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Modelling the Reading Act: Gogol'’s Mute Scene and Its Intertexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Judith Robey
Judith Robey*
Affiliation:
Department of German, Russian, and Japanese, Davidson College
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Abstract

The mute scene at the end of Nikolai GogoFs comedy The Inspector General has been described as apocalyptic, metapoetic, and pictorial. It begins when the gendarme announces the arrival of the real inspector general to the town’s corrupt officials: their horrified expressions create a protracted, silent tableau, and the audience (having been told in the play’s epigraph and the mayor’s aside that they are looking at their own “crooked mugs”) is left to stare back at the players for ninety seconds. Gogol' expected this scene to be a transformative moment for all of Russia. But exactly how he meant for the tableau to set up a moral-aesthetic event has never been adequately explained.

As some critics have noted, for Gogol' images of viewers looking at paintings are a means of commenting on the potential power of art over the human soul.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , Summer 1997 , pp. 233 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1997

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References

1 Gogol' himself stressed the apocalyptic aspects of the tableau, calling it “the final scene of life” (posledniaia stsena zhizni). See Mann, Iurii, “’Uzhas okoval vsekh …’ (o nemoi stsene v ‘Revizore’ Gogolia),” Voprosy literatury, 1989, no. 8:229 Google Scholar. Other remarks by Gogol' (see below) have led critics to relate the mute scene to painting, particularly to Karl Briulov’s The Last Day of Pompeii. See especially Bodin, Per-Arne, “The Silent Scene in Nicolaj Gogol'’s The Inspector General” Scando-Slavica 33 (1987): 5–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Although Gogol'’s stage directions insist that the mute scene last a full minute and a half, these nearly impracticable instructions are rarely followed.

3 Mann, “Uzhas,” 223-35; Maguire, Robert A., Exploring Gogol (Stanford, 1994), 97–134 Google Scholar.

4 Other studies that have focused on the underlying poetic and spiritual agendas in Gogol'’s works include Mann, Iurii, Poetika Gogolia (Moscow, 1978)Google Scholar; Maguire, , ExploringGogol; Donald Fanger, The Creation of Nikolai Gogol (Cambridge, Mass., 1979)Google Scholar; Vaiskopf, Mikhail, Siuzhet Gogolia: Morfologiia. Ideologiia. Kontekst (Moscow, 1993)Google Scholar; Nosov, V. D., Kliuch k Gogoliu: Opyt khudozhestvennogo chteniia (London, 1985)Google Scholar; Goncharov, S. A., TvorchestvoN. V. Gogolia i traditsii uchitel'noi kul'tury (Petersburg, 1992)Google Scholar.

5 Briulov’s painting can be found in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg. Ivanov’s is in the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow. For prints of both, see Sokolova, Natalia, ed., Selected Works of Russian Art: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Graphic Art llth-20lhCentury (Leningrad, 1976), 75 and 77Google Scholar. Ivanov never gave this painting a final name, but it came to be known by this title after the appearance of Gogol'’s piece in SelectedPassages, in which Gogol' described its subject matter as “pervoe poiavlenie Khrista narodu” ( Mashkovtsev, N. G., Gogol' v krugu khudozhnikov [Moscow, 1955], 90 Google Scholar).

6 But while they are arranged chronologically to create a narrative, these stages outline a process in a conversion tale about reading, not a line of historical development in Gogol'’s poetics. I am currently at work on a larger study of Gogol'’s pictorial moments in the context of the allegorical metanarrative I outline here.

7 The Last Judgment is a traditional subject in Russian Orthodox art. In the Orthodox tradition, frescoes or icons vividly depicting the Last Judgment are placed opposite the altar and iconostasis to symbolize the frightening alternative to living a godly life. The Russian term for this subject—strashnyi sud—literally means “terrible judgment” and conveys its function among believers: to strike fear in the hearts of sinners. We know of Gogol'’s fascination with the Last Judgment from a letter to his mother on 2 October 1833, in which he commented on the strong impact it had had on him since childhood. The power of this subject and its ability to shock, frighten, and rouse apparently appealed to Gogol'. Several critics, including Per-Arne Bodin, see in the mute scene a parody of the Last Judgment. Bodin (“Silent Scene,” 14) also points out that the placement of the figures in Gogol'’s tableau, with the mayor in the center, recalls the hierarchical depictions on the Deeisis of the iconostasis of Christ the Pantocrator, the Virgin, and John the Baptist, surrounded by the apostles Peter and Paul and various saints.

8 Translations are from Gogol', Nikolai Vasil'evich, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1937-52)Google Scholar. They are my own unless otherwise indicated. Walter Koschmal has explored the commonality between the church and the theater in Gogol' in his reading of “Meditations on the Divine Liturgy.” See Koschmal, , “Theater und Liturgie beim spaten Gogol',” Studia Slavica 35, nos. 3-4 (Budapest, 1989): 335–48Google Scholar. Another religious source for Gogol'’s theater may be vertep, a Russian folk puppet tradition that reflects an Orthodox worldview. See Malik, Madhu, “ Vertep and the Sacred/Profane Dichotomy in Gogol'’s Dikanka Stories,” Slavic and East EuropeanJournal 34, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 332–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Shapiro, Gavriel, Nikolai Gogol and theBaroque Cultural Heritage (University Park, Pa., 1993), 40–58 Google Scholar.

9 Bulgakov, Sergei, The Orthodox Church, trans. Kesich, Lydia (Crestwood, N.Y., 1988), 61 Google Scholar.

10 As Jesse Zeldin points out, Khomiakov’s writings were not published until 1860—eight years after Gogol'’s death. See the introduction to Gogol', Nikolai Vasil'evich, Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends, trans. Zeldin, Jesse (Nashville, 1969), xvii (note 28)Google Scholar. For more on Khomiakov’s thought, see Walicki, Andrzej, TheSlavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought, trans. Andrews-Rusiecka, Hilda (Oxford, 1975), 179–237 Google Scholar.

11 Maguire, for one, argues that, even though Gogol' was ignorant of theological terminology until the 1840s, Eastern Orthodox traditions, including a collective notion of personhood, influenced even his early writings (Exploring Gogol, 86-87).

12 This translation is from Jesse Zeldin, (Gogol', Selected Passages, 74).

13 For an account of the European theatrical tradition of the tableau, see chapter 3 in Meisel, Martin, Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England (Princeton, 1983)Google Scholar.

14 Briulov sacrifices topographical accuracy here for drama by placing the volcano just beyond the city walls.

15 Mann, among others, has connected the mute scene to The Last Day (PoetikaGogolia, 119, and “Uzhas,” 230).

16 On the role of this principle in Gogol'’s poetics, see Fusso, Susanne, DesigningDead Souls: An Anatomy of Disorder in Gogol (Stanford, 1993), 122–40Google Scholar.

17 Gogol', who was then at work on his own masterpiece—Dead Souls—clearly identified with Ivanov. It has also been suggested that Gogol' revised “The Portrait“ for republication in 1842 to inspire Ivanov to continue working on The Appearance ofChrist in spite of his economic difficulties. For a detailed account of Gogol'’s relationship with Ivanov, see Barooshian, Vahan D., The Art of Liberation: Alexander A. Ivanov (Lanham, Md., 1987), 32–48 Google Scholar.

18 Mashkovtsev, N. G., “A. A. Ivanov,” in khudozhestv, Akademiia SSSR, Institut teorii i istorii izobrazitel'nykh iskusstv, Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, vol. 8, bk. 2 (Moscow, 1964), 180 Google Scholar.

19 Barooshian, Art of Liberation, 21.

20 For an analysis of the figures and their reactions to Christ's arrival, see ibid., 26-27.

21 Ibid., 27.

22 Although the persona of the author portrays himself as reacting unselfconsciously to the painting, his performance itself seems staged, as if to call attention to his role-playing.

23 Mann’s analysis would appear to support this distinction: he groups the mute scene with other “noncomic” scenes in Gogol' in which an “ethical aspect” (moral'nyimoment) is present, but, in his view, this feature is absent in Gogol'’s interpretation of Briulov’s painting (“Uzhas,” 231).

24 Gogol'’s relation to romanticism, particularly the German variety, has received considerable attention. Cf. especially Setchkarev, Vsevolod, Gogol: His Life andWorks (New York, 1965), 120–35Google Scholar.

25 In fact, there is more diversity in the figures’ reactions to Christ's arrival than Gogol' allows. As Barooshian (Art of Liberation, 27) points out, the Pharisees react negatively, and the Romans are simply there “to maintain order.“

26 The scheme I am suggesting here is similar to Soren Kierkegaard’s three stages of existence. In Either/Or (ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong [Princeton, 1987]), Kierkegaard distinguished between the romantic hedonism of an “aesthetic“ way of life and the attention to duty of an “ethical” way of life. He described a third, religious way or phase of life in several works, including Fear and Trembling (ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong [Princeton, 1983]), where he used the story of Abraham’s decision to sacrifice Isaac as a way of illustrating the role of faith in the transition from the moral to the religious phase.

27 As Ouspensky and Lossky have noted, the notion of anticipating the world’s divine transformation is central to Russian Orthodoxy, in which “icons are placed everywhere as the revelation of the future sanctification of the world, of its coming transfiguration, as the pattern of its realisation” ( Ouspensky, Leonide and Lossky, Vladimir, The Meaning of Icons [Boston, 1969], 45 Google Scholar).

28 One of the religious ideas Vaiskopf (Siuzhet Gogolia, 24) connects to Gogol'’s works is the Orthodox notion of silence as a means of effacing samost' (individualism or self-reliance) and attending to the “inner word” of God.

29 Augustine, Saint, Confessions (New York, 1963), 149 Google Scholar. It is not known whether Gogol' was familiar with Augustine’s Confessions. However, a number of critics have suggested that Christian confessional literature influenced Gogol'’s works. Some examples are Nosov, Kliuch k Gogoliu, 54-63; Maguire, Exploring Gogol, 262-63 and Maguire, Robert A., “Gogol and the Legacy of Pseudo-Dionysius,” in Belknap, Robert L., ed., Russianness: Studies on a Nation’s Identity (Ann Arbor, 1990), 44–55 Google Scholar; Griffiths, Frederick T. and Rabinowitz, Stanley J., Novel Epics: Gogol, Dostoevsky, and National Narrative (Evanston, 1990), 44 and 107Google Scholar; and Griffiths and Rabinowitz, “The Death of Gogolian Polyphony: Selected Comments on Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” in Susanne Fusso and Meyer, Priscilla, eds., Essays on Gogol: Logos and the Russian Word (Evanston, 1992), 158–71Google Scholar.

30 See the Tikhonravov edition, Sochineniia N. V. Gogolia, 10th ed. (Moscow, 1889), 4:431. Gogol' never gave this text a title. P. Kulish first published this work under this title in 1857. See the introduction by Barabash, Iu. to Gogol', N. V., Razmyshleniia obozhestvennoi liturgii (Moscow, 1990)Google Scholar.

31 As Barabash points out in the introduction to the text (Gogol', Razmyshleniia, 9), this part of the service dates back to Christ's time, when those still preparing to become Christians could participate in the service but would be asked to leave before communion.

32 Barabash edition, Gogol', Razmyshleniia, 37.

33 Koschmal (“Theater und Liturgie,” 32) relates this moment to the shock effects Gogol' creates in the theater.

34 One of the best-known instances of this motif is Raphael's School of Athens—a painting Briulov is known to have copied several times. Sandro Botticelli and Albrecht Diirer also provided well-known examples of this device. It has even been suggested that Raphael's painting influenced the composition of Briulov’s The Last Day. See Atsarkina, E., Karl Pavlovich Briullov: Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo (Moscow, 1963), 113 Google Scholar.

35 Barooshian, Art of Liberation, 36. Simon Karlinsky suggests that, for personal reasons, Gogol' convinced Ivanov to hide his resemblance to some of the figures. See Karlinsky, , The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 197–201 Google Scholar. An assessment of this argument is complicated by the fact that Ivanov (for artistic reasons) was constantly revising the canvas and changing the figures based on composites from the numerous studies he had done. (For a description of his method, see Barooshian, Art of Liberation, 21.) He is even said to have done touch-up work on the painting while it was on display in Rome in 1858 (Barooshian, Art of Liberation, 24).

36 See, for example, Mashkovtsev, “A. A. Ivanov,” 197-99.

37 Although Karlinsky (Sexual Labyrinth, 201) argues that in the version of the painting completed five years after Gogol“s death the penitent figure bears no resemblance to Gogol' (a judgment with which I would take issue), the painting was very much a work in progress when Gogol' wrote about it in 1846, and it is impossible to say whether Gogol' had only one version in mind. Further complicating the issue is the fact that Ivanov’s preparatory sketches were shown alongside The Appearance ofChrist and drew almost as much attention as the masterwork itself. But questions of facial resemblance aside, even in the painting’s final versions the telltale plum-colored dressing gown of Ivanov’s notorious portrait of Gogol' is still present as the penitent's robe.

38 We find a similar gesture in another work by Gogol': in the final image of Taras Bul'ba, where the aging Cossack’s final, epic glance at his escaping comrades is interrupted by the intrusion of a “proud golden-eye duck” (gordyi gogol'— emphasis mine). This authorial intrusion represents an attempt to undercut the sense of spatial and temporal closure (the sense that the depicted world is closed off from the world of the reader) in the text's concluding image.