Why dead souls is considered a poem. Why is Dead Souls a poem? Essay on literature on the topic: Why Gogol called "Dead Souls" a poem

“Roman”, “story”, “poem” - this is how N.V. himself called “Dead Souls”. Gogol, working on this work. The writer, probably, was well aware of the unusual nature of the genre of his creation: “The thing that I am sitting and working on now ... does not look like a story or a novel,” wrote N.V. Gogol.

It seems to me that the combination of the subjective beginning, high lyrical mood, and strong author's "voice" in the work prompted to call "Dead Souls" a poem by the author. And at the same time, Dead Souls contains the most important features of a realistic novel. In this work, social relations are deeply revealed, various types of people are displayed. In general, everything speaks about the uniqueness of the Dead Souls genre.

Reflecting on the question “Why N.V. Gogol called his work “Dead Souls” a poem?”, one can assume - because this work combines the features of an epic and a novel.
The “universality” of the epic noted by Gogol, its ability to embrace “not some features, but the entire era of time” (N.V. Gogol), to show “the whole people” is directly related to “Dead Souls”. At the same time, Dead Souls reflected such features of the novel as a strictly constructed plot, revealing the fate of various characters and their need to develop the main idea of ​​the work, as well as the drama of all Dead Souls.

As a result of the combination of signs of various genres and artistic traditions in Gogol's poem, the fate of individual heroes is connected with the fate of the entire nation, all of Russia. "Dead Souls" is a "picture of manners" with a broad philosophical and moral meaning. Gogol's poem combines an objective, narrative, realist beginning and lyrical statements. And sometimes a high poetic note is combined in Gogol with merciless prose, a “living stream” of life with a clearly manifested authorial goal.

And yet this work is a poem in which the image of the future of Russia was not at first clear. The writer did not know where Rus-troika was rushing. And here it is very important to emphasize the romantic features of "Dead Souls": a stream of lyrical digressions flows into the epic narrative of the poem. The main background seems to lighten up, the narration feels lightness of movement.

The writer prepares the reader for the lyrical flow with a kind of introduction: “Meanwhile, the ladies left, the pretty head with thin features and a thin figure disappeared, like something similar to a vision, and again there was a road, a cart, a trio of horses familiar to the reader, Selifan, Chichikov , smoothness and emptiness of the surrounding fields. Everywhere, wherever in life, whether among its callous, rough-pale and unpleasantly molding lower ranks or among the monotonously cold and boringly tidy upper classes, everywhere at least once a person encounters a phenomenon that is not like everything that happened him to see until then ... "

Interestingly, between the lyrical part and the depiction of reality in "Dead Souls" we do not see a smooth transition at all. On the contrary, we find a contrast, and quite sharp. This is a kind of push that is felt when moving from dream to reality. Often, Gogol's lyrical movement suddenly breaks off: “.. And a mighty space menacingly surrounds me, reflecting with terrible force in my depths; my eyes lit up with an unnatural power: wow! What a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth! Rus'!.. - Hold on, hold on, fool! Chichikov shouted to Selifan.

The lyrical beginning of "Dead Souls" (and this is also a genre feature of the poem) is distinguished by the slowness and thoroughness of the descriptions. As if from above, Gogol surveys not only Russia, but his whole life: “Rus! Rus! I see you from another wonderful, beautiful far away ... "

Such lyrical digressions carry an important semantic load in the poem. Sometimes imbued with a mood of sadness, these episodes become an expression of some kind of prophecy: “And yet, full of bewilderment, I stand motionless, and already a menacing cloud, heavy with coming rains, has already dawned on my head, and my thought has become numb in front of your space.”

In the lyrical digressions of Dead Souls, diversity, even richness, is revealed with full force. It is in the lyrical digressions of the poem that Gogol's longing for the ideal, and the sad charm of his memories of irrevocable youth, and the feeling of the greatness of nature are contained.

"Dead Souls" N.V. Gogol is a realistic work, but the romantic current that lives in it does not allow us to call it anything other than a poem.

The poem is a lyrical-epic genre in which the narration of historical events and events in the lives of heroes is revealed through the assessment and perception of the narrator. "Dead Souls" is one of the most brilliant works of Russian world culture. This poem is the pinnacle of Gogol's work. She shows contemporary Gogol's Nikolaev Russia with its bureaucratic apparatus, the expansion of serfdom. The poem shows the fall of the human personality.

In his "Author's Confession", Gogol points out that Pushkin prompted him to write "Dead Souls". Pushkin admired Gogol's ability to "guess a person and suddenly expose him as if alive with a few features ...", which is why he gave Gogol his own plot, which he planned to make a poem. Gogol followed Pushnik's advice. In the process of work, the idea of ​​the poem began to gradually deepen. Nikolai Vasilievich already conceived not one, but three volumes, in which it was possible to show Rus' not “from one side”, but comprehensively. The second and third volumes were supposed, according to the author, to bring out goodies and show the moral revival of Chichikov. The writer himself did not immediately determine the genre of his work. At first, the work was conceived as a novel. But already in 1836, in a letter to Zhukovsky, Gogol calls "Dead Souls" a poem. The breadth and saturation of the work with lyrical elements, which allow the writer to reveal his attitude to the depicted, inspired Gogol to call Dead Souls a poem.

"Dead Souls" in its full form began to be conceived by Gogol as a work that, in terms of the breadth of coverage of life, should be among such poems as Homer's Odyssey, which depicts the life of ancient Greece, or Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy", reflecting the ideology of the feudal medieval society of Western Europe. Like the last poem, "Dead Souls" was supposed to depict the "hell", "purgatory" and "paradise" of Russia contemporary to Gogol. Gogol felt like an artist, called upon not only to show acute social problems and the moral decline of society, but also to point the way to spiritual rebirth.

All this determined the originality of the genre specificity of the work. Obviously, Gogol's poem is unconventional, and this artistic construction has no analogues in the world.

The construction of the poem is distinguished by clarity and precision: all parts are interconnected by the plot-forming hero Chichikov, who travels in order to obtain large funds. A feature of the composition is the use by N.V. Gogol of an inserted story - “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”. It, despite its seeming independence, is genre-related to the whole work: within the framework of Dead Souls as a poem, another poem arises.

A significant place in the ideological and compositional structure of the work is occupied by lyrical digressions, which is typical for the poem as a literary genre. In lyrical digressions, Gogol deals with the most acute, most important social issues. Thanks to them, we constantly feel the presence of the author, who shares his thoughts and experiences with us. The two most important themes of the author's reflections - the theme of Russia and the theme of the road - merge in a lyrical digression that completes the first volume. It resonates with Gogol's belief in the revival of Russia and in the fact that the soul of the people will appear alive and beautiful.

The ideal world cannot be recreated epic, since the spiritual world is described by lyrics. Therefore, Gogol defines the genre of the work as lyrical-epic, calling "Dead Souls" a poem.

The work "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is known to everyone from school. However, not everyone can correctly determine the genre of this masterpiece. The reader associates the poem with a poetic work, and not with prose. But Gogol himself, many of his contemporaries and critics no doubt rank "Dead Souls" as a poem. In this article, we will touch on the topic briefly about “Why is Dead Souls a poem?”

Poem as a genre

In our usual understanding, a poem is a poem of medium or large size. When we talk about this genre, the first thing that comes to mind from Russian literature is Tvardovsky's Vasily Terkin. Homer's Iliad, the greatest work of all time, is also a poem. However, there are works that are not written in poetic form, but are considered a poem. Vivid examples are Gogol's Dead Souls and Erofeev's Moscow-Petushki.

What distinguishes the poem from other genres?

• the presence of lyrical digressions;
• based on a story about an event;
• close attention to moral and social problems;
• the main character is depicted in interaction with other characters;
• the main character is an unknown person, but the events that happen to him are significant and interesting;
• the presence of anti-heroes.

Why is Dead Souls a poem?

"Dead Souls" by N.V. Gogol is a great prose work of world literature. Many are concerned about the question why a work written not in poetic form is called a poem. Firstly, the author himself called his brainchild a poem. In his notes and letters to friends, he defines the work as a poem or novel.

He created something between a novel and an epic. According to the plot, the main character travels a lot, many adventure events take place in his life, which is also typical for the genre of the poem.

The presence of lyrical digressions and generalizations, perhaps, are the main factors in classifying this work as a poem. It would seem that all the characters in "Dead Souls" are completely different people with their own way of life and views on the world around them. But at the same time, the landowners are similar in one thing: they are all typical representatives of landlord Russia. They have lost their human appearance and live only by instincts, having long forgotten what a soul is.

Critics generally reacted positively to the author's definition of the genre for his work. V. G. Belinsky believed that "Dead Souls" were written in an exclusively poetic manner, K. Aksakov compares them with an ancient epic, and the critic O. I. Senkovsky, giving a definition to Gogol's work, called "Dead Souls" a poem not in verse.

Lyrical digressions in the poem

"Dead Souls" is considered a poem also because there are a lot of lyrical digressions in the work. The constant reflections and monologues of the author so organically merged into the plot that without them he would have lost his special charm. in them, N.V. Gogol reflects on the future fate of Russia and the fate of landowners and serfs. It is thanks to lyrical digressions that the reader understands how much the author loves his country, how he worries about its fate. Russia is the only positive character in the work. Any of the landowners who met on the way of Chichikov is an anti-hero, and only Russia is described by the author with love and indescribable delight.

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Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" is an amazing and truly great work of Russian classical literature. However, when reading the title on the cover, the reader may be naturally perplexed. What is the meaning of the strange and absurd phrase "dead souls"? To answer this difficult question, one should plunge deeper into the oppressive atmosphere of the landowner villages, look around the gallery of unsightly portraits of the era and understand what is hidden behind the mysterious word “soul”.

The nature of the name given by Gogol is twofold. At the initial acquaintance with the poem, it becomes clear that the heroes of the work call the dead peasants "dead souls" in bureaucratic documents, which Chichikov buys. But with a deeper dive comes the realization of a different nature of the title. Indeed, in its essence, the soul is an immortal substance, representing the divine principle of man, all living things that are in him. And Gogol, going into some hyperbolization, shows the reader the collective images of the noble society of that period, repulsive and equally disgusting in their fall, despite the differences in characters and habits.

The author does not see anything real in the heroes, except vice: Manilov's sins are idleness and sweetness; The box is incredibly stingy and petty; Nozdrev shows absolute narcissism; cold cynicism and earthiness are the main features of Sobakevich; well, the indifferent Plyushkin is a typical caricature miser with a huge fortune, but equally huge holes in his robe. At the head of this "circus of freaks" is Chichikov himself - a scoundrel and a swindler, whose only goal is to acquire capital in any way.

In their guise, we see the history of a disease that has corroded high society, the symptoms of which are concern for material, temporary benefits and the extinction of morality and that very long-suffering soul. Instead of finding their destiny in serving their homeland, the world and people, these creatures prefer base habits and cold calculation, which have replaced the high impulses of the soul of real people, once ruined in heroes. It is precisely such a fall that Gogol calls the bizarre oxymoron "dead souls" - mercantile shells without moral principles.

Nikolai Gogol is certainly a genius in his craft. Through sharp satire, irony and humor, he opens the reader's eyes to the pressing problems of the time, to the ugly rot at the base of the pillar, uncertainly holding the state. Unfortunately, images from the disgusting gallery of landowners' "dead souls" are also found in the modern world. And this means that the moral degradation of society has not lost its strength, and therefore Gogol's poem will not lose its relevance for a long time.

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