“Don’t Get Angry, Just Pray”: The Ghost of Gogol in Dostoevsky’s Diary

Gabriel Nussbaum

Abstract


The article analyzes a brief but extremely revealing and under-discussed parody of Nikolai Gogol in an essay on spiritualism from Dostoevsky’s 1876 Diary of a Writer. A discussion of the historical context surrounding the parody and a close reading of the work itself show that Dostoevsky produced the parody both as a mockery of the spiritualists and as a form of profound engagement with Gogol’s style. This is followed by an examination of how the parody should be considered from the standpoint of “genre” and put it into dialogue with the surrounding chapter in which it appears. It becomes possible to conclude on this basis that at this stage in Dostoevsky’s career, Gogol served as a model for both his comedic writing and for the structuring of his rhetorical arguments about the nature and importance of faith.

Keywords: Diary of a Writer, Dostoevsky and Gogol, Parody, Genre 

Full Text:

PDF

References


Julia Luisa Abramson, Learning from Lying: Paradoxes of the Literary Mystification (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005).

Donald Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).

Michael D. Gordin, “Loose and Baggy Spirits: Reading Dostoevskii and Mendeleev”, Slavic Review, vol. 60, no. 4, 2001, 756–80. doi.org/10.2307/2697494.

William J. Leatherbarrow, A Devil’s Vaudeville : The Demonic in Dostoevsky’s Major Fiction (Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 2005). doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv43vtk2.

Robert A. Maguire, ed., Gogol from the Twentieth Century; Eleven Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974).

Gary Saul Morson, The Boundaries of Genre : Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).

Vladimir V. Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol (New York: New Directions, 1961).

K. K Ruthven, Faking Literature (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511483202.

Sven Spieker, ed., Gogol: Exploring Absence (Bloomington: Slavica, 1999).

Victor Terras, “Nabokov and Gogol: The Metaphysics of Nonbeing”, in Poetica Slavica: Studies in Honour of Zbigniew Folejewski, edited by J. Douglas Clayton and Gunter Schaarschmidt (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1981), p. 191-196.

Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975).

Ilya Vinitsky, Ghostly Paradoxes: Modern Spiritualism and Russian Culture in the Age of Realism (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 2009). doi.org/10.3138/9781442697959.

Andrew Wachtel, An Obsession with History : Russian Writers Confront the Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994).

Alexandr Zholkovsky, “Rereading Gogol’s Miswritten Book”, in Essays on Gogol: Logos and the Russian Word, ed. Susanne Fusso and Priscilla Meyer (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1992), p. 172-184. doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv47w2mm.17.

Сергей Т. Аксаков, “9 декабря, 1846”, in Николай В. Гоголь, Переписка Н. В. Гоголя: в двух томах (Москва: Художественная литература, 1988).

Игорь А. Виноградов, “Коментарий”, in Николай В. Гоголь, Духовная проза (Москва: Русская книга, 1992).

Николай В. Гоголь, Полное собрание сочинений в 14 томах (Москва: Издательство академии наук СССР, 1937-1952).

Александр А. Долинин, “Как понимать мистификацию Пушкина ‘Последний из свойственнников Иоанны Д’Арк’”, in И время и место: Историко-филогический сборник к шестидесятилетию Александра Львовича Осповата, под. ред. Р. Вруна и др. (Москва: Новое издательство, 2007), с. 198-216.

“Московские заметки: новый год и новые желания”, in Голос, № 6, 6 (18) января 1876, с. 1-2.

Вадим Д. Рак, “Примечания,” in Федор М. Достоевский, Полное собрание сочинений в 30 томах т. 22 (Ленинград: Наука, 1981), с. 315-400.

Василий В. Розанов, Легенда о Великом инквизиторе Ф. М. Достоевского (Москва: Республика, 1996).

Алексей Т. Тарасенков, “Последние дни Н. В. Гоголя”, in Н. В. Гоголя в воспоминаниях современников, под. ред. Н. Бродского, Ф. Гладкова, Ф. М. Головенченко и др. (Москва: Государственное издательство художественной литературы, 1952), с. 511-525.

Юрий Н. Тынянов, Достоевский и Гоголь (К теории пародии) (Петроград: ОПОЯЗ, 1921).

— — —, “О пародии”, in Поэтика. История литературы. Кино (Москва: Издательство академии наук СССР, 1977), с. 284-310.

Борис М. Эйхенбаум, “Как сделана «Шинель» Гоголя”, in Борис М. Эйхенбаум, О прозе (Ленинград: Художественная литература, 1969), с. 306-326.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.13136/1013-2309/1062

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.