MODELING OF ARTISTIC SPACE IN THE SECOND VOLUME OF GOGOL’S «DEAD SOULS»

Abstract

The article studies the specifics of modeling of the space in the artistic structure of the second volume of «Dead Souls». This theme has not been designated as the subject of a special study and merits for the utmost respect, because it is closely related with features of the development of Gogol’s plan and idea. The object of the article is chronotopic organization of the second part of the poem, where the richness of the description of the activity is attributed to the trio of equals: «earthly», «transitional» and «spiritual». Such threefold conception sacralizes the text, potentiates the sound of the idea of resurrection, imbues the realities with the biblical symbolism.
Coordinates of the road as a main motive of the second volume of «Dead Souls» are universalized, the space paradigm is realized with the help of the landscape, which is different from the images of pictures of nature in the first part of the poem. Specular image of the churches and trees complements the mountain landscape and organizes a harmonious perspective of connection between nature and the human world. Mirror projections semantically correlate with the infernal, or eternal matrix, microcosm of «dead» and «alive», and are identified as a device of complexity, characteristic of medieval painting, Renaissance and baroque art, as a manifestation of «reversal perspective».
The author also studies the specificity of the landscape and the functioning of biblical images associated with it; a role of «dumb scene», spacious «confusion»; a motive of the road as an axial constant of the poem, which has two dimensions: the road, connected with Chichikov’s troika, and the road of all historical world, which Rus-troika rushes, which correlates with the synodic spiritual vertical, with the Easter basis – a characteristic of Gogol’s «Dead Souls» structure.