This story takes place in a bucolic small town of Mirgorod (Myrhorod in Ukrainian), written in the style featuring grotesque, realistic portrayals of the characters. The two Ivans are gentlemen landowners, neighbors and great friends, each one almost being the opposite image of the other. Ivan Ivanovich is tall, thin, and well-spoken, for example,...More
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1809 – 4 March [O.S. 21 February] 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt").
According to Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Gogol had a huge influence on Russian and world literature. Gogol's influence was acknowledged by Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka and others....More
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1 April [O.S. 20 March] 1809 – 4 March [O.S. 21 February] 1852) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt").
According to Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Gogol had a huge influence on Russian and world literature. Gogol's influence was acknowledged by Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka and others.
Book Summary
This story takes place in a bucolic small town of Mirgorod (Myrhorod in Ukrainian), written in the style featuring grotesque, realistic portrayals of the characters. The two Ivans are gentlemen landowners, neighbors and great friends, each one almost being the opposite image of the other. Ivan Ivanovich is tall, thin, and well-spoken, for example, while Ivan Nikiforovich is short, fat, and cuts to the point with a biting honesty.
One day, Ivan Ivanovich notices his friend's servant hanging some clothes out to dry as well as some military implements, especially a Turkish rifle that interests him. He goes over to Nikiforovich's house and offers to trade it for a brown pig and two sacks of oats, but his friend is unwilling to part with it and calls Ivan Ivanovich a goose, which terribly offends him. After this, they begin to hate each other…
Nikolai Gogol
