NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS: GOGOL AND THE ODYSSEAN ROAD

Author(s): Michael R. Kelly

Source: New Zealand Slavonic Journal , 2005, Vol. 39 (2005), pp. 37-61
Published by: Australia and New Zealand Slavists’ Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40922196

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 New Zealand Slavonic Journal, vol. 39 (2005)

Michael R. Kelly

NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS:

GOGOL AND THE ODYSSEAN ROAD

In a letter to V. A. Zhukovskii dated 10 January 1848, Gogol noted

that as he first began contemplating Mertvye dushi {Dead Souls), he felt
did not yet possess the skill "either of putting together or unraveling
events" and that he needed "to study the construction of the large works of
the great masters. I took them up, beginning with our dear Homer."1
Gogol's fascination with and indebtedness to Homer is apparent througho
the 1840s. In the 1842 revision of Tortret' (The Portrait'), the narrator
observes that a great poet-artist, having perused the masterpieces of all t
great writers, in the end leaves on his table "only Homer's Iliad, havin
discovered that in it is everything you desire" (3:111). In his reflections o
Zhukovskii' s translation of The Odyssey, which he wrote in 1845-46 and
included in Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druz'iami {Selected Passages
from Correspondence with Friends) [1847], Gogol declares that this secon
great Homeric epic is "decidedly the most perfect work of all time" an
"the most moral work" (8:236, 238).2

Gogol utilizes his discussion of Zhukovskii' s translation and The

Odyssey not simply to discuss Homer, but perhaps primarily to set fort
some of his own key aesthetic and moral tenets. In her excellent
monograph on Vybrannye mesta, Lina Bernstein suggests that Gogol's
letter "lays out all the principal theses of his book" as he addresses suc
questions as "the roles of language and of the poet, the interdependence o
aesthetics and ethics," and "the connection of human life to the Absolut
which is revealed through language."3 Not only are Gogol's views o
Homer critical to his own thought, but they are yet one more element th
connects him to an important cultural and literary endeavor of th
nineteenth century. M. H. Abrams, in his review of the key ideas of English
and German Romanticism, notes the centrality of an attempt to facilitate t
redemption of a world that has fallen from a lost paradise and that is
characterized by "fragmentation, dissociation, estrangement." He sugges
that numerous Romantic writers sought to address the themes o
"mankind's journey back toward his spiritual home" and the search for
"integration after severance."4 Although this enterprise is significantl
imbued with Christian notions, F. W. J. von Schelling also places it withi
the framework of Homer's epics. In Philosophy and Religion, he suggest
that the general plot outlines of The Iliad and The Odyssey provide

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38 MICHAEL R. KELLY

symbolic representation of the whole co

an epic composed in the mind of God. It
which represents the departure of hum
furthest alienation [Entfernung] from t
represents the return. The first part is, a
Odyssey of history."5

Although Gogol does not specifically

of humanity's departure from a privileg
along with a striving for integration a
journey, permeates his thought and his
stories of Arabeski {Arabesques) [1835],
is characterized by a loss of integrality an
thought that is so transitory and petty th
of making everything insignificant" (8
and specifically to the Middle Ages,
wholeness. For all his criticism of the n
views the modern era as a threshold pe
unity and "the flight of genius" are ma
decay (8:109). In 'Rim' ('Rome'), publi
pattern of depicting disenchantment with
idealized whole in the distant past, and
vision that will enable the past and the
confluence into one" (3:234). In his fasc
to an even more distant past for an idea
finds a hero's road that, however fraught
be, is always directed toward home and
This restitution occurs as the petty presen
synthesizing values of the past.

In explaining his reasons for burning

Mertvye dushi, Gogol speaks of his ten
human nobility. He suggests that he shou
beautiful without at the same time having
and the roads to it for everyone." Since
of primary importance, was "insufficie
manuscript was burned (8:298). He was s
just to depict positive characters, but to
road out of the banal landscape of de
characterized by wholeness and congrue
create his own unique Odyssean road, and

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 39

bound road becomes increasingly prominent in his thought throughou

1840s.

In his seminal work on artistic space in Gogol's prose, Iurii Lotman

suggests that the image of the road is "one of the fundamental spatial forms
organizing the text of Mertvye dushi." With respect to Volume II, however,
Lotman contends that we encounter "a completely different" and "non-
Gogolian scheme of spatial relations."7 Unfortunately, this claim comes at
the very end of Lotman' s lengthy article and is not accompanied by any
textual analysis or specific explanation as to why these spatial relations
would be non-Gogolian. On the one hand, the image of the road clearly
undergoes metamorphosis in Volume II as it reflects Gogol's evolving
design and acquires the contours of a morally directed journey. On the
other hand, by examining in greater detail the image of the road in both
Volumes I and II of Mertvye dushi, I hope to show that, for all its
development, the road in significant respects retains its fundamental shape,
function, and vitality throughout the entirety of Mertvye dushi. Moreover,
Gogol's striving to depict the road in Volume II provides a framework for
reassessing one of the fundamental struggles of the last decade of his life,
namely the tension between his striving for moral certitude in his thought
and the fundamentally open-ended nature of his art.

The Odyssean Road

In discussing Gogol's views of Homer in his article on Zhukovskii's

translation, E. A. Smirnova observes that he interpreted Homer "very
arbitrarily, 'fitting* his judgments of the great Greek to his own creative
method."8 Donald Fänger speaks of Homer's work as having been
"Gogolized."9 Gogol undoubtedly had a tendency to recreate other writers
in his own image, and he clearly views The Odyssey through his own
unique artistic lenses. I will not focus on the validity of his aesthetic
judgments in relation to Homer, but on how he utilizes The Odyssey to
elaborate on and mirror his own views. Gogol never used the expression
"Odyssean road," but I have chosen the term to represent the entirety of his
moral and aesthetic thought that is focused on the striving to return to a
spiritual home by overcoming divisiveness and alienation. Through his
invocation of Homer and The Odyssey, Gogol emphasizes the epic
proportions of his artistic and spiritual goal of revivifying dead souls. As
already noted, the theme of restoring a lost harmony is clearly present in
Arabesques, but as Gogol struggled to complete Dead Souls, he articulated
with increasing clarity and urgency the interrelationship between his moral

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40 MICHAEL R. KELLY

and aesthetic thought. Relying primarily

various other texts from the 1840s, I will
elements of Gogol's thought pertaining t
particular relevance for his design of Dead

First, Lotman has suggested that one

thought is "a return to the foundations of human community
(obshchezhitie)."10 In one of his letters pertaining to Mertvye dushi in
Vybrannye mesta, Gogol suggests that, despite the influence of European
enlightenment and the reforms of Peter the Great, it seems as though
Russians "still are not at home, not under our native roof, but have stopped
without shelter somewhere on a well-traveled road, and we breathe in from
Russia not the cordial, native welcome of brothers, but some cold way
station that has been buried by a snowstorm" (8:289). In their seminal work
on the relation of Gogol's oeuvre to the epic tradition, Frederick T.
Griffiths and Stanley J. Rabinowitz refer to the themes of "spiritual
homelessness" and "a quest for lost innocence."11 These concepts are
crucial for Gogol, and the theme of return and restoration plays a
significant role in his article on The Odyssey. In his view, the nineteenth
century is beset by emotional torpor, "coolness" (pkhlazhdenie), and
feelings of discontentment. Contemporary Europeans are guilty of "a
certain slovenliness and disorder" and have become "rag-like and petty." In
contrast, Gogol celebrates the ancient world depicted in Homer's Odyssey
for its attainment, despite all the human foibles portrayed, of "a certain
harmony" (8:238, 244). The Odyssey impresses us with "the majesty of the
patriarchal character of an ancient way of life" and with "the freshness of
life," and since "much from patriarchal times" resonates with the Russian
spirit, Homer's work can help restore a lost sense of harmony (8:243, 244).
In a statement that is directed at writers but that may well have more
general significance, Gogol contends that The Odyssey "will return many to
the light, leading them, like a skillful pilot, through the confusion and haze"
that is engendered by our disorganization and lack of order (8:241). In
Anne Nesbet's formulation, Gogol hoped that the epic tradition could
"serve as a beacon to Russia in its search for a way 'home' to the great
national destiny of the Orthodox Slavs.12

Gogol's longing for domestic tranquility entails a constant, goal-

oriented striving to incorporate the values and ideals that, in his view, lend
a well-proportioned sense of harmony to Homer's world. In spatial terms,
the concept of motion and the specific image of the road are crucial for
Gogol. Undirected motion is not sufficient, for it leads nowhere. In an 1843

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 41

letter to A. S. Danilevskii, Gogol suggests that, as we all figuratively

along the road of life, we may find much beauty to admire along the
of the road, but "the view along the sides is still not a goal," and "a
necessarily must lead somewhere." For Gogol, the road ultimately lea
"God, and God is all truth" (12:198, 199). In his discussion of artistic
in Mertvye dushi, Lotman suggests that the principal spatial oppositi
Mertvye dushi is that of "directed" versus "non-directed" space. For
to acquire any kind of lofty meaning, it must be "directed, and the pers
it must move toward a goal. It must be a road." As a consequence, G
makes a sharp delineation between "characters of the road" wh
striving toward a goal and those who are "static, aimless," and
"immobile."13

Although the Odyssean road is goal-directed and homeward bound,

that paradoxically does not imply for Gogol that the road is finite in any
concrete sense. Even after Odysseus and Penelope are reunited and their
enemies vanquished in Homer's epic, Odysseus acknowledges that, as
revealed to him by the seer Tiresias in the House of Death, he still "must
rove through towns on towns of men."14 Gogol espouses the idea of
directed space, a return to a patriarchal existence, and a homecoming where
everything is in its proper place, but the goal is never quite attainable, for
our inner, spiritual road has no end. In 'Khristianin idet vpered' ('A
Christian Goes Forward') in Vybrannye mesta, Gogol avers that "there is
no graduation for a Christian" because of the need for continual learning
and striving. "Where the limit of perfection is for others, there it
[perfection] is only beginning for him" (8:264). The road remains infinite,
for travelers, having attained a degree of domestic harmony, are then only
better equipped to continue their journey toward moral and spiritual
perfection.

Second, although the Odyssean road is homeward bound, it may

nonetheless be marked by false turns, detours, and inopportune stops.
Odysseus himself is a "man of twists and turns,"15 and his road is truly full
of the same. As an artist, Gogol tends not to depict straight paths, but
meandering byways. As the narrator in Mertvye dushi laments the tendency
of humanity to forsake "the straight path" for "winding, dead-end, narrow,
impassable, far-straying roads," he poses the question: "Where is the way
out, where is the road?" (239; 6:210-1 1).16 Gogol frequently chooses to
point indirectly to possible ways out by illuminating a multitude of false,
twisted paths. In 'Chto takoe gubernatorsha' ('What a Governor's Wife Is')
in Vybrannye mesta, he reproaches individuals who direct their attention to

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42 MICHAEL R. KELLY

the future rather than the present and wh

on Russia's current indigence. For such p
bright future remains a mystery. Go
forgotten that the paths and the roads
precisely in this dark and tangled p
understand." It is precisely by scrutinizi
vile present that "ways out, means, and

In his assessment of the ideologica

Gogol's thought, Robert Maguire emphas
Church Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius the A
concept of apophaticism.17 Vladimir
suggests that our finite and imperfect
capture the infinite nature of God. "Th
recourse, for knowledge of God, to the
apophatic, way, does not try to convey kn
know God not in what He is ... but in w
ideal can be approached by examining de
and the indirection and aimlessness of a multitude of crooked and
impassable paths can help highlight the direction and goal of the Odyssean
road. In one of his own spiritual treatises, Gogol suggests that "failures are
given to us not as an obstacle, but for instruction. And the most intelligent
person, not having first done many foolish things, will not become an
intelligent person."19 He ascribes to this position not only as a spiritual
thinker, but also as an artist. However clearly he may want to depict the
road, he still acknowledges the efficacy of the indirect or apophatic method
of presentation.

Third, movement along the Odyssean road is facilitated by a process

of introspection and self-discovery, and Gogol employs an interesting
metaphor to illustrate how this change occurs. In a reference in Vybrannye
mesta to the nobility, Gogol suggests that "this class in its genuinely
Russian core is beautiful, despite the foreign husk that has temporarily
grown up over it" (8:359). As early as 1827, Gogol expressed the idea that
people possess a genuinely beautiful and noble core over which a crust or
husk has grown that obscures their deeper feelings. In speaking of the
inhabitants of Nezhin, he noted that "they have crushed the lofty destiny of
man with the crust of their earthiness and self-satisfaction" (10:98).
Because of this view, Gogol could later declare that "our Russian type is
noble, even in a swindler" (8:351). The challenge is to find ways to
penetrate through the encrusting layers of deadened consciousness to

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 43

awaken and stir inherently noble feelings. The process of returnin

spiritual home is thus a process of reminding people, as Gogol felt
Homer successfully did, "of all that is best and most sacred in [the
(8:240) so they then can cast off all those encumbering traits that c
their true nature.

Fourth, one of the keys to negotiating the road with all of its twi
turns, and detours is the ability to cope with feelings of despondenc
"indefatigable" Odysseus is an exemplar in this respect. What we s
extract from The Odyssey is "that everywhere, in every field of end
many misfortunes lie in store for a person, that it is necessary to w
with them - it is for this that life has been given to man - that un
circumstances should one lose heart, just as Odysseus did not lose h
(8:240, 239). The theme of despondency played a key role in G
thought during the mid-1 840s. In two spiritual treatises written durin
winter of 1843-44, Travilo zhitiia v mire' ('The Regulation of Life
World') and *O tekh dushevnykh raspolozheniiakh i nedostatkakh na
kotorye proizvodiat v nas smushchenie i meshaiut nam prebyv
spokoinom sostoianii' ('About Those Spiritual Dispositions and
Deficiencies of Ours that Produce in Us Confusion and Prevent Us from
Remaining in a Tranquil State'), he gave significant emphasis to this
theme. "In all our undertakings and actions we most of all should guard
against our one most powerful enemy. That enemy is despondency."
Despondency in turn "gives rise to despair," and despair is spiritually
destructive because it "cuts off all paths to salvation." It leads to a cessation
of dynamism and to stasis. For that reason, "despondency is the most
extreme of sins." Gogol suggests that we should not anticipate that our
lives will be filled with tranquility, but that we should expect difficulties
and be prepared vigilantly and cheerfully to combat them. He admonishes
us to keep our eyes on the end of the road, "God and eternal bliss," for
otherwise we will not receive "either the cheerfulness or the strength for the
journey along it." Obstacles along the way should not intimidate or frighten
us, for "it is they that are our steps to ascent."20

Fifth, from Gogol's perspective, the Odyssean road, which traverses

all different kinds of space, can best be depicted by an artist with an all-
embracing vision whose mastery of language can assist in illuminating the
road. Gogol contends that Homer, although blind, is a visionary who
possesses a distinctive "inner eye," and as a result, he possesses "an
unusual knowledge of all the twists of the human soul" (8:240, 239). In his
article in Vybrannye mesta entitled 'O lirizme nashikh poetov' ('On the

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44 MICHAEL R. KELLY

Lyricism of Our Poets'), Gogol suggests

has the capacity to recreate in its entir
fragmentarily, from one or two sides, an
Odyssey Homer welds his inclusive vision
the entire ancient world." In compariso
(8:240, 239, 236). Homer's vision is expr
elusive beauties" of his language, and h
essential role in creating the work's sen
praise of the majesty and power of Zhuk
of Homer, he suggests that Russian spee
and turns in all their varieties," and all
euphoniously blended together. Gogol ho
Zhukovskii's art and understand "how i
simple word its lofty dignity by knowin
place" (8:237, 242). Restoring dignity to
proper place can help illuminate an Ody
people back to their proper places and res

The Road in Volume I of Mertvye dus h

Images of the road play a central role

as they open and close Gogol's poem,
replete with ambiguities and frustrated
town of N, Chichikov flatters the gover
province was like entering paradise,
everywhere" (11; 6:13). According to
albeit self-serving, assessment, the roads
now, such potholes all over the place" (
an inverted realm that is to some exten
paradise, he has entered an inferno in
between verbal depiction and reality, be
Although the road provides the potential
the town of N and the surrounding estate
that is largely characterized by immobil
differences in the landscapes of the to
constant in this inverted and unstable r
Although the image of the road is cruc
striking element of this image is its absen
metaphorical sense as movement directed

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 45

As Lotman observes, "A striving aimlessly to spread in all directi

and a striving to enclose oneself in a very small shell are equally perc
as variants of non-directed and, consequently, immobile space
Korobochka inhabits a backwater not only in a topographical sense,
also in intellectual and spiritual terms. Because she has not hea
Sobakevich and Manilov, they simply do not exist for her (48-49; 6:
She has tightly encapsulated herself in a world in which she attempt
ward off anything new or different and in which outside influences are
as carefully guarded against as magpies and sparrows in the garden
result, she "is completely immobile within the mindless domestic lif
leads."22 The roads leading in and out of her estate reinforce this sen
isolation and immobility. They can hardly be navigated except by t
who live in the vicinity, for they "crawled off in all directions, like a c
of crayfish when they are dumped out of a bag." When Chichikov
Korobochka for directions back to the main road, she acknowledges
the task exceeds her abilities, for "there are a lot of turns" (65, 62;
57). She has with self-satisfaction cut herself off from the goal-dire
movement associated with the road.

In some ways, Nozdrev is the opposite of Korobochka, for he cannot

be contained by any form of space and is in continual motion. "He could
never sit still at home for more than a day." He constantly flits from one
fair to another, from one gathering to another, and from his estate to the
town. All this frenetic movement occurs within space in which he fails to
acknowledge social and moral constraints and even physical bounds. As he
points out to Chichikov the boundary of his property, he asserts,
"Everything you see on this side is mine, and even on the other side, that
whole forest, the dark-blue one over there, and everything beyond the
forest, all that's mine" (77, 81; 6:70, 74). His ebullient personality remains
unchecked or altered by any place he may inhabit in this amoral and
unrestricted universe. He is characterized by the constancy of his inconstant
existence, and he remains, in a sense, an eternally unchanged figure whose
values, ideas, and morals undergo no change. Consequently, his whirlwind
of activity is "simple movement in space," and because it is directionless
and aimless, it is in reality "a form of immobility."23 His constant
journeying on the road leads nowhere, and he is in just as much a state of
moral stasis as Korobochka.24 As Maguire has noted, the landowners'
estates "remain frozen in time and space, like the societies visited by
Odysseus."25

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46 MICHAEL R. KELLY

As Chichikov returns to his lodging in

to the landowners, his britzka "sank thro
into a pit" (146; 6:131). This Dantesqu
reminds us that the inn is no refuge, bu
mired in a bog of moral stagnation and s
officials have besmirched themselves wit
in moral terms, whited sepulchres in wh
masks the inner stench of decay and corr
so vacuous that the narrator, although a
of talent, is at an utter loss to reveal an
Although the townspeople exhibit an unu
begin to swirl around Chichikov's purch
motion is directionless and, consequentl
immobility. Chichikov's road has thus far
a static realm of pettiness and materiality.

Chichikov is the primary traveler

relationship to the road is ambiguous. A
carriage before he exits the town of N, h
to a settled spot," and he experiences "th
traveller" (needushchego puteshestvennik
"stranded" or immobile traveler, or as Be
it, "the traveler who isn't traveling,"26 see
Although he is frequently on the road, h
his goal, and his occasional inattentivene
turns and unanticipated destinations. A
estate, Chichikov, immersed in his schem
and Selifan, engrossed by his admonition
road. As they completely lose their way an
is unceremoniously dumped into a mud
an apt illustration of the narrator's lyr
seeming inability to stay on the right
illuminated "the straight road" may be, w
and end up in "impassible backwater
failure to travel toward the intended goa
the ensuing chance encounters with Kor
result in mud being thrown on him in a m
For all Chichikov's missteps and f
possesses a goal and a direction, howe
Speaking in general terms of a mobile ch
if it is a petty, self-serving goal and, co

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 47

motion is short, and he, having attained his desired end, can come to a
the author still singles him out from the world of immobile d
character that can come to a stop can also not come to a stop," for s
character "has not yet hardened," and herein lie "the author's hope
Chichikov's regeneration."27 However convoluted Chichikov's road
be, and however short its trajectory, the encounters that have the po
to facilitate genuine movement occur on the road. In his discussion
chronotope of the road, M. M. Bakhtin suggests that the road often
as the setting for the intersection of "the spatial and temporal paths
most varied people," thereby enabling "the most various fates" to "c
and interweave with one another in distinctive ways."28

Chichikov's collisions and meetings on the road point to some

Gogol's most valued aesthetic ideals. There he meets the gover
daughter, and, as the narrator avers, if a person can but "encount
phenomenon on his journey that is unlike anything he has chanced
heretofore," it may potentially awaken within him "a feeling unlike
is fated to feel for the rest of his life" (101; 6:92). Smirnova asserts
within Gogol's philosophical framework, the governor's daughter,
idealized representative of feminine beauty, can help evoke recollecti
celestial beauty and thereby facilitate "a unity of souls," an ideal w
Gogol always "contrasted to the alienation that reigned in his contem
world."29 Despite Chichikov's limited capacity to respond to such fe
the potential for moral reawakening still rests within him. It is also
road that Chichikov encounters the peasant who abuses Pliushkin w
"felicitous" word that evokes genuine depths of laughter in Chichik
elicits the narrator's reflections that "there is no word so sweeping, so
so torn from under the heart itself, so bubbling and quivering with
the aptly uttered Russian word" (120, 121; 6:108, 109). Wit
chameleonic talents, Chichikov can instantaneously employ a wide ra
registers to influence his listeners and attain his ends, but even he sen
some extent that language is not just a means of manipulation, bu
instrument that can stir and awaken long-forgotten feelings.

Chichikov's uncertain and changing relationship to the ro

reflected in what Fänger refers to as "the extraordinary ambiguities of
that characterize the discussions of the road" in the concluding chap
Volume I. Fanger primarily associates the road in Gogol's works
themes of evasion and flight. Evasion "stands for movement in
unknown, freedom to become, deferral of judgment," and the roa
means of keeping "fixity, accountability, knowability itself at bay."

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48 MICHAEL R. KELLY

Chichikov flees from the town of N, th

evasion. At the same time, though, Fäng
evasion an "implicit positive element," fo
to escape that hitherto unnamed state w
death-in-life, mere existence where hab
element of escape is mirrored in the Gog
road helps him avoid artistic stagnati
allurement, and an invaluable source of
speaking of the road, the narrator obse
designs, poetic reveries have come to bir
impressions have been felt!" (253; 6:22
potentiality imbues both the artistic and t

Although Chichikov is not thinking c

escaping from a realm of dead souls, th
traverse new kinds of space. Lotman sees t
fact that it passes through all the diffe
abstract terms, it can pass not only thro
least potentially through "boundlessnes
road thus holds forth the possibility of
encounter the Nozdrevs and Pliushkins of Russia, but also "a male
endowed with godlike prowess" or "a wonderful Russian maiden, the like
of which ... is not to be found anywhere in the world" (254; 6:223).
Within the framework of these potentials, the road undergoes, as Iurii
Mann suggests, a transformation from a concrete road of a specific person
to a metaphorical road that represents Russia and even the whole of
humanity. "Chichikov' s path turns out to be life's road not for one, but for
many people."34 The road is no longer just the instrument of Chichikov' s
physical escape, but it represents the potential for moral escape from a
stagnant and deadening landscape by Chichikov, by Gogol's readers, and
even by all of Russia.

As of yet, though, the energy of the road has not been harnessed and
given a specific direction. "The whole road is flying who knows where,
into the vanishing distance." In response to the question - "Rus, whither art
thou racing?" - there is yet no answer (282, 283; 6: 246, 247). At the
conclusion of Volume I, the functions and direction of the road are still
indeterminate and ambiguous, but we stand on a threshold of possibilities
and at least the potential of a path out of a landscape of dead souls.

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 49

The Road in Volume II: Direction and Open-endedness

Any analysis of the text of Volume II is limited to the survivin

fragments, and we are uncertain as to how the image of the road may
undergone changes in the chapters that did not survive. Moreover,
concluding unnumbered chapter, in which the image of the ro
particularly prominent, stems from a relatively early stage of work o
volume and in all probability is a surviving remnant of the manuscrip
Gogol burned in 1845.35 Nonetheless, the fragments are extremely va
in helping us discern Gogol's thought, even if they do not definiti
delineate his ultimate artistic conceptions.

Lotman suggests that "from the very beginning Mertvye dushi

conceived as a work about a kind of artistic universe - about all sides of
life and about all of Russia. Precisely therefore, all kinds of artistic space,
which hitherto had been complexly interwoven in Gogol's prose, are here
synthesized into a single system."36 As already noted, in both physical and
spiritual terms, the road in the first volume, while at times associated with
boundlessness and transformative potentials, predominantly takes us
through a realm in which the monotony of stagnation is almost as striking
as the diversity of detail. The attempt to produce a synthesis of diverse
kinds of artistic space acquires a much broader scope in Volume II than in
Volume I. The landscape of Volume II is one of genuine contrasts and both
ascents and descents as the road winds throughout distinctly different kinds
of space. It passes through the landscapes of Koshkare v' s broken-down
bureaucratic machinery, Khlobuev's prodigality, Tentetnikov's thwarted
idealism and somnolence, Petukh's expansive hospitality and wastefulness,
and Kostanzhoglo's and Platonov's managerial efficiency, order, and
productivity.

Nonetheless, the primary idea animating Gogol's spatial system

remains the contrast between directed and non-directed space and between
those characters who are moving toward a goal and those who are static
and aimless. Petukh, despite his exceeding corpulence, possesses the ability
almost magically to traverse short distances at great speeds, but his
mobility is limited, for he is literally and figuratively caught in a net. He
rejoices in the sturgeon he has caught, but he himself is the real catch. His
estate is mortgaged, his sons are desirous only of the enlightenment to be
found in the theatres and restaurants of Petersburg, and he seems no more
capable of extricating himself from his managerial failings than his guests
do from escaping his gargantuan sense of gluttony and generosity. Colonel

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50 MICHAEL R. KELLY

Koshkarev, realizing that "everything cou

7:66), multiplies offices and administrati
frenzy. Despite his abundant activity and
bureaucratic details, nothing is accom
multitudinous remedies for inefficiency o
stagnant quagmire. Khlobuev, althoug
possessing a profound understanding of
using his intellect to avoid imprudence, an
disorder and dissoluteness. He has been ens
(7:389),37 and as a consequence, he is abso
see any way out of his predicament.

In the midst of this stagnation, Gogol

outline the contours of a road that is m
features. In contrast to Volume I, where, a
road is highly ambiguous and the conc
absent, the road in Volume II clearly fun
potential redirection and reanimation an
stasis and immobility that characterize a l
Murazov's primary role in Gogol's poem is
to the road. In a sense, he issues the same
Volume I who, after concluding his reflect
and homelessness a satirical writer can ex
road! Back to the road!" (150; 6:135).

Smirnova claims that Volume I is "one of the funniest and at the

same time most optimistic books in Russian literature" because of the
presence of "life-affirming folk laughter."38 Even with the diminished role
of laughter in Volume II, I would contend that Mertvye dushi as a whole
remains one of the most optimistic books in Russian literature because of
Gogol's confidence that, despite all our detours and departures from the
Odyssean road, we can nonetheless find a way back to the path. In Volume
I, the momentary ray that lights up Pliushkin's face as he recollects his
friendship with the head magistrate is dismissed as "some pale reflection of
a feeling" rather than a genuine feeling. He is likened to a drowning man
whose last appearance on the surface of the water elicits hope among
bystanders, but who nonetheless drowns (140; 6:126). However, in
Tredmety dlia liricheskogo poeta v nyneshnee vremia' ('Subjects for the
Lyric Poet at the Present Time') in Vybrannye mesta, Gogol envisions even
Pliushkin's redemption, and he thus suggests that even complete stasis can

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 5 1

be overcome by a lyrical appeal to "a slumbering person" as the power

the word can serve as a plank that is thrown to him from the bank (8:280

Volume II reinforces the idea that, regardless of how far a

individual has strayed or become mired in stultifying pettiness or error,
road remains accessible. Despite Khlobuev's despondency and idlen
Murazov recognizes in him positive ascetic qualities and, urging him
take to the road to collect funds for the construction of a church, assu
him that the road "would be good for his illness" (397; 7:103). In an ear
draft of the concluding chapter, Murazov is even more explicit about
need to be on the road and the possibility to return to it. Since "life
journey," he expresses wonderment as to "how one can be without an
road; how can you walk if not down a road?" He suggests that even s
seeking scoundrels and solicitors of bribes "are, after all, on some sor
road." Although "they turned off somehow, as happens with every sin
yet there's hope they'll find their way back" (7:240).39 Murazov exte
that hope to Khlobuev, provides him with "an ordinary covered cart,"
admonishes him not to "be afraid of the shaking you'll get: it's good
your health" (398; 7:104). He obviously hopes that the road will sh
Khlobuev not only physically, but also morally and spiritually. Herein
a remedy for despair, and in response to Murazov' s admonitions, Khlo
begins to shake off his despondency and to feel vigor and strength, and "
very mind seemed to be awakening with hope for an escape from his s
inescapable situation" (399; 7:104-05). Murazov then turns his attentio
to Chichikov in hopes of redirecting his journey and helping him to ch
a worthier goal. He admonishes Chichikov to "wake up" and assures h
that "it's not yet too late" (409; 7:409). Nor is it too late for anyone else
a mouthpiece for Gogol's optimism, Murazov reiterates the idea
"however far an errant man might stray from the narrow path, how
much the feelings of an inveterate criminal might have hardened," he
still be reproached with the good qualities he has disgraced and thereby
shaken to his very core" (407; 7:112). This capacity to return to the roa
a central element of Gogol's moral idealism.

The interaction between Murazov and Chichikov further exemplif

the previously discussed metaphor about removing a husk or she
hardened feelings as a means of revealing innate feelings and capabil
and facilitating movement along the Odyssean road. Under the influenc
Murazov' s exhortations, Chichikov experiences "feelings hitherto unkn
and unfamiliar," and he feels as though something from his childhood
"had been prematurely crushed" now "wanted to awaken." This f

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52 MICHAEL R. KELLY

stirring of unsullied feelings does not, h

transformation. Chichikov is still vacillating
wants to change, and his intentions are su
Murazov's words leave him feeling that "h
and softened" (409, 410; 7:113, 115), Samo
dissolves his resolve. Change is not instan
still not straight, but remains marked
Nonetheless, in response to Murazov's fin
along a different road" (420; 7:123), Chich
Volume I, again leaves town and is on the
Chichikov "felt nothing," for the town "se
memory" (253; 6:222), and he quickly fall
II, in contrast, we encounter instead "a ru
might compare the inner state of his soul
has been demolished in order to build a n
is now shaken, alert, and reflective.

The prince, having been instructed by

questions of corruption among the gover
penetrate the husk or crust of hardened f
After acknowledging that "there are no m
sufficient to eradicate wrongdoing," he i
nobility within the Russian heart, which
capacity for sacrifice and a transcendent s
Tententikov discerns these same potentia
perception that, like a true poet's, attempt
He is working on a project that, similar to
dushi, is "to cover all of Russia from ever
future clearly" (291; 7:11). According to L
2 as he heard Gogol read it during the su
imbued with this expansive vision, outlin
Napoleon to General Betrishchev. He sugg
events of 1812 lies in the fact that "th
individual in defense of their native land,"
in a single feeling of love for the fath
"sacrificed everything for the salvation of

To awaken and appeal effectively to th

poetic gift of placing words in their pro
Petukh is in many ways a dead soul, he ret
word to stir dormant feelings. He invites

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 53

lake and river, and, in a scene reminiscent of the transformation of

Chichikov's troika at the conclusion of Volume I, as the twelve oarsmen
raise their twenty-four oars in unison, "the cutter, now on its own, light as a
bird, glided across the motionless mirror-like surface." A broad-shouldered
lad, with a voice like a nightingale, begins a song, and as the others join in,
the song resonates and is "boundless as Rus." Petukh "would add his own
bellowing to strengthen the chorus whenever it flagged, and Chichikov
himself felt like a true Russian" (341; 7:55). Tentetnikov experienced
similar feelings under the influence of his deceased teacher, whose very
demeanor seemed to cry out, "Onwards! Get to your feet, right now, even
though you've taken a fall." Now, though, frustrated by his inability to
bring to fruition his all-embracing vision, he mournfully longs to hear again
such a voice, and the narrator provokingly questions, "Where, then, is that
man who in the native language of our Russian soul might be able to speak
this all-powerful word 'Onwards' to us?" (292, 306; 7:12, 23). Perhaps
Gogol's hope to provide a response to this question most fully captures his
artistic aim for Mertvye dushi.

For many readers of his poem, though, the very attempt to articulate
a sense of direction is intrinsically connected with the aesthetic failings of
Volume II. Lotman, for example, suggests that "the Gogolian prophet
cannot proclaim a program - he preaches movement into infinity."40
Lotman, however, does not elaborate on the details of Gogol's program and
how they may impede movement. Fänger expands upon Lotman' s thought
to suggest that, once Gogol attempts to move from a road filled with
endless potentials to a road that moves in a particular direction and has
specific moral goals and a designated end, then "the road is conceived as
finite," and as a result "its enabling function in Gogol's artistic creation
vanishes" and "entropy sets in."41 Susanne Fusso similarly sees one of the
distinguishing and flawed features of Volume II as being its advocacy of
concrete solutions. In her discussion regarding the differences between
Volumes I and II, she argues that Volume I "aspires to the role of parable,
whose incongruities and ambiguities engage the audience in active
interpretation and, eventually, self-knowledge." Volume II, in contrast, "is
to be the sermon preached on the text of the part I parable, hence it must
present an accessible, unambiguous, and unmistakable message to the
greatest possible number of people." She argues that in the sequel "Gogol
hopes to relieve the audience of its responsibility for completing the rest in
their heads: the author himself will provide the answer to the enigma."42
Like Lotman, Fusso also does not specify what the sermon, the
unmistakable message, or the answer to the enigma of dead souls might be.

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54 MICHAEL R. KELLY

Gogol himself asserts that his charac

significant than the earlier ones" and that
into the higher meaning of life that ha
would contend, however, that the fragm
stark and dramatic shift from movem
producing program, from an indetermina
or from parable to sermon. They rather di
between a longing to chart a fixed course o
a reaffirmation of the need for characte
contemplation and introspection to resol
image of the road illustrates this te
reluctance to fix too precisely its paramete

On the one hand, Volume II clearly ma

sermon and a striving for fixity. In term
Sally proposes that, after the appearance
dushiy Gogol "had gradually shifted his
Homer and the Church Fathers," and as a
the ironic, potentially ambiguous, and d
the absolute language of Scripture and th
words are certainly marked by both a pas
the same time, though, it could be ar
frequently manifests itself in Gogol's oeu
didactic essays of Gogol's Arabesques" in
and even in Volume I of Mertvye dushi.
instances of "authoritative discourse" occur in the first volume than the
second, and he further notes that Belinskii had "apprehensions about
Gogol's penchant for preaching in Part I of the novel."4

In terms of sermonizing content, one of the primary themes of

Volume II, as already noted, is the need to return to the road, and this step
is facilitated by focusing more on the well-being of our spiritual property
than on our earthly property (420; 7:123). Moreover, Gogol incorporates
into Volume II some of his economic, social, and moral ideals as he uses
various characters to suggest that agriculture should be the basis of
economic life and to warn against the evils of indolence, gluttony, greed,
graft, and an unreflective borrowing of foreign ways. These ideas may
constitute part of Gogol's "program," but however much Gogol may have
valued them, they are fairly generic formulations, and several of them are
more or less implicit in the depictions of Gogol's dead souls in Volume I.

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 55

By making these implicit notions explicit in Volume II, Gogol is not

plowing significantly new ground.

On the other hand, for all the attempts at specifying directio

Volume II, the text reveals a remarkable degree of open-endedness in
of the specific contours of the road. As Murazov admonishes Khlobu
take to the road, he assures him that he will be able to gain knowled
people through direct experience and begin the process of educatin
own soul, but he does not designate a direction or a destination. Nor
he specify the kinds of knowledge he is to attain or the details invol
the process of educating the soul. Khlobuev is left to chart his own c
Murazov encourages Chichikov to choose a different road and to co
himself first with his spiritual property rather than his earthly propert
he again does not designate the lessons to be learned or the particu
parameters of the road. Chichikov' s soul is likened to a demol
building, "but the new building has not yet been started, because a de
plan has not arrived from the architect" (421; 7:124). Murazov choose
to act as the architect of the new construction of his soul, and Chic
can discover the plans only as he engages in introspection and the p
of self-education. The image of the road remains open, only partially
and filled with potentiality.

This tension between striving to fix the road's destination

restraint in specifying its parameters is fundamental to Gogol's mor
aesthetic philosophy. Throughout his fictional works, it is prec
immersion in a material world devoid of moral values that leads to
fragmentation, spiritual lifelessness, and stagnation. Without a designated
goal, movement may become random, non-directional, and, finally, a
variant of immobility. During the latter part of his career, Gogol seems to
evidence some worry that "proliferating alternatives" with no answers46 and
"a hermeneutic challenge" that is "intrinsically elusive,"47 while providing
aesthetic plentitude, may lead to existential impoverishment and inertia. He
insists on direction as a condition for genuine mobility, and he specifies
goals as a means of preventing the possibility of absolute and irrevocable
stasis and of unlocking at least the potential for growth and change.
Griffiths and Rabinowitz suggest that stasis and "unbounded freedom in
Chichikov's prospects seem equal, though opposite, symbols of the lack of
meaningful possibility." They similarly see "the crisis of the bounding
troika" as "momentum without direction."48 Through fixing direction,
Gogol hopes to preclude the aimless, amoral wanderings of a Nozdrev and
the enclosed isolation and immobility of a Korobochka. In this sense,

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 56 MICHAEL R. KELLY

Gogol's moral ideals may facilitate, rather

infinity."

At the same time, the specification of generalized moral ideals does

not reduce, but rather intensifies, the necessity for individual ethical
engagement. For Gogol, moral battles are not fought on an abstract
cognitive field, but on a highly individualized ethical field. In examining
the ramifications of the turning point and intensification of Gogol's
religious thought that occurred in 1840, Smirnova emphasizes that the
concepts of self-education {samovospitanie) and a subsequent striving for
spiritual improvement came to undergird his whole philosophy of life.49
She sees "the principles of self-analysis and self-education" as integral
elements of Volume I of Mertvye dushi, as illustrated by the Gogolian
narrator's invitation to us as readers to examine whether there is
"something of Chichikov" in is us too (280; 6:245). She further suggests
that vital elements of the program Gogol advocates in Vybrannye mesta
include "self-education, the power of personal example, and the word in all
the diversity of its forms."50 I would propose that this concept of self-
education remains fundamental to Volume II as Murazov exhorts
Chichikov to "think not of dead souls, but of your own living soul" (420;
7:123). Appropriately enough, the concluding sentence of the fragments of
Volume II is itself a fragment that invites the officials and, by implication,
us as readers "to make a closer examination" of our duty and obligations
(424; 7:127).

In an 1843 letter to his friend Danilevskii, Gogol uses a medical

analogy to underscore the necessity of self-analysis. He suggests that the
illness of his generation is "dissatisfaction and melancholy (toska)" Even if
drastic measures and medicines are needed, they are best found "in one's
own soul." He then asks, "How can we point out to another what is inside?
What doctor, even if he completely could know an individual's entire
nature, can diagnose for us our inner illness? Sometimes the poor patient at
least has the advantage over him that he can feel where and in what place
he hurts, and by instinct he himself chooses his own medicine." Gogol then
returns to the image of the road and suggests that the road we ultimately
must find is "the road to become closer to one's own self (12:135, 137,
139). Gogol at times may be of a temperament minutely and confidently to
diagnose illnesses and prescribe medicines, but both his aesthetic and his
spiritual convictions ultimately insist on the primacy of introspection and
self-education. He advocates fixity in terms of the values and ideals that
determine the direction of the road, but openness and indeterminateness

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 57

prevail in the process of traversing the road as all individuals must di

their own illnesses and prescribe their own medicines.

In their discussion of the Bakhtinian concept of unfinalizabilit

Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson suggest that "for Bakhti
absence of any finalization destroys freedom and creativity as sur
complete finalization." They further describe Bakhtin as "an apostl
constraints. For without constraints of the right sort, he believed, n
freedom nor creativity, neither unfinalizability nor responsibility,
real."51 This idea has relevance for Gogol's conception of the road.
absence of direction destroys mobility just as much as a fixed and finit
that obviates the need for further striving. The designation of a dir
enables the journey to become a quest, but the end of the road is st
quite attainable. The sermon of Volume II is less a dogmatically com
discourse than an invitation to return to a road whose parameters hav
been partially specified, to navigate the road through introspection,
engage in the "movement into infinity" that is enabled only by suc
examination. In this sense, Volume II not only does not reliev
audience of the need to engage in the kind of interpretation that le
self-knowledge, but reinforces it.

An assessment of the aesthetic merits and flaws of the surviv

fragments of Volume II lies far outside the scope of this pap
Nonetheless, Gogol's own reflections on Homer set forth a key aes
criterion that may lend some insight into his personal sense of an a
impasse. He notes that Homer relates "his good-natured tale" as thou
were a grandfather who has gathered his entire family around him. Hi
concern is "not to weary anyone, not to intimidate with an inappro
length of exhortation, but to scatter and disperse" the exhortation "inv
throughout the entire work so that everyone, while amusing thems
could imbibe that which is given to man not as a plaything and
imperceptibly inhale" Homer's knowledge and the highest values of h
(8:241). 3 Throughout his career, Gogol alternated between co
depictions of fragmentation and disharmony and ponderously express
lofty ideals of flawless beauty and wholeness. He now sets himself th
of conveying his sublime ideas through multi-dimensional and at t
even playful images, and he not surprisingly struggles to retune hi
His moral thought seems focused on the process of becoming, but h
seems best suited to depicting states of being or, perhaps more accur
absence of being. In speaking of Volume II, V. A. Desnitskii asserts
"we are dealing not with a dead Gogol 'who has renounced himself

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58 MICHAEL R. KELLY

with a living Gogol, a Gogol who was in m

his tragic death."54 Regardless of Gogol's
static, immobile writer, content repeated
notes that accompanied his greatest succe
his verbal registers and to depict charact
he could portray "the paths and the road
beautiful" (8:298). His discontentmen
underscore that he is a writer of the road,
turns and detours and unanticipated stops.

As a writer of the road, he invites us

Perhaps the tension in his art between his
has overcome alienation and fragmentat
morally stagnant sphere may produce suf
as readers that we may be able to discer
Odyssean road. The homeward journey o
must engage the moral creativity of each i

Notes

1 N. V. Gogol', Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14

nauk SSSR, 1937-52), 14:35. Future references to Polnoe sobranie sochinenii
{Complete Collected Works) will be provided parenthetically in the text. With the
exception of quotations from Mertvye dushi, all translations of Gogol's texts are mine.
2 For other statements by Gogol about Homer and his epics, see Carl R. Proffer,
"Gogol's Taras Bulba and the Iliad" Comparative Literature 17 (Spring 1965): 143-
44. See also Robert A. Maguire's discussion of the relationship between Gogol and
Homer in Exploring Gogol (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 296-301. For a
key work that places Gogol's art within a framework of the epic tradition, see Frederick
T. Griffiths and Stanley J. Rabinowitz, Novel Epics: Gogol, Dostoevsky, and National
Narrative (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1990).
3 Lina Bernstein, Gogol's Last Book: The Architectonics of Selected Passages from
Correspondence with Friends (Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 1994), 70.
4 M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic
Literature (New York: Norton, 1971), 145, 225.
5 Quoted in Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism, 223-24.
6 In his comparison of The Iliad and 'Taras Bulba," Proffer suggests that they both are
"heroic epics." He hypothesizes that Gogol may have revised "Taras Bulba" under the
influence of The Iliad "to stand as a kind of antithesis to Dead Souls" and to respond to
critics who may accuse him "of being incapable of portraying the positive sides of
Russian life." Proffer, "Gogol's Taras Bulba and the Iliad" 149.
7 Iu. M. Lotman, "Khudozhestennoe prostranstvo v proze Gogolia," in V shkole
poetiche sko go slova: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol' (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1988),
290, 293.

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 59

8 E. A. Smirnova, Poema Gogolia "Mertvye dushi" (Leningrad: Nauka, 1987), 87.

9 Donald Fänger, The Creation of Nikolai Gogol (Cambridge: Harvard University Pre
1979), 214.
10 lu. M. Lotman, "Istoki Tolstovskogo napravleniia' v russkoi literature 183O-k
godov," Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Trudy po russko
slavianskoi filologii 5 (1962): 60.
11 Griffiths and Rabinowitz, Novel Epics, 19, 21.
12 Anne Nesbet, "Coming Home to Homer: Gogol's Odyssey" Slavic and E
European Journal 39 (1995): 385.
13 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 288, 290, 291.
14 Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin, 1997), 464.
15 Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles, 77.
Quotations from Mertvye dushi are from Nikolay Gogol, Dead Souls: A Poem, tran
Robert A. Maguire (London: Penguin, 2004). Citations first list the page number fro
Maguire' s translation and then the reference from Polnoe sobranie sochinenii.
17 Robert A. Maguire, "Gogol and the Legacy of Pseudo-Dionysius," in Russianne
Studies on a Nation's Identity, ed. Robert L. Belknap (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1990), 45, 4
48.
18 Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, trans. Ian and Ihita
Kesarcodi-Watson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978), 31-32.
19 N. V. Gogol1, Sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh, comp. V. A. Voropaev and I. A.
Vinogradov (Moscow: Russkaia kniea, 1994), 6:294.
20 Goeol'. Sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh. 6:284. 293. 285.
21 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 289.
22 V. V. Gippius, Gogol, ed. and trans. Robert A. Maguire (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1981),
130.
23 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 263.
24 Rather than viewing Korobochka and Nozdrev as static characters, Fusso suggests
that they occupy "an intermediate position" between characters who belong to the road
and those who are motionless. Fusso's point is valid in a literal sense, but from a
metaphorical perspective, I would still argue that they are absolutely static. Susanne
Fusso, Designing Dead Souls: An Anatomy of Disorder in Gogol (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1993), 20.
Robert Maguire, Introduction, Dead Souls: A Poem, by Nikolai Gogol, trans.
Christopher English (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), xxv.
26 Bernard Guilbert Guerney, trans., Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, ed. Susanne Fusso
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 218.
27 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 291.
M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed.
Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1981), 243.
Smirnova, Poema Gogolia, 133-35.
30 Fanger, Creation of Nikolai Gogol, 247, 244, 243.
31 Fänger, Creation of Nikolai GosoL 244.
32 Mann uses Gogol's personal letters to show the critical significance played by the
road in his biography as a writer. Iurii Mann, Postigaia Gogolia: Uchebnoe posobie dlia
starsheklassnikov i studentov vuzov (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 2005), 131-32.

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 60 MICHAEL R. KELLY

33 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 29

34 Mann, Postigaia Gogolia, 125, 127.
35 This conclusion is drawn both by Iu. Mann
dushi": Pisatel'-Kritika-ChitateV, 2nd ed. [
Academy commentators, who even more specifi
written between the summer of 1844 and th
detailed discussion by the Academy commentato
the surviving texts of Volume II (7:393-96, 40
36 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 28
37 This phrase is not from the text of Volume I
51.
38 Smirnova, Poema Gogolia 189.
39 The translation is by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Dead Souls: A Novel,
by Nikolai Gogol (New York: Vintage, 1997), 367. Whereas Pevear and Volokhonsky
consistently translate the Russian term doroga as 'path' in this passage, I have
substituted the word 'road.'
40 Lotman, "Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo," 293.
41 Fänger, Creation of Nikolai Gogol, 247.
Fusso, Designing Dead Souls, 120. Mann has similarly suggested that Volume II
"was to reveal the secret of Russian life, accessible and acceptable to all; it was to
appear as a revelation" (V poiskakh zhivoi dushi, 247).
Stephen Moeller-Sally, Gogol's Afterlife: The Evolution of a Classic in Imperial and
Soviet Russia (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2002), 37-38.
44 William Mills Todd III, Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin: Ideology,
Institutions, and Narrative (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 171.
45 Maguire, Exploring Gogol, 325, 324.
Fusso, Designing Dead Souls, 99.
47 Donald Fänger, "Gogol and His Reader," in Literature and Society in Imperial
Russia, 1800-1914, ed. William Mills Todd III (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1978), 87.
48 Griffiths and Rabinowitz, Novel Epics, 93, 97.
49 Smirnova, Poema Gogolia, 139-53.
50 Smirnova, Poema Gogolia, 189, 159.
51 Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics
( Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 42, 43.
52 Geir Kjetsaa argues that the assumption of the artistic failure of Volume II is based on
the unproven supposition that the final manuscript "in its artistic quality did not exceed
the surviving draft fragments of the second volume." In his opinion, such a conclusion
cannot be reconciled with the opinions of Gogol's contemporaries, many of whom were
sophisticated literary figures, that Volume II was "a masterpiece." Geir Kjetsaa, "Chto
sluchilos1 so vtorym tomom Mertvykh dushi," Scando-Slavica 35 (1989): 129. Gogol's
close acquaintance, Aleksandra Osipovna Smirnova, and her half-brother, Lev
Ivanovich Arnol'di, affirmed that the published text was of a lower quality than the text
read to them. "Everything read by Gogol was incomparably better than in the surviving
rough copy. A great deal is missing there even in those scenes that remained in their
entirety" (qtd. in Mann, V poiskakh zhivoi dushi, 237).

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 NAVIGATING A LANDSCAPE OF DEAD SOULS 61

53 Gogol uses a clever "play" on words to convey his point. The phrase I have tra
as "while amusing themselves" comes from the verbal adverb igraia. The wo
"plaything" is igrushka. The idea is that we should absorb that which is of real
without serious effort, as though we were being entertained or were in th
playing.
Quoted in Smirnova, Poema Gogolia, 184.

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