NIKOLAI GOGOL (1809-53)

1. Born in Ukraine, 20 March 1809

a. Educated locally
b. Fellow students called him "the mysterious dwarf

2. St. Petersburg

a. Moves there in 1828
b. Strikes up acquaintance with Pushkin
c. Employment

1. Minor clerk
2. Private tutor
3. Professor of history at Petersburg University

3. Major Works

a. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, 1831-32
b. Mirgorod, 1835
c. Arabesques, 1835
d. Inspector-General, 1836
e. "The Overcoat," 1842
f. Dead Souls, 1842

4.Categories

a. Folkloric Tales
b. Tales of "ordinary people"
c. Tales of the fantastic
d. Tales of "poshlust"

1. Poshlust: false, insipid, banal, vulgar, tasteless

5. Characteristics

a. Digressions, verbosity
b. Fantastic and grotesque elements
c. Hyperbole
d. Numbers
e. Metaphors representing size
f. Logical non-sequitors
g. Non-Description