Nikolay Gogol, the author of the first great Russian novel of the 19th century, Dead Souls, as well as two classic plays and some of the finest short stories written in any language, was a true literary oddity. His peculiar, unhappy life and his uniquely dark comic sensibility have been consistently misunderstood by posterity, with critics fiercely debating his nationality, his religious beliefs, and even his sexuality. What has never been in doubt, however, is his immense literary talent which, while essentially sui generis, provided a template for the absurdist, surreal streak in Russian literature that continues to bear fruit to this day. Along with Alexander Pushkin, he also established a literary pattern for the depiction of St. Petersburg as a city of ambiguity and even monstrosity, life in which proves untenable for many of his long-suffering protagonists. Nikolay Vasilievich Gogol was born in Sorochyntsi, a Ukrainian Cossack village in what is now Ukraine's Poltava Oblast. His family were from the lower ranks of the gentry, his mother of Polish descent and his father a Ukrainian Cossack who wrote poetry and drama in Ukrainian. The family spoke both Ukrainian and Russian at home, and Gogol would later make a conscious choice to pursue a literary career in Russian rather than Ukrainian. He was educated at the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in Nezhyn, a school founded as part of Alexander I's education reforms.
In Imperial Russia, Chichikov, a middle-class man, arrives in a small town and approaches landowners to collect their “dead souls”—serfs who have passed away but who are still registered as the landowner’s property. Although Chichikov initially reveals little about his purpose except to say that he does have a use for the souls, when his motive is exposed, the novel takes a dramatic turn, revealing the absurdity of the middle class.
Dead Souls was first published by Nikolai Gogol in 1842, and is widely regarded as one of the best known Russian political satires. Written in the style of Dante’s Inferno, Dead Souls was meant to be the first of a trilogy that introduced a solution to this ailing system, although Gogol did not complete the following two novels.
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Título : Dead Souls
EAN : 9781443435468
Editorial : HarperCollins Canada
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