.<...>In this novel I want to show at least from one side all of Rus'.” The message about “Dead Souls” appears in the same letter as the request for a plot for a new comedy, therefore, both works arose in Gogol’s creative mind at the same time. The desire to show “all of Rus'” testifies to the scale of the plan; the expression “albeit from one side” suggests that Gogol chooses a certain perspective in the depiction of Rus', that is, while ridiculing the bureaucracy in “The Inspector General,” he obviously intends to concentrate in “The Dead.” souls" on the image of landowner-peasant Russia. However, then Gogol was temporarily distracted by work on “The Inspector General” and another literary activity and resumed active work on “Dead Souls” only in 1836 after leaving abroad.

Please note that in a letter to Pushkin, Gogol calls his work “a very long novel.” Nevertheless, returning to his plan a year later, Gogol more clearly realized the grandiose scale of his plan and wrote in a letter to Zhukovsky: “... what a huge, what an original plot! What a varied bunch! All Rus' will appear in it!” Gogol no longer stipulates that he will show Rus' “albeit from one side,” and does not call the work a novel. Consequently, along with the expansion of the idea, the question of the nature of “Dead Souls” and its genre becomes more acute for the writer, since the author cannot designate the genre of the work arbitrarily.

Gogol wrote the first volume of Dead Souls for six years, creating most of the work in Rome. During this time, the writer called his creation differently: now a novel, now a story, now just a thing, and only by the beginning of the 1840s did he finally formulate a genre definition - a poem. In the fall of 1841, Gogol returned to Russia, for some time he sought censorship permission to publish “Dead Souls,” and finally, on May 21, 1842, the poem was published in the printing house of Moscow University under the title “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.”

The main significance for determining the genre of “Dead Souls” - a poem - is the fact that the work was written at the junction of two literary families: epic and lyrical. The narrative about Chichikov's scam, that is, his travels around the province, stay in the city, meetings, forms the epic part of the poem, of which Chichikov is the main character. The lyrical purity of the poem is mainly composed of lyrical digressions that convey the author’s experiences, reflections, and emotional excitement; these lyrical digressions express the positive ideal of the author. The hero of the entire poem, in the merging of the epic and lyrical principles, appears to be Rus'. This is the genre and generic originality of “Dead Souls”.

“Dead Souls” is often compared with the epic poems of Homer, Virgil and Dante. However, Gogol's poem was created already during the existence of mature national literatures; it depicts national life and therefore represents a national poem.

At the same time, “Dead Souls” also has the genre basis of a novel, since it describes the adventures of a rogue, a swindler - a common plot of a popular novel. European literature genre of picaresque novel. Outlined in the poem love story between Chichikov and the governor’s daughter did not develop. As in “The Inspector General,” where Gogol also decided not to include a love conflict in the play, in “Dead Souls” this decision has an ideological explanation, because Chichikov, whose activity is built on deception and “is not worth a damn,” does not deserve love. The poem also contains signs of a morally descriptive story, in which, thanks to the plot based on the hero’s journey, a gallery of faces and characters passes before us.

By school curriculum each of us should read one of greatest works world literature - “Dead Souls” by Gogol. And at the same time, teachers always focus on the fact that it belongs to the genre of a poem. How can this be? Why is “Dead Souls” not considered, for example, a novel or story? After all, it is written in prose, and all known poems are created in poetic form... We will answer this question for you today.

Author's own opinion

According to literary tradition, “Dead Souls” must be classified as a social-satirical story. But it is well known that Gogol himself defined his “brainchild” as a poem, and he had his own reasons for this.

Nikolai Vasilievich as the highest literary thought exalted the epic genre, but at the same time noticed that there is an intermediate type between the epic and the novel - the so-called “less epic type.” This term best describes the genre and semantic features of “Dead Souls,” but such a long title is too difficult to understand, so Gogol uses the term “poem.” This term also allowed the author, in addition to the epic beginning, to use lyrical elements in the narrative.

Features of the poem as a genre

A poem is a genre that harmoniously incorporates elements of epic and lyricism. In the traditional understanding, such works should have a poetic form, but in literary practice prose poems are also known - in addition to “Dead Souls,” in this regard we should mention “Moscow-Petushki” by V. Erofeev, as well as “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy” by L. Stern. Thus, a poem can indeed be written in prose if the following conditions are met:

• the presence of voluminous lyrical digressions on the background of the epic depiction of reality;
• the presence of heroes and/or antiheroes;
• a special prose language of narration (close to poetic in melody, rhythm, wide range of expressive means vocabulary, etc.).

All these signs can be found in Gogol’s “Dead Souls”.

A combination of lyricism and epic

Gogol's poetics is a poetry of contrasts and contradictions. This writer became a master of complex and bitter grotesquery, which was emphasized by sharp leaps from the comic to the serious, from laughter to pathos. This is the combination of lyricism and epic.

In the author's narrative, two contrasting styles are very clearly visible, which correspond to two completely different genres: the poetics of sublimity (which is typical for lyric poetry) and the poetics of triviality and realism (which is typical for epic). The first of them was embodied in lyrical digressions, which can confidently be called full-fledged prose poems.

The epic component is implemented in the main storyline"Dead Souls", where the author describes vulgarity and ugliness Russian reality that era.

So, we see that the work combines epic and lyrical principles, which is quite consistent with the poem as a genre.

The presence of heroes and/or antiheroes

Dead Souls features a whole line of anti-heroes (including the main character Chichikov). In search of his “dead serfs,” Chichikov travels around the landowners’ estates near the city of N., where he meets negative characters.

Thus, Manilov, despite his outward cuteness, is an overly sentimental and sugary character, the embodiment of rosy optimism and stupid daydreaming. He has neither character nor will of his own. The rest of the landowners also cannot be called anything other than “anti-heroes”: this is Korobochka, limited by narrow thinking, and the adventurer Nozdryov, and the cunning “kulak” Sobakevich, and, of course, the greedy and completely degraded Plyushkin. So, the second sign of the poem’s genre is also evident.

A special language of storytelling

Gogol's comparisons are one of the most famous tricks in the author's poetics. Comparisons of people and animals, ironic metaphors, multifaceted allusions help the writer achieve amazing effects. Gogol plays on the contrast of basic epic forms with rhythmic structures and comic content.

The unusual imagery of all the characters is achieved by exaggerating some of their characteristics, which is not typical for the genre of a story or novel. Gogol does not penetrate into the psyche of the characters, but with the help of descriptions of distinctive gestures, facial expressions and postures gives the reader the opportunity to independently create the correct image.

Numerous lyrical digressions, inserted elements, sublime reflections and the author’s sincere worries about the fate of his homeland take “Dead Souls” beyond the scope of the epic genre. Particularly indicative in this regard is the ending, in which Gogol gives a picturesque portrait of the “three bird” - a great generalization of the writer’s thoughts about people and Russia.

Results

Summarizing all of the above, the work “Dead Souls” can truly be classified as a poem. Moreover, to a unique poem, which has no analogues in world literature. Thanks to its simple forms, harsh satire and sincere author’s emotions, “Dead Souls” is recognized as a sharp and very capacious portrait of serf Russia.

Gogol himself defined the genre works of the Dead souls (1842) as a poem. . There is a direct reference to the Pushkin tradition here, because and the plot itself was suggested by Pushkin shortly before his death.

Therefore, a contrast arises: if Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse, then Dead Souls is, accordingly, a poem in prose. Dead Souls is constructed according to a similar scheme; the text contains lyrical digressions, although the work itself is epic.

Genre of Gogol's dead souls

Thus, it can be said that Gogol correctly defined the genre: the merging of lyricism and epic is what produces a poem. If there were no lyrical digressions, a novel would have been published based on strong Pushkin traditions.

Dead souls also have traits of sentimentalism. This is a travel novel. Although Chichikov’s trip does not have any sentimental motives, the fact itself is important. The poem ends symbolically: like Chatsky in Woe from Wit, Chichikov travels along the road away from the city, he strives towards a new life.

The poem can also be called, following the European tradition, a picaresque novel: main character here is a fraudster who deceives everyone he meets. His scam is to buy more peasants and thus receive free land from the state.

But he is not going to become a full-fledged landowner, so he does not need peasants as workers. Because of this, he buys so-called landowners from other landowners. dead souls(according to the poll tax law, each soul was taxed until death was reported. Landowners often did not report the death of their peasants), thus helping both themselves and the sellers.

Dead souls: characteristics of heroes

As for the heroes of the poem, Gogol set himself the task of depicting the three main Russian classes: landowners, peasants and officials. Particular attention is paid to the landowners from whom Chichikov buys up dead souls: Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Plyushkin and Sobakevich.

The officials in this poem are quite similar to landowners. A very expressive character is the provincial prosecutor, who dies of shock after learning about Chichikov’s scam. So it turns out that he also knew how to feel. But in general, according to Gogol, officials only know how to take bribes.

Peasants are episodic characters; there are very few of them in the poem: serfs of landowners, random people they meet... Peasants are a mystery. Chichikov thinks for a long time about the Russian people, fantasizes, looking at a long list dead souls.

And finally, the main character, Chichikov, does not fully belong to any of the classes. In his image, Gogol creates a fundamentally new type of hero - he is the owner-acquirer, whose main goal is to accumulate more money.

To what type of literature does “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol belong?

Read the fragment of the work below and complete tasks 1–9.

But Chichikov simply said that such an enterprise, or negotiation, would in no way be inconsistent with civil regulations and further developments in Russia, and a minute later he added that the treasury would even receive benefits, since it would receive legal duties.

- So you think?

- I suppose it will be good.

“And if it’s good, that’s a different matter: I have nothing against it,” said

Manilov completely calmed down.

- Now all that remains is to agree on the price.

- What's the price? - Manilov said again and stopped. “Do you really think that I would take money for souls that have, in some way, ended their existence?” If you have come up with such a, so to speak, fantastic desire, then for my part I hand them over to you without interest and take over the deed of sale.

It would be a great reproach to the historian of the proposed events if he failed to say that pleasure overcame the guest after such words uttered by Manilov. No matter how sedate and reasonable he was, he almost even made a leap like a goat, which, as we know, is done only in the strongest impulses of joy. He turned so hard in his chair that the woolen material that covered the pillow burst; Manilov himself looked at him in some bewilderment. Prompted by gratitude, he immediately said so many thanks that he became confused, blushed all over, made a negative gesture with his head, and finally expressed that this was nothing, that he really wanted to prove with something the attraction of the heart, the magnetism of the soul, and the dead souls are in some ways complete rubbish.

“It’s not rubbish at all,” said Chichikov, shaking his hand. A very deep sigh was taken here. He seemed to be in a mood for heartfelt outpourings; Not without feeling and expression, he finally uttered the following words: “If you only knew what service this apparently rubbish rendered to a man without a tribe and clan!” And really, what did I not suffer? like some kind of barge among the fierce waves... What persecutions, what persecutions have you not experienced, what grief have you not tasted, and for what? for observing the truth, for being clear in his conscience, for giving his hand to both a helpless widow and a miserable orphan!.. - Here he even wiped away a tear that had rolled out with a handkerchief.

Manilov was completely moved. Both friends shook each other's hands for a long time and looked silently into each other's eyes for a long time, in which welling up tears were visible. Manilov did not want to let go of our hero’s hand and continued to squeeze it so hotly that he no longer knew how to help her out. Finally, having pulled it out slowly, he said that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to complete the deed of sale as quickly as possible, and it would be nice if he himself visited the city. Then he took his hat and began to take his leave.

(N.V. Gogol, “Dead Souls”)

What is Gogol's definition of the Dead Souls genre?

Explanation.

Gogol himself called “Dead Souls” a poem, and a poem is a lyric-epic genre. Epic works are characterized by their breadth of reality: they reflect both the private life of people and the public life of entire nations. From epic works the poem is distinguished by the author’s special, subjectively interested attitude towards events and characters, i.e., the lyricism of the image. A poem is a large poetic work with a plot-narrative organization.

Answer: poem.

Answer: poem

What is the name of the image of the hero’s internal experiences, manifested in his behavior? (“confused, blushed all over, made a negative gesture with his head”)?

Explanation.

The depiction of the hero’s internal experiences is psychologism. This method of depicting a character means that the author sets himself the task of showing the character and personality of the hero directly from the psychological side, and making this way of understanding the hero the main one.

Answer: psychologism.

Answer: psychologism

Source: Unified State Exam 05/05/2015. Early wave.

Chichikov visits, in addition to Manilov, other landowners. Establish a correspondence between the surnames of the landowners and the features of their appearance: for each position in the first column, select the corresponding position from the second column.

Write down the numbers in your answer, arranging them in the order corresponding to the letters:

Explanation.

A) Manilov - “His facial features were not devoid of pleasantness, but this pleasantness seemed to have too much sugar in it.”

B) Nozdryov - “A very well-built fellow with full rosy cheeks, teeth white as snow and jet-black sideburns.”

B) Plyushkin - “The small eyes had not yet gone out and ran from under his high eyebrows, like mice.”