Plan of notes on literature grade 7 Lesson 19. N.V. Gogol. Brief story about the writer
Lesson objectives: work on a textbook article, learning to write a statement, drawing up a plan. Additional literature for students: articles about Gogol in the Encyclopedia of Young Philologist. Literary theory: artistic detail. Equipment: portrait of a writer.
Lesson progress I. Teacher's word. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is one of the key figures in the literary process of the first half of the 19th century. The second half of the century is often called the “century of prose.” His influence on several generations of prose writers turned out to be incomparably deeper than Pushkin’s, although he did not have a “school” or students in the precise sense of the word. Gogol is a lonely “star” in Russian literature, a unique literary personality. The human and creative appearance of Gogol is very complex, so for the past century and a half there have been ongoing debates about the “Gogol phenomenon”, the “mystery” of his art, the “mystery” of his personality, the direction and meaning of spiritual and artistic development. Gogol, his work and fate, his faith and ideals are by no means exhibits from the “historical museum” of Russian literature. Gogol causes a clash of opinions, disputes that have non-academic significance. His work, inspired by the thirst for knowledge of Russia and the Russian people, is a living phenomenon of our time. “Everyone who touches him - the “enchanted place” of Russian literature - can understand the mystery of Gogol’s personality only by being left alone with the writer, not just by reading, but also by experiencing his books. — What is known from Gogol’s works? What did you like? (“The Night Before Christmas.” Collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”).
II. Reports. Pre-prepared students talk about individual episodes of Gogol’s biography as they work on the textbook article. Students read the textbook on pp. 95-96 (I-113-116, NI). Approximate outline of a textbook article.
1. Homeland and parents of N.V. Gogol. Student message. The land in which Gogol was born was covered in legends, beliefs, and historical traditions that excited the imagination. Next to Vasilievka, where the future writer lived, there was Dikanka, to which Gogol dated the origin of his first stories (“Evenings on a Farm…”). Here, in Dikanka, they showed the shirt of the executed Kochubey (remember Pushkin’s “Poltava”), here, according to legend, there was an oak tree near which Mazepa and Matryona met. In Kibintsy, the estate of a relative of Gogol, there was a large library, there was a home theater for which Gogol’s father wrote comedies - all this contributed to the development of the literary interests of the future writer.
2. Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. Student message. Here, in the gymnasium, Gogol's multifaceted talents manifested themselves: he learns to play the violin, takes up painting, participates in performances both as a graphic designer and as an actor, he is especially good at comic roles, and enjoys success. In addition, Gogol tries himself in various literary genres; his satire “Something about Nezhin, or the law is not written for fools” is also a success. However, for now he associates all his dreams with government activities. He is not yet seriously thinking about writing.
3. Meeting with Pushkin. Student message. After graduating from the gymnasium, Gogol goes to St. Petersburg, where he writes his first stories, becomes famous, enters the circle of writers, meets Zhukovsky, Pletnev, and on May 20, 1831, at Pletnev’s he was introduced to Pushkin. Pushkin warmly welcomed the publication of “Evenings on a Farm...”: “This is real gaiety, sincere, relaxed, without affectation, without stiffness. And in some places what poetry...!” - he writes. In 1833-34. the relationship between Gogol and Pushkin becomes especially close. Gogol shares and discusses his creative plans with the poet, writes an article about Pushkin, where he defines Pushkin as a “national poet.” Pushkin, in turn, supported Gogol in every possible way, helped him in his literary endeavors, and suggested topics for new works. Thus, it is known that the idea of “Dead Souls” and “The Inspector General” was given to Gogol by Pushkin.
4. The story “Taras Bulba”. Student message. The story “Taras Bulba” is the result of N.V. Gogol’s serious passion for history. In the early 30s. he was an adjunct professor at St. Petersburg University. History studies ran parallel to the emergence of artistic ideas. The story is about the struggle of Ukraine with foreigners during the creation of national statehood. In 1835, he wrote the first version of the story, and it was included in the collection “Mirgorod” along with other stories. In the second edition of the story, Gogol emphasized the idea of the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. (See “Taras Bulba”, Taras’s monologue about the love of a Russian person for his land.)
5. “The Inspector General” is Gogol’s great comedy about social morals and bureaucratic Russia. Student message. Gogol worked on the text of the comedy for 17 years. “In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything that is bad in Russia... all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at once laugh at everything.” "The author's confession."
6. Gogol’s departure abroad. “Dead Souls” is a prose poem. The poem “Dead Souls” became the main thing in Gogol’s life.
7. Return to homeland. Creative crisis. Death of Gogol. Gogol's artistic originality lies in his mastery of language and the creation of artistic detail. Student message. Gogol's death caused shock in Russian society. Thousands of people took part in the funeral procession. From the university church, where the funeral service took place, to the burial place in the Don Monastery, the coffin was carried in the arms of university professors and students. After the revolution of 1917, the writer’s remains were moved to the Novodevichy cemetery. Gogol had an exceptionally strong influence on Russian literature. He was called the founder of the “natural school”; later, another writer, F. M. Dostoevsky, would speak about “two directions in Russian literature: Pushkin’s and Gogol’s.”
III. Vocabulary work. Writing down the concept of “artistic detail” in a notebook. An artistic detail is a detail of the interior, landscape, appearance of the hero, his speech, which helps to better understand the image or idea of the work. As an illustration, an excerpt from the scene of the struggle and capture of Taras is given, when he lifts the cradle. - What is the significance of the cradle for the characteristics of Taras? (For Taras, the cradle is part of his life, his freedom, his faith, so he risks his freedom and raises the cradle so that the enemy does not get it). - Find examples of artistic details that help to better understand the character of other characters in the story: the sons of Taras. What details of their appearance, their behavior characterize them clearly and succinctly? Students are invited to re-read the following passages of the story: Ostap and Andriy’s arrival to their father, a story about their life in the bursa, their relationships with their comrades. Often, an artistic detail completely exhausts the characteristics of an image, however, we must learn to give a complete description of the character from the work. - Find a plan for characterizing the hero of the work in the reference section of the textbook. Which meaning of the word “hero” can we apply to Taras, Ostap, Andriy and other characters?
IV. Characteristics of the hero. Students, with the help of the teacher, try to verbally characterize one of the characters in the story according to this plan.
Homework. 1. An artistic retelling of one of the chapters of Gogol’s story “Taras Bulba”. (Option: on behalf of one of the characters). 2. According to the plan for characterizing the hero of a literary work, write a short story about one of the characters in the story. An excerpt about the steppe. 3. After reading the story, tell us what we learn about the hero from his actions (plot-dynamic characteristics), and what from the author’s stories (direct characterization), from indirect means of creating the image of the hero (comparison with other heroes).
Information for teachers1 Gogol was born on March 20, 1809 in the town of Velikiye Sorochintsy, Poltava province, in Ukraine. The Gogols were a typical landowner family, owning 1000 acres of land and 400 serfs. The future writer spent his childhood years on his parents' estate Vasilyevka. It was located in Mirgorod district next to the legendary Dikanka, whose name the writer immortalized in his first book. In 1818, Gogol, together with his brother Ivan, studied at the Mirgorod povet school for a little over a year. After the death of his brother, his father took him out of school and prepared him to enter the local gymnasium. However, it was decided to send Gogol to the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in the city of Nezhin in the neighboring Chernigov province, where he studied for seven years - from 1821 to 1828. Here Gogol first became acquainted with modern literature and became interested in theater. His first literary experiences also date back to his time at the gymnasium. The test of an immature pen was the “idyll in pictures” “Hanz Küchelgarten”, an imitative romantic work. But it was on him that the aspiring writer placed special hopes. Having arrived in St. Petersburg at the end of 1828 to “look for places” as an official, Gogol was inspired by a secret thought: to establish himself on the St. Petersburg literary Olympus, to stand next to the first writers of that time - A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. A. Delvig. Just two months after his arrival in St. Petersburg, Gogol published (without indicating his name) the romantic poem “Italy” (“Son of the Fatherland and the Northern Archive.” Vol. 2. No. 12). And in June 1829, the young provincial, extremely ambitious and arrogant, published the poem “Hanz Küchelgarten” taken from his suitcase, spending most of his parents’ money on it. The book was published under the “talking” pseudonym V. Alov, which hinted at the author’s great hopes. They, however, were not realized: reviews of the publication of the poem were negative. Shocked, Gogol left for Germany, but first took all copies of the book from bookstores and burned them. The literary debut turned out to be unsuccessful, and the nervous, suspicious, painfully proud debutant for the first time showed that attitude towards failure, which would then be repeated throughout his life: burning manuscripts and fleeing abroad after another “failure.” Returning from abroad at the end of 1829, Gogol entered the public service and became an ordinary St. Petersburg official. The pinnacle of Gogol's bureaucratic career was as an assistant to the head of the Department of Appanages. In 1831, he left the hated office and, thanks to the patronage of new friends - V. A. Zhukovsky and P. A. Pletnev - entered the pedagogical “field”: he became a history teacher at the Patriotic Institute, and in 1834-1835. held the position of associate professor in the department of general history at St. Petersburg University. However, Gogol’s focus is on literary creativity; his biography, even during his years of bureaucratic and teaching service, is the biography of a writer. Three periods can be distinguished in Gogol’s creative development: 1) 1829-1835. - St. Petersburg period. The failure (the publication of Hanz Küchelgarten) was followed by the resounding success of the collection of romantic stories “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (1831-1832). In January - February 1835, the collections “Mirgorod” and “Arabesques” were published; 2) 1835-1842 - time of work on two important works: the comedy “The Inspector General” and the poem “Dead Souls”. The beginning of this period was the creation of the first edition of “The Inspector General” (December 1835, delivered in April 1836), the end was the publication of the first volume of “Dead Souls” (May 1842) and the preparation of “Works” in 4 volumes ( went out of print in January 1843). During these years, the writer lived abroad (from June 1836), visiting Russia twice to organize literary affairs; 3) 1842 - 1852 - the last period of creativity. Its main content was the work on the second volume of Dead Souls, which took place under the sign of intense religious and philosophical quests. The most important events of this period were the publication in January 1847 of the journalistic book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” and Gogol’s burning of personal papers in February 1852, including, apparently, the manuscript of the second volume of the poem.
Presentation on literature “8 riddles of Gogol”
8 main mysteries of Nikolai Gogol
“I am considered a mystery to everyone; no one can solve me completely.”
N.V.Gogol
The mystery of Gogol's life and death causes numerous disputes among literary critics, historians, psychologists, doctors and scientists. Over time, like many of his characters, he himself became a semi-fantastic figure.
The Mystery of Birth
On March 19, 1809, in the town of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, a son, Nikolai, was born into the family of middle-income landowners Vasily Afanasyevich and Maria Ivanovna Gogol-Yanovsky. Three days later, the baby was baptized in the local Transfiguration Church.
Gogol's mother, whose two children had previously died as soon as they were born, made a vow before the miraculous image of St. Nicholas, called Dikansky, that if she had a son, she would name him Nicholas, and asked the local priest to pray until he was notified about the birth of a child and will be asked to serve a thanksgiving prayer service.
Requested by prayer, the newborn Nicholas was welcomed into this world with a prayer of thanksgiving to God. According to the writer’s sister, Olga Vasilievna Gogol-Golovnya, her brother loved to remember why they called him Nikolai.
Gogol's staircase
As a child, little Gogol listened to his grandmother's stories about the staircase along which people's souls ascend to heaven. This image was deeply imprinted in the boy’s memory; Gogol carried it throughout his entire life. Staircases of various kinds come across us every now and then on the pages of Gogol’s works. And the last words of the writer, according to eyewitnesses, were the cry “Ladder, quickly give me the ladder!”
Sweet tooth
G
Ogol had a sweet tooth. For example, he could, without outside help, eat a jar of jam, a mountain of gingerbread in one sitting, and drink a whole samovar of tea... “He always had a supply of sweets and gingerbreads in his trouser pockets, he chewed without ceasing, even in class during classes. He would climb into a corner somewhere, away from everyone, and there he would already eat his delicacy,” his gymnasium comrade describes Gogol. This passion for sweets remained until the end of his days. In Gogol’s pockets one could always find a lot of all kinds of sweets: caramels, pretzels, crackers, half-eaten pies, lumps of sugar...
Another interesting feature was a passion for rolling bread balls. The poet and translator Nikolai Berg recalled: “Gogol either walked around the room, from corner to corner, or sat and wrote, rolling balls of white bread, which he told his friends about that they helped solve the most complex and difficult problems. When he was bored at dinner, he would again roll the balls and quietly throw them into the kvass or soup of those sitting next to him... One friend collected whole heaps of these balls and kept them reverently..."
What else did Gogol burn?
The first work to turn into ashes was a poem in the spirit of the German romantic school “Hans Küchelgarten”. The pseudonym V. Alov saved Gogol’s name from the criticism that fell, but the author himself took the failure very hard: he bought all the unsold copies of the book in stores and burned them. Until the end of his life, the writer never admitted to anyone that Alov was his pseudonym.
On the night of February 12, 1852, an event occurred, the circumstances of which still remain a mystery to biographers. Nikolai Gogol prayed until three o'clock, after which he took his briefcase, took out several papers from it, and ordered the rest to be thrown into the fire. Having crossed himself, he returned to bed and cried uncontrollably. It is believed that that night he burned the second volume of Dead Souls. However, later the manuscript of the second volume was found among his books. And what was burned in the fireplace is still unclear.
Gogol's personal life
The ascetic lifestyle that Gogol led and the writer’s excessive religiosity gave rise to many fables. The writer's contemporaries were surprised and frightened by such behavior. Of his things, he only had a couple of changes of underwear with him and kept it all in one suitcase... Quite unsociable, he rarely allowed himself the company of unfamiliar women, and lived his whole life as a virgin.
Was Gogol buried alive?
Further
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol died on February 21, 1852. And on February 24, 1852, he was interred in the cemetery at the Danilov Monastery. According to the will, no monument was erected to him - Golgotha rose above the grave. But 79 years later, the writer’s ashes were removed from the grave: by the Soviet government, the Danilov Monastery was transformed into a colony for juvenile delinquents, and the necropolis was subject to liquidation. It was decided to move only a few burials to the old cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. Among these “lucky ones”, along with Yazykov, Aksakovs and Khomyakovs, was Gogol... The entire color of the Soviet intelligentsia was present at the reburial. Among them was the writer V. Lidin. It is to him that Gogol owes the emergence of numerous legends about himself.
Further
One of the myths concerned the lethargic sleep of the writer. According to Lidin, when the coffin was pulled out of the ground and opened, those present were filled with bewilderment. In the coffin lay a skeleton with its skull turned to one side. No one found an explanation for this. I remembered the stories that Gogol was afraid of being buried alive in a state of lethargic sleep and seven years before his death he bequeathed: “My body should not be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating.” What they saw shocked those present. Did Gogol really have to endure the horror of such a death?
Further
It is worth noting that this story was later subject to criticism. The sculptor N. Ramazanov, who removed Gogol’s death mask, recalled: “I did not suddenly decide to take off the mask, but the prepared coffin... finally, the constantly arriving crowd of those who wanted to say goodbye to the dear deceased forced me and my old man, who pointed out the traces of destruction, to hurry...” explanation for the rotation of the skull: the side boards of the coffin were the first to rot, the lid lowers under the weight of the soil, presses on the dead man’s head, and it turns to one side on the so-called “Atlas” vertebra.
Was there a skull?
However, Lidin’s wild imagination was not limited to this episode. A more terrible story followed - it turns out that when the coffin was opened, the skeleton did not have a skull at all. Where could he have gone? This new invention of Lidin gave rise to new hypotheses. They remembered that in 1908, when a heavy stone was installed on the grave, it was necessary to build a brick crypt over the coffin to strengthen the base. It was suggested that it was then that the writer’s skull could have been stolen. It was suggested that he was stolen at the request of a fanatic of the Russian theater, merchant Alexei Alexandrovich Bakhrushin. It was rumored that he already had the skull of the great Russian actor Shchepkin...
Gogol's head and ghost train
They say that Gogol's head was decorated with Bakhrushin's silver laurel crown and placed in a glazed rosewood case, lined with black morocco on the inside. According to the same legend, the great-nephew of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Yanovsky, a lieutenant in the Russian Imperial Navy, upon learning about this, threatened Bakhrushin and took his head. Allegedly, the young officer wanted to take the skull to Italy (to the country that Gogol considered his second homeland), but he could not complete this mission himself and entrusted it to an Italian captain. So the writer’s head ended up in Italy. But this is not the end of this incredible story. The captain's younger brother, a student at the University of Rome, went with a group of friends on a pleasure railway trip; deciding to play a prank on his friends by opening a box containing a skull in the Channel Tunnel. They say that the moment the lid was opened, the train disappeared... Legend has it that the ghost train did not disappear forever. Allegedly, he is sometimes seen somewhere in Italy...or in Zaporozhye...
Thank you for your attention!
