• Expanding students' ideas about Gogol's work, helping to see the real and fantastic world in the story "Portrait".
• Formation of research skills, comparative analysis.
• Strengthen faith in the high purpose of art.

Equipment: a portrait of N.V. Gogol, two versions of the story, illustrations for the story.

Preparing for the lesson. In advance, students are given the task to read the story "Portrait": the first group - the version of "Arabesque", the second group - the second version. Prepare answers to questions:

1. What is the ideological content of the story?
2. How did the hero's portrait appear?
3. Who is in the portrait?
4. How did the artist try to get rid of the terrible portrait?
5. How does the artist's spiritual fall occur?
6. What is the fate of the portrait?

During the classes

organizational part. Message about the topic and purpose of the lesson.

Introduction by the teacher.

One of the features of N.V. Gogol's vision of the world through fantasy. As a romantic, he was fascinated by fantastic stories, strong characters of people from the people. The stories beloved by many readers "The Night Before Christmas", "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "Viy", "Terrible Revenge", "The Enchanted Place" are similar to a fairy tale, because in them the world is divided into ordinary, real and unusual, "otherworldly ". In his works, reality is intricately intertwined with fantastic fiction.

We see such a connection between reality and fantasy in the story "Portrait". It is considered one of the most controversial and complex stories of the St. Petersburg cycle; is interesting not only as a peculiar expression of the writer's aesthetic views, but also as a work in which the contradictions of Gogol's worldview are reflected. The world of St. Petersburg in Gogol is real, recognizable and at the same time fantastic, eluding understanding. In the 1930s, stories about people of art, musicians, and artists were especially popular. Against the background of these works, Gogol's "Portrait" stood out for the significance of the ideological concept, the maturity of the writer's generalizations.

A conversation about the history of the creation of the story.

Teacher. Pay attention to the date of publication of the story.

The original version of the story was published in the collection "Arabesques" in 1835. The second, revised version was published in 1942 in the Sovremennik magazine. They are both similar and different.

It turns out that the original version of the story caused a number of negative reviews from critics. The great critic V.G. Belinsky. In the article "On the Russian story and the stories of Mr. Gogol" he writes: "Portrait" is an unsuccessful attempt by Gogol in a fantastic way. Here his talent falls, but even in the fall he remains a talent. The first part of this story is impossible to read without enthusiasm; even, in fact, there is something terrible, fatal, fantastic in this mysterious portrait, there is some kind of invincible charm that makes you forcefully look at it, although you are afraid of it. Add to this a multitude of humorous pictures and essays in the style of Mr. Gogol: But the second part of it is worth absolutely nothing; Mr. Gogol is not at all visible in it. This is an obvious adaptation in which the mind worked, and fantasy did not take any part: In general, it must be said that the fantastic is somehow not quite given to Mr. Gogol.

Under the influence of Belinsky's criticism, Gogol revised the story in 1841-1842 during his stay in Rome and sent it to Pletnev for publication, accompanied by the words: "It was published in Arabesques, but don't be afraid of that. Read it: you will see that you are left alone only the canvas of the old story, that everything was embroidered on it again. In Rome, I redid it completely, or, better, wrote it again, as a result of remarks made back in St. Petersburg, "he wrote to Pletnev.

Comparative analysis of the work.

Teacher. What is this story about?

The writer focuses on the tragic fate of the artist in modern society, where everything is for sale, up to beauty, talent and inspiration. The clash of the ideals of art, beauty with reality forms the basis of the content of both the first and second editions.

A talented but poor young artist bought an old portrait with his last money. The strangeness of the portrait is in the eyes, the piercing gaze of the mysterious person depicted in it. “The portrait, it seemed, was not finished; but the power of the brush was striking. The most extraordinary thing were the eyes: it seemed that the artist used all the power of the brush and all the diligent care of his artist. They just looked, looked even from the portrait itself, as if destroying its harmony with their strange liveliness ... They were alive, they were human eyes! They were motionless, but, it’s true, they wouldn’t be so terrible if they moved. The young artist spent a night full of nightmares. He saw, either in a dream or in reality, how the terrible old man depicted in the portrait jumped out of the frames: So he began to approach the artist, began to unfold the bundles, and there - gold coins: "My God, if only some of this money!" - the artist dreamed, and his dream came true. But from that day on, strange changes began to occur in the soul of the young man. Flattered by wealth, not without the intervention of a portrait, he gradually turned from a promising talented artist into a greedy, envious artisan. "Soon it was impossible to recognize a modest artist in him: His fame grew, his work and orders increased: But even the most ordinary virtues were no longer visible in his works, and meanwhile they still enjoyed fame, although true connoisseurs and artists only shrugged their shoulders, looking at his latest works. Gold became his passion and ideal, fear and pleasure, goal. Bunches of banknotes grew in his chests. " Chartkov sank lower and lower, reached the point that he began to destroy the talented creations of other masters, went crazy and, finally, died. After his death, his paintings were put up for auction, among them was that portrait. Recognized by one of the visitors, the mysterious portrait disappeared to continue its destructive influence on people.

Teacher. Let's compare the two versions of the story. What difference can you find between the stories of the two editions?

How did the hero's portrait appear?

Who is in the portrait?

How did the artist try to get rid of the terrible portrait?

How does the artist's spiritual fall occur?

What is the fate of the portrait?

Edition "Arabesque".	Second edition.
1. The painting appeared to the artist Chertkov in a mysterious way. Chertkov paid 50 rubles for the portrait, but, horrified by his eyes, he ran away. In the evening, the portrait mysteriously appeared on his wall. (mystical element)	1. Chartkov bought a portrait in a shop for the last two kopecks and "dragged it with him." (Very real event)
2. The portrait depicts a mysterious usurer, either a Greek, or an Armenian, or a Moldavian, whom the author called "a strange creature." But he has a specific surname - Petromikhali. Before his death, he begged, conjured the artist "to paint a portrait of him." Half of his life passed into a portrait.	2. An unknown usurer, "an extraordinary creature in every respect." Nobody knows his name, but there is no doubt about the presence of evil spirits in this person. "The devil, the perfect devil! - the artist thinks of him, - that's who I should write the devil from." As if learning about his thoughts, the terrible usurer himself came to order a portrait from him. "What a diabolical power! It will simply jump out of my canvas, if only I will be true to nature at least a little:" - How right he was, this artist!
3. The author of the portrait burned it in the fireplace, but the terrible portrait reappeared, and the artist experienced many misfortunes.	3. A friend begged the author for a picture, and the portrait began to bring misfortune to people one after another.
4. Clients somehow mysteriously learn about the glorious artist Chertkov. The spiritual fall of the artist occurs as a result of the intervention of the "devil".	4. Chartkov himself orders an advertisement in the newspaper "On the extraordinary talents of Chartkov." Because of the penchant for secular life, panache, love of money, he sinks lower and lower.
5. At the end, the portrait mysteriously and without a trace disappeared from the canvas. (Mysticism again!)	5. The portrait is stolen. But it continues to exist and destroy people. (Realistic sense)

Teacher. What is the ideological content of the story?

If in the first edition "Portrait" is a story about the invasion of mysterious demonic forces into the work and life of an artist, then in the second edition it is a story about an artist who betrayed art, who suffered retribution for the fact that he began to treat creativity as a profitable craft. In the second story, Gogol significantly weakened the fantastic element and deepened the psychological content of the story. The moral fall of the artist was not at all accidental, it was explained not by the magical power of the portrait, but by the inclinations of the artist himself, who discovered "impatience", "excessive brilliance of colors", love of money. Thus, the ending in the second edition acquired a realistic meaning.

Teacher. In the story, Gogol condemned the commercialization of creativity, when the author and his talent are bought. How does the author prevent the death of the artist's talent?

The death of the painter Chartkov is predetermined at the very beginning of the story in the words of the professor: “Look, brother, you have a talent; it would be a sin if you ruin it: Beware: the light is already beginning to pull you: It is tempting, you can set off to write fashionable pictures, portraits for money But this is where talent is ruined, not developed: ". However, the young man did not pay much attention to the mentor's warning.

Teacher. Art is called upon to reveal to man the holiness, the mystery of life, its justification. The reconciling mission of art is spoken of in the "Portrait" by the artist who painted the mysterious portrait. With years of solitude and humility, he atones for the evil he has done unwittingly. He passes on his new understanding of art to his son, also an artist. These ideas are especially close and dear to Gogol. He tries to comprehend the most complex nature of creativity; therefore, the fates of three artists are correlated in the story. Name them.

First, Chartkov, endowed with a spark of God and lost his talent; secondly, the artist who created in Italy a picture that strikes everyone with harmony and silence; thirdly, the author of the ill-fated portrait.

Summing up the lesson.

Teacher. In the story, Gogol gradually unfolds the cause of the death of not only talent, but also the artist himself. In pursuit of wealth, Gogol's character loses the integrity of the spirit, can no longer create by inspiration. The soul destroyed by the "light" seeks salvation in material wealth and worldly fashionable glory. The reader believes that there is also the participation of mystical forces in this. The result of such a deal, and Gogol considers it a deal with the devil, is the death of a talent, the death of an artist. This is the fusion of the fantastic and the realistic in the story.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a completely unique writer, unlike other masters of the word. In his work there is a lot of amazing, admirable and surprising: the funny is intertwined with the tragic, the fantastic with the real. It has long been established that the basis of the comic in Gogol is carnival, that is, such a situation when the characters, as it were, put on masks, show unusual properties, change places and everything seems confused, mixed up. On this basis, a very peculiar Gogol's fantasy arises, rooted in the depths of folk culture.

Gogol entered Russian literature as the author of the collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The material of the stories is truly inexhaustible: these are oral stories, legends, tales on both modern and historical topics. “If only they listened and read,” says the beekeeper Rudy Panko in the preface to the first part of the collection, “but I, perhaps, are too lazy to rummage through, and there will be ten such books.”

The past in "Evenings ..." appears in the halo of the fabulous and wonderful. In it, the writer saw the spontaneous play of good and evil forces, morally healthy people, not affected by the spirit of profit, pragmatism and mental laziness. Here Gogol depicts the Little Russian folk-festive, fair life.

The holiday, with its atmosphere of freedom and fun, the beliefs and adventures associated with it, take people out of the framework of their usual existence, making the impossible possible. Previously impossible marriages are concluded (“Sorochinsky Fair”, “May Night”, “The Night Before Christmas”), all evil spirits are activated: devils and witches tempt people, trying to prevent them.

A holiday in Gogol's stories is all kinds of transformations, disguises, hoaxes, and the revelation of secrets. Gogol's laughter in "Evenings ..." is genuine fun, based on juicy folk humor. It is possible for him to express in words comic contradictions and incongruities, of which there are many in the atmosphere of a holiday, and in ordinary everyday life.

The originality of the artistic world of stories is connected, first of all, with the wide use of folklore traditions: it was in folk tales, semi-pagan legends and traditions that Gogol found themes and plots for his works. He used a belief about a fern that blooms on the night before Ivan Kupala; a legend about mysterious treasures, about selling the soul to the devil, about flights and transformations of witches, and much, much more. In a number of his novels and stories, mythological characters act: sorcerers and witches, werewolves and mermaids, and, of course, the devil, to the tricks of which popular superstition is ready to ascribe any evil deed.

"Evenings ..." is a book of truly fantastic incidents. For Gogol, the fantastic is one of the most important aspects of the people's worldview. Reality and fantasy are bizarrely intertwined in the people's ideas about the past and the present, about good and evil. The writer considered the propensity for legendary-fantastic thinking to be an indicator of the spiritual health of people.

The fantasy in Evenings is ethnographically authentic. Heroes and narrators of incredible stories believe that the whole area of ​​the unknown is inhabited by wickedness, and the “demonological” characters themselves are shown by Gogol in a reduced, everyday appearance. They are also "Little Russians", they just live on their own "territory", from time to time fooling ordinary people, interfering in their life, celebrating and playing with them.

For example, the witches in The Missing Letter play the fool, offering the narrator's grandfather to play with them and return, if they're lucky, their hat. The devil in the story "The Night Before Christmas" looks like "a real provincial attorney in uniform." He grabs a month and burns, blowing on his hand, like a man who accidentally grabbed a hot frying pan. Declaring his love for the "incomparable Solokha", the devil "kissed her hand with such antics, like an assessor at the priest's." Solokha herself is not only a witch, but also a villager, greedy and loving admirers.

Folk fantasy is intertwined with reality, clarifying the relationship between people, sharing good and evil. As a rule, the heroes in Gogol's first collection defeat evil. The triumph of man over evil is a folklore motif. The writer filled it with new content: he affirmed the power and strength of the human spirit, capable of curbing the dark, evil forces that rule in nature and interfere in people's lives.

The second period of Gogol's work opened with a kind of "prologue" - "Petersburg" stories "Nevsky Prospekt", "Notes of a Madman" and "Portrait", which were included in the collection "Arabesques". The author explained the name of this collection as follows: "Muddle, mixture, porridge." Indeed, a variety of material was included here: in addition to novels and short stories, articles and essays on various topics are also placed here.

The first three of the "Petersburg" stories that appeared in this collection seem to connect different periods of the writer's work: "Arabesques" came out in 1835, and the last story, completing the cycle of "Petersburg" stories, "The Overcoat" was written already in 1842.

All these stories, different in plot, themes, heroes, are united by the place of action - St. Petersburg. With him, the theme of a big city and the life of a person in it enters the writer's work. But for the writer, St. Petersburg is not just a geographical space. He created a bright image-symbol of the city, both real and ghostly, fantastic. In the fates of the heroes, in the ordinary and incredible incidents of their lives, in the rumors, rumors and legends that fill the very air of the city, Gogol finds a mirror image of the St. Petersburg "phantasmagoria". In St. Petersburg, reality and fantasy easily change places. Everyday life and the fate of the inhabitants of the city - on the verge of believable and wonderful. The unbelievable suddenly becomes so real that a person cannot stand it - he goes crazy, gets sick and even dies.

Gogol's Petersburg is a city of incredible events, ghostly absurd life, fantastic events and ideals. Any metamorphoses are possible in it. The living turns into a thing, a puppet (such are the inhabitants of the aristocratic Nevsky Prospekt). A thing, object or part of the body becomes a “face”, an important person, sometimes even with a high rank (for example, the nose that disappeared from a collegiate assessor Kovalev has the rank of state councilor). The city depersonalizes people, distorts their good qualities, sticks out the bad, changing their appearance beyond recognition.

The stories "The Nose" and "The Overcoat" depict two poles of Petersburg life: absurd phantasmagoria and everyday reality. These poles, however, are not as far apart as it might seem at first glance. The plot of "The Nose" is based on the most fantastic of all urban "stories". Gogol's fantasy in this work is fundamentally different from the folk-poetic fantasy in "Evenings ...". There is no fantastic source here: the nose is part of St. Petersburg mythology that arose without the intervention of otherworldly forces. This is a special mythology - bureaucratic, generated by the almighty invisible - the "electricity" of the rank.

Nose behaves as befits a “significant person” with the rank of State Councilor: he prays in the Kazan Cathedral, walks along Nevsky Prospekt, calls in the department, makes visits, is going to leave for Riga on someone else’s passport. Where it came from, no one, including the author, is interested. It can even be assumed that he "fell from the moon", because according to Poprishchin the madman from Notes of a Madman, "the moon is usually made in Hamburg", but is inhabited by noses. Any, even the most delusional, assumption is not excluded. The main thing is different - in the "two-facedness" of the nose. According to some signs, this is definitely the real nose of Major Kovalev, but the second “face” of the nose is social, which is higher in rank than its owner, because they see the rank, but not the person. Fantasy in The Nose is a mystery that is nowhere to be found and which is everywhere. This is a strange unreality of Petersburg life, in which any delusional vision is indistinguishable from reality.

In The Overcoat, the “little man”, “eternal titular adviser” Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin becomes part of St. Petersburg mythology, a ghost, a fantastic avenger who terrifies “significant persons”. It would seem that a completely ordinary everyday story - about how a new overcoat was stolen - grows not only into a vividly social story about the relationship in the bureaucratic system of St. Petersburg life of a "little man" and a "significant person", but develops into a mystery which raises the question: what is a person, how and why does he live, what does he encounter in the world around him.

This question remains open, as does the fantastic ending of the story. Who is the ghost who finally found "his" general and disappeared forever after tearing off his overcoat? This is a dead man avenging the insult of a living person; the sick conscience of a general who creates in his brain the image of a person offended by him, who died as a result of this person? Or maybe this is just an artistic device, “a bizarre paradox”, as Vladimir Nabokov believed, arguing that “the person who was mistaken for the overcoatless ghost of Akaky Akakievich is the man who stole his overcoat”?

Be that as it may, along with the mustachioed ghost, all the fantastic grotesque disappears into the darkness of the city, resolving in laughter. But a very real and very serious question remains: how in this absurd world, the world of alogism, bizarre interlacing, fantastic stories that claim to be quite real situations of ordinary life, how in this world can a person defend his true face, save a living soul? Gogol will search for the answer to this question until the end of his life, using completely different artistic means for this.

But Gogol's fantasy forever became the property of not only Russian, but also world literature, entered its golden fund. Contemporary art openly recognizes Gogol as its mentor. Capacity, the crushing power of laughter are paradoxically combined in his work with a tragic shock. Gogol, as it were, discovered the common root of the tragic and the comic. The echo of Gogol in art is heard in the novels of Bulgakov, and in the plays of Mayakovsky, and in the phantasmagories of Kafka. Years will pass, but the mystery of Gogol's laughter will remain for new generations of his readers and followers.

Before you is an essay in which the role of fantasy and the grotesque in the work of N.V. Gogol, beloved by all of us, is revealed. The analysis of fantastic and grotesque motifs is based on the example of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" and "Petersburg Tales".

Let's move on to the text.

The role of fantasy and the grotesque in the work of N. V. Gogol

For the first time we meet fantasy and the grotesque in the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in one of his first works " Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka".

The Russian public at the time of Gogol showed great interest in Ukraine, its customs, way of life, literature, and folklore. N.V. Gogol boldly responded to the reader's need for Ukrainian subjects by writing "Evenings ...".

At the beginning of 1829, Gogol began to write "Evenings ...", which absorbed the juicy features of the Ukrainian character, spiritual and moral rules, mores, customs, life, beliefs of the Ukrainian peasantry, the Cossacks. Places and time periods of the narrative are successfully chosen - "Sorochinsky Fair", "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "May Night".

AT "Evenings..." merged religious fantasy representations of heroes based on pagan and Christian beliefs. The author's attitude to supernatural phenomena is ironic, it is natural that in stories about recent events, about the present, demonic forces are perceived as superstition ( "Sorochinsky Fair"). A high civic position, the desire to show real characters, force the writer to subordinate folklore and ethnographic materials to the task of embodying the spiritual essence, the moral and psychological image of the people, as the positive hero of his works. Their grotesque-fantastic images are akin to images of fairy tales and fables and carry partly the same semantic load. Fairy tale characters are, as a rule, not mystical, but, according to folk ideas, more or less humanized. Devils, witches, mermaids are characterized by quite real, specific human traits. The devil from the story Christmas Eve» « front - perfect german", a " behind - provincial attorney in uniform Whispering Solokha, he whispered in her ear the very thing that is usually whispered to the entire female race».

Fantasy, woven into real life, acquires the charm of folk storytelling. Poetizing folk life, Gogol was not an atheist and his works are not a satire on religious topics, on the contrary, his religiosity was reflected in the belief in the victory of the "Orthodox" hero. More fully than in other works, she expressed herself in the story “ Terrible revenge". The image of the sorcerer, created in a mystical spirit, personifies the power of the devil, but this terrible power is opposed by the Orthodox religion, faith in the all-conquering power of divine providence. The work shows the worldview of Gogol himself.

"Evenings..." decorated with pictures of nature, majestic and beautiful. The writer rewards her with the most excellent comparisons: Snow ... sprinkled with crystal stars» (« Christmas Eve”) and epithets: “ The earth is all in silver light», « Divine Night!» (« May Night, or the Drowned Woman”), Landscapes emphasize the characters of the positive characters, their unity with nature, and at the same time sharply outline the disfigurement of the negative characters. Nature takes on an individual coloring in each work, corresponding to its ideological design.

Gogol's life in St. Petersburg caused deep, negative impressions and reflections, which were largely reflected in " Petersburg stories”, written in 1831-1841. Through all the stories there is a common problem orientation (the power of ranks and money), the social position of the hero (raznochinets, "little" person), the all-devouring greed of society (the corrupting power of money, exposing the flagrant injustice of the social system). Truly recreating the picture of the life of St. Petersburg in the 30s, the writer reflects the social contradictions inherent in the entire life of the country at that time.

The satirical principle of representation, put by Gogol at the basis of his entire narrative, especially often develops in Petersburg Tales into mystical fantasy and a favorite technique of grotesque contrast: the true effect lies in the sharp contrast". But mysticism here is subordinated to the realism of the events and characters depicted.

Gogol in " Nevsky prospect”showed a noisy, fussy crowd of people of various classes, the contrast between a sublime dream and the vulgarity of reality, the contradictions of the insane luxury of a few and the horrifying poverty of millions. In the story "The Nose", Gogol skillfully uses fantasy, through which the power of bureaucracy and servility is displayed, the absurdity of human relationships against the backdrop of bureaucratic bureaucracy and subordination, when a person in society loses its original meaning.

« Petersburg stories” evolve from social satire to grotesque socio-political pamphlet, from romance to realism.

In a state of unconsciousness, delirious, the hero of the story " overcoat”, Bashmachkin shows his dissatisfaction with significant persons,“ Bosses ”, who rudely belittled and insulted him. The author, taking the side of the hero, defending him, expresses his protest in a fantastic continuation of the story. A significant person who mortally frightened Akaky Akakievich was driving down an unlit street after drinking champagne from a friend at the evening, and he, in fear, could imagine anything, even a dead person.

Gogol raised critical realism to a new higher level compared to his predecessors, enriching it with the attributes of romanticism, creating a fusion of satire and lyrics, analysis of reality and dreams of a wonderful person and the future of the country.

I hope that the proposed essay “The Role of Science Fiction and the Grotesque in the Works of N.V. Gogol” turned out to be useful to you.

The role of fiction

One of the main features of the works of N.V. Gogol is the vision of the world through fantasy. For the first time, elements of fantasy appeared in his notorious Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, written around 1829-1830. The story "Portrait" was written several years later with the same elements of inexplicable mysticism.

Gogol liked to portray the characters of people from the people and to confront his heroes with fantastic phenomena. In his works, reality intertwined with fiction in some interesting way.

The original version of the story "Portrait" was published in 1835, but after the author's corrections it was printed again in 1842. The protagonist is a young, promising artist named Chartkov, who lives in poverty and tries his best to achieve perfection in his work. Everything changes after the purchase of an unusual portrait, which he met in one of the St. Petersburg art shops. The portrait looked so vivid that it seemed that the sitter was about to come to life and start talking.

It is this vitality and

Attracted the young Chartkov, as well as the high skill of the artist.

According to the plot, the portrait possessed supernatural power and brought misfortune and misfortune to the lives of its owners. It depicted an old man of Asian appearance with piercing, almost "live" eyes. The day after the purchase, Chartkov found in the frame of the portrait a bag of gold pieces with which he was able to pay for the apartment and rent luxurious apartments for himself. It should be noted here that a strange dream preceded the happy discovery.

The night before, it seemed to him that the portrait came to life, and the old man, coming out of the frame, was holding in his hands just this bag with the inscription “1000 chervonets”.

In the second part, the author reveals to us the secret of these mystical phenomena and the picture itself. As it turned out, it was drawn by a talented Kolomna Master, who once painted temples. Having started work on this portrait, the master did not know that the neighbor, the Usurer, is the real personification of evil, and having learned, he left the picture unfinished and went to the monastery to atone for his sins. The fact is that the evil usurer indirectly brought misfortune to everyone to whom he lent money.

These people either went crazy, or became terribly envious and jealous, or committed suicide, or lost loved ones.

Anticipating his imminent death, the usurer wished to remain alive in the portrait, and therefore turned to a self-taught artist living in the neighborhood. According to the author, the now unfinished painting traveled from hand to hand, bringing first wealth and then misfortune to its new owners. In the first edition, at the end of the story, the image of the usurer disappeared from the portrait, leaving those around him in bewilderment.

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12. In 1834, Russian society enthusiastically discussed the "Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin. This mystical work prompted Nikolai Gogol to write the story "Portrait", in which the element of mysticism also plays an important role. The writer published his work in the collection "Arabesques". Many critics did not like the work. Belinsky believed that "Portrait" was an unsuccessful attempt, where the author's talent began to decline. After […]...
13. Analysis of the work This story poses the most important problem - the relationship between art and reality, the artist and society. Gogol shows that commercialism and monetary interests are detrimental to real art. The story is based on fantasy. It can be divided into two parts. The first one gives the life story of the artist Chartkov. The second part is the story of a terrible portrait, the story of a usurer and a monk artist who redeems [...] ...
14. V. I. SURIKOV. PORTRAIT OF OLGA VASILYEVNA SURIKOVA From my point of view, the main merit of the author of this portrait is that he found the image of a “cherry girl” (the combination of large dark eyes and a cherry dress involuntarily suggests such a comparison), created an atmosphere of “childhood”. Olya stands by the white tiled stove and holds a doll in her hands. The girl is wearing a red dress with white [...] ...
15. In the creative heritage of the famous English writer O. Wilde, there are many literary works of various genres: these are poems, fairy tales for children, and comedies. But he is better known as a novelist, and his most famous work is the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, written in 1890. This work reflects the author's philosophy that […]
16. (1834) The story begins with a tragic story that happened to the talented but very poor artist Chartkov. Once, for the last two kopecks, he bought in a shop in the Shchukinsky yard a portrait of an Asian, an old man in national clothes. The portrait stood out from the general mass of paintings in that the eyes of the old man in it seemed to be alive. Bringing the portrait home, Chartkov learns that […]
17. The portrait of Pechorin, the protagonist of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”, appears before the eyes of readers not on the first pages of the novel, but only when they already know a very dramatic episode from the life of this character, described in the story “Bela”. There, we learned about the events from his life and actions from his colleague Maxim Maksimych; now […]...
18. Gogol's story "Portrait" is divided into two parts. The first one tells about a certain young artist Chartkov, who saw a portrait of an old man in some provincial shop, and this painter was caught in the eyes of the old man, they were so written out that they seemed just alive. With the last money he bought this portrait, and bringing it home, it seemed to him that the old man depicted in the portrait [...] ...
19. What general thought did Gogol express in the story Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol lived in St. Petersburg for many years and knew him from different sides. In his St. Petersburg works, he often portrayed it as both a positive and a negative city. He was one of the few who could show all the vices of a big city, hiding behind external beauty. Nevsky Prospekt is, of course, […]
20. The tragedy of Taras Bulba The story "Taras Bulba" belongs to the category of historical and tells the events from the life of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks. The central hero of the story is an old Cossack colonel, ataman, a daring warrior Taras Bulba. He was one of the best Cossacks in the Sich, who faithfully defended his people and the Orthodox faith. He spent his whole life in battles and did not represent [...] ...
21. Sons of Taras Bulba: Ostap and Andriy The sons of Taras Bulba, Ostap and Andriy, are the central characters in N.V. Gogol's story "Taras Bulba". These are brothers-heroes who participated in the liberation battles for their homeland. Despite the same upbringing and education, Ostap and Andriy were very different from each other. Ostap, the eldest son of the old Cossack colonel Taras Bulba, was bold, stern [...] ...
22. Zaporizhzhya Sich: its manners and customs The story "Taras Bulba", written by N.V. Gogol, describes the events taking place among the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks. The Zaporizhian Sich is represented as a Cossack republic with its own customs and customs. This is a kind of realm of freedom and equality. The author throughout the story glorifies the laws of this land. He calls the Setch a “nest”, from where proud and strong warriors appear, [...] ...
23. The phrase “literary portrait” is interpreted in two ways: as various kinds of indications of the appearance of a literary hero and as a detailed description of a specific historical personality. In this case, we will talk about a portrait as an image of a character in a work of art. Usually such an image is seen in the description of the visible signs of the hero. In dictionaries, reference books, textbooks, they adhere to the ancient principle of speaking painting: to depict means […]...
24. NV Gogol Portrait The tragic story of the artist Chartkov began in front of a shop in the Shchukin yard, where among the many paintings depicting peasants or landscapes, he saw one and, having paid the last two kopecks for it, brought it home. This is a portrait of an old man in Asiatic clothes, seemingly unfinished, but captured by such a strong brush that the eyes in the portrait looked as if they were alive. Chartkow houses […]...
25. Summary Chartkov begins his creative activity as a modest and inconspicuous artist. Art is his only passion. For the sake of a lofty goal, he is able to endure hardships and material difficulties. The change in his life comes unexpectedly and it is connected with the purchase of a strange portrait at an auction. The portrait begins to fatally influence the fate of the artist. All his impulses are now turned into […]
26. The role of grandmother in Alyosha's life The story "Childhood" is the first part of Maxim Gorky's autobiographical trilogy. The work was published in 1913-1914. It vividly describes childhood memories, impressions and experiences of the main character - little Alyosha Peshkov. After the death of his father, he was forced to move to the house of Grandmother and Grandfather in Nizhny Novgorod. In addition to them, […]
27. Class hour on the topic “Portrait” (teacher of fine arts of the highest category of the MAOU gymnasium No. 23 of Chelyabinsk Ogarkova E. Yu) “Game method” Grade 4 - 1 quarter “Every nation is an artist” / L. A. Nemenskaya Game method Objectives of the lesson; To give an initial concept of the emergence of the “Portrait” genre To teach the skills of depicting elements of a portrait through associations, using the example of drawing up portraits by Italian [...] ...
28. Gogol wrote the story "Portrait" in 1835; in 1842 he partly reworked it. Such a work - revised, but retaining the old plot and stylistic basis - is usually called an editorial in the science of literature. Opening modern reprints of Gogol's prose, we usually read the second edition of the Portrait, that is, the 1842 version; and we will analyze it. So who […]
29. (ESSAY-RESEARCH: PORTRAIT OF PUSHKIN IN RUSSIAN PAINTING) In 1832, the great Russian writer N. Gogol said: “Pushkin is an extraordinary phenomenon and, perhaps, the only phenomenon of the Russian spirit: this is a Russian person in his development, in which he may be will appear in two hundred years. In it, Russian nature, the Russian soul, the Russian language, the Russian character are reflected in the same […]...
30. A hint of the divine, the celestial is contained in art for man, and therefore alone It is already above everything ... N. Gogol, Gogol's "Portrait" is always interesting to read. Even well-known, shabby things you start to read and get carried away. And even more so little-known stories. It would seem that he is a serious classical writer, philosopher, but you take his book and you are transported to the most interesting world, sometimes mystical, and sometimes [...] ...
31. The world-famous author of Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, was not only gifted with literary talent, but also actively used it for political purposes - in the struggle for peace and justice. That is why Gulliver's Travels cannot be called a book for children - it was written by Swift for adults, and it reflected the author's real views on the orders he hates and [...] ...
32. Lesson in the 8th grade The epigraph to the lesson is the saying of T. Dreiser: "Art is the nectar of the soul, collected in labor and torment." We will turn to him at the end of the lesson, summing up our own reflections. At the beginning of the lesson, it is worth remembering the time when the story was created (1834). In those years, there were disputes in society about the essence of art. Heroes of romantic […]
33. This story ends the second book of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", published in the first edition in 1832. Judging by the fact that “The Enchanted Place” is provided with the same subtitle as the stories “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “The Missing Letter” - “A true story told by a deacon of the *** church”, - it can be attributed to the group of early stories “ Evenings”, written in 1829-1830 […]...
34. The story "Portrait" was written by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in 1842. The author uses the traditional motif: money, Wealth in exchange for the soul. It touches upon many problems: the struggle between good and evil in a person's soul, the power of money over a person, but the most important one is the problem of the purpose of art (art is true and imaginary). The story is divided into two parts, each of which [...]
35. PORTRAIT OF MY GRANDMA A wonderful canvas hangs on the wall in the living room of our country house. This is a portrait of my grandmother, my mother's mother. In the picture of dark color, the face and hands of an elderly woman are highlighted, and the details of clothing and furnishings are written indistinctly, blurred. Her gray hair is slicked back, revealing her grandmother's face. High forehead with shallow wrinkles, folds of tightly compressed lips ... [...] ...
36. In the poem "Dead Souls" by the famous writer N. Gogol there is a chapter dedicated to Captain Kopeikin. Participating in the military campaign of 1812, he lost an arm and a leg. With such physical handicaps, the man could not find a job. His father refused to feed his disabled son, as he himself had nothing to eat. So the captain then decided to go to the capital to [...] ...
37. Gulliver's Travels is a remarkable work by the English writer Jonathan Swift, which brought him worldwide fame. The writer worked on this book for almost five years. He set himself the goal of depicting and ridiculing the hated orders of England of that time. It was fantasy that helped him draw a picture of the whole society in an allegorical form and create separate satirical images” that fully reflected his […]...
38. Part One The young artist Chartkov enters an art shop in Shchukin's yard. Among the mediocre popular prints, he discovers an old portrait. “He was an old man with a bronze-colored face, high cheekbones, stunted; the features of the face seemed to be seized in a moment of convulsive movement and did not respond to the northern force. The fiery noon was imprinted in them. It was draped in a wide Asian […]...
39. Before the arrival of Zhukovsky, everything in Russian literature was calm, solemn, decorous, and even if tears were shed on the banks of Liza's pond, these were passive tears and leading nowhere. And then he appeared, as if opening the door, and together with the fresh wind, ghosts, cranes, righteous and sinful girls, gloomy murderers and devoted lovers rushed in. […]...
40. When people are completely robbed, Like you and me, they seek Salvation from otherworldly forces. M. Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita The novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita” is unusual already in that reality and fantasy are closely intertwined in it. Mystical heroes are immersed in the whirlpool of the turbulent Moscow life of the 30s, and this blurs the boundaries between the real world and [...] ...

RUSSIAN FANTASY OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

General characteristics of N.V. Gogol

N. V. Gogol is the first major Russian prose writer. In this capacity, according to many contemporaries, he stood above Pushkin himself, who was recognized primarily as a poet. For example, Belinsky, praising Pushkin's "History of the village of Goryukhin", made a reservation: "... If there were no Gogol's stories in our literature, then we would not know anything better."

The flowering of realism in Russian prose is usually associated with Gogol and the "Gogolian trend" (a later term of Russian criticism, introduced by N. G. Chernyshevsky). It is characterized by special attention to social issues, depiction (often satirical) of the social vices of Nikolaev Russia, careful reproduction of socially and culturally significant details in the portrait, interior, landscape and other descriptions;

appeal to the themes of Petersburg life, the image of the fate of a petty official. Belinsky believed that Gogol's works reflected the spirit of the "ghostly" reality of the then Russia. Belinsky, on the other hand, emphasized that Gogol's work cannot be reduced to social satire (as for Gogol himself, he never considered himself a satirist).

At the same time, Gogol's realism is of a very special kind. Some researchers (for example, the writer V.V. Nabokov) do not consider Gogol a realist at all, others call his style "fantastic realist." The fact is that Gogol is a master of phantasmagoria. In many of his stories there is a fantastic element. There is a feeling of a "displaced", "curved" reality, reminiscent of a distorted mirror. This is due to hyperbole and the grotesque, the most important elements of Gogol's aesthetics. Much connects Gogol with romantics (for example, with E. T. Hoffmann, in whom phantasmagoria is often intertwined with social satire). But, starting from romantic traditions, Gogol directs the motifs borrowed from them into a new, realistic direction.

There is a lot of humor in Gogol's works. It is no coincidence that the article by V. G. Korolenko about the creative fate of Gogol is called "The Tragedy of the Great Humorist." In Gogol's humor, the absurd beginning prevails. Gogol's traditions were inherited by many Russian comedians of the late 19th and 20th centuries, as well as those writers who focused on the aesthetics of the absurd (for example, the Oberiuts: D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky and others).

Gogol himself was in some way an idealist and passionately desired to "learn" to depict a positively beautiful world, truly harmonious and sublimely heroic characters. The tendency to depict only funny and ugly psychologically burdened the writer, he felt guilty for showing only grotesque, caricatured characters. Gogol repeatedly admitted that he passed on to these heroes his own spiritual vices, stuffing them with his "rubbishness and nastiness." This topic is especially acute, for example, at the beginning of Chapter VII of "Dead Souls" (find her) as well as in journalism (see “Four letters to different persons about “Dead Souls” from the cycle “Selected passages from correspondence with friends”). In the later years of his work, Gogol experienced a deep mental crisis and was on the verge of a mental breakdown. During these years, the writer gave his previously written works an unexpected paradoxical interpretation. Being in severe depression. Gogol destroyed the second and third volumes of the poem "Dead Souls", and one of the reasons for this act was the writer's painful rejection of his work.

The real in Gogol's stories coexists with the fantastic throughout the writer's work. But this phenomenon is undergoing some evolution - the role, place and methods of including the fantastic element do not always remain the same.

In Gogol's early works ("Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", "Viy"), the fantastic comes to the forefront of the plot (wonderful metamorphoses, the appearance of evil spirits), it is associated with folklore (Little Russian fairy tales and legends) and with romantic literature , which also borrowed such motifs from folklore.

Note that one of the "favorite" characters of Gogol is "devil". Various evil forces often appear in the plots of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" in a popular farcical, not terrible, but rather funny form (there are exceptions, for example, the demonic sorcerer in "Terrible Revenge"). In the works of a later period, the author's mystical anxiety, the feeling of the presence of something sinister in mi-, is more strongly felt. re, the craving to conquer it with laughter. D. S. Merezhkovsky in his work "Gogol and the Devil" expresses this idea with a good metaphor: the goal of Gogol's work is "to ridicule the devil."

In the St. Petersburg stories, the fantastic element is sharply relegated to the background of the plot, fantasy, as it were, dissolves into reality. The supernatural is present in the plot not directly, but indirectly, indirectly, for example, as a dream ("The Nose"), delirium ("Notes of a Madman"), implausible rumors ("The Overcoat"). Only in the story "Portrait" really supernatural events occur. It is no coincidence that Belinsky did not like the first edition of the story "Portrait" precisely because of the excessive presence of a mystical element in it.

Finally, in the works of the last period (The Inspector General, Dead Souls), the fantastic element in the plot is practically absent. The events depicted are not supernatural, but rather strange and extraordinary (although in principle possible). On the other hand, the manner of narration (style, language) becomes more and more bizarrely phantasmagorical. Now the feeling of a crooked mirror, a “displaced” world, the presence of sinister forces arises not due to fairy-tale plots, but through the medium of absurdity, alogisms, and irrational moments in the narrative. Yu. V. Mann, the author of the study Gogol's Poetry, writes that Gogol's grotesque and fantasy are gradually moving from plot to style.

(See also the cross-cutting topic: "The Role of the Fantastic Element in Russian Literature.")