The Emblem and Its Reflection in the Works of Nikolai Gogol

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The Emblem and Its Reflection in the Works of Nikolai GogolAuthor(s): Gavriel ShapiroSource: Comparative Literature, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 208-226Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of OregonStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1770484 .

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GAVRIEL SHAPIRO

The Emblem and Its

Reflection in the Works

of Nikolai Gogol

SCHOLARS HAVE generally studied the appearance and historical

transformation of the emblem in Russia against the backdrop of

European Baroque culture, particularly the Slavic, that is, in the context of the epoch during which it reached its peak, and of which it is considered one of the most characteristic genres. Studies that reflect this tendency were carried out by Aleksandr Morozov and Liudmila Sofronova in the Soviet Union and by Dmytro Chyzhevs'kyi and Anthony Hippisley in the West. A recent article by Hippisley offers a different approach, exam-

ining emblematic elements in Russian literature of the nineteenth, and even the twentieth, centuries and linking these elements to their original

source--that is, to emblem-books. Hippisley's article, however, does no more than raise the issue, as it surveys the metamorphosis of the emblem in Russian literature over a period of two and a half centuries.

My study pursues another goal, focusing on the emblem in the works of a specific writer, Nikolai Gogol, and demonstrating Gogol's inventive- ness in exploiting it. But before taking up this subject, I wish to say a few words about the etymology of the word emblem, some related forms, and the most likely sources of Gogol's familiarity with the genre.

In Greek, RPX~qlxo originally meant "insertion" and "grafting." Adopted into Latin, the word stood for "inlaid work," particularly "a mosaic." When Andrea Alciati composed his book of epigrams in 1531, he entitled it Emblemata, most likely to indicate that the epigrams of his collection interacted as a mosaic. Emblemata was intended initially for the learned reader and contained no illustrations. (Illustrations were added to the collection by its editors in order to make Alciati's epigrams understandable to a broad audience.) By the mid-sixteenth century, the

concept of the emblem as a mosaic of epigrams was replaced by that of

208



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

an individual entry composed of verbal and pictorial elements

(Miedema).' Most specialists now agree that an emblem consists, as a rule, of

three parts: inscriptio, pictura, and subscriptio. The inscriptio, a short motto, designed to introduce the emblem, was placed above the pictura. The

pictura depicted objects, persons, or events, real or imaginary. Beneath the pictura was placed a prose or verse citation, which functioned as a

subscriptio. Inscriptio and subscriptio together were called scriptura. The

scriptura and pictura interacted to convey an idea, sentiment, or concept, mainly for edification and intellectual stimulation.

One contemporary form related to the emblem was the impresa, a

badge attached to a shield, hat, or piece of armor.2 Although the impresa consisted only of inscriptio and pictura, its meaning was expressed by the interaction of verbal and pictorial elements. Unlike the emblem, the impresa, worn by the ecclesiastic and secular elite, expressed a per- sonal aim or ambition; strictly individual, it was exclusive and esoteric.

We find another emblem-related form in the imagini--allegorical fig- ures, usually human in appearance, with various symbolic attributes. As a rule, a short motto and explicatory text accompanied each picture, but the text, unlike the scriptura in the emblem proper, was devoted

solely to describing the meaning of the various symbols (Lewis 23).3 The first anthology of imagini was compiled by Cesare Ripa in 1593. The first and second editions of his Iconologia (1593 and 1602) were not

illustrated, but from the third edition on (1603), every edition contained illustrations. Iconologia was published in considerably amplified editions over the course of three centuries in a variety of languages and titles.

Conceived in Italy, the genre of emblem and its related forms spread quickly throughout Western Europe and the Slavic countries, including the Ukraine and Russia. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the emblem became highly popular. It was an important part of the

literary legacy of the seventeenth-century writer Simeon Polotskii, a

graduate of the Kiev Collegium (Hippisley), and survived in the Uk- raine in the writings of Grigorii Skovoroda until the end of the eighteenth century (Chyzhevs'kyi, Filosofiia).

The emblem appeared in Russia in the second half of the seventeenth

century, imported from the Ukraine by writers who had received their education at the Kiev Collegium. Emblematic literature also entered Russia directly from the West. During his Western tour, Peter the Great

1 For a detailed discussion of emblem as a genre and for basic bibliography, see Daly, Emblem Theory.

2 For the impresa, see Klein. On the relationship of impresa to emblem, see Daly, Literature 21-25.

For the relationships among the emblem, impresa, and imagino, see Thompson.

209



COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

became fascinated by emblems and ordered the publication of an emblem book by Daniel de La Feuille, with the addition of captions in Cyrillic. The book was published in Amsterdam in 1705 under the title Symbola et Emblemata and became the source of subsequent editions of emblematic literature in Russia (Buslaev 2:99).

Gogol's familiarity with the emblem began, in all likelihood, during his school years in the Ukraine. He probably came across the definition of the emblem in the multilingual emblem book Emvlemy i simvoly izbrannye (Selected Emblems and Symbols) in the extensive library of a relative, Dmitrii Troshchinskii (Fedorov 183). This book, published by Nestor Mak- simovich-Ambodik in 1788, together with his introductory comments, contains the following definition of the emblem: "An emblem is a witty image or an intricate picture that displays some natural substance, animate creature, or particular story, with a special inscription which consists of a brief apothegm" (VII).4 Clearly, Maksimovich-Ambodik viewed the emblem as a dual structure consisting of pictorial and verbal elements. He also explained that the ancient Greeks and Romans had considered any work of mosaic an emblem.

Gogol could also have came across an emblem-related discussion in Aleksandr Nikol'skii's Osnovaniia rossiiskoi slovesnosti (The Foundations of Russian Philology), which was used as a literary textbook in Nezhin

Gymnasium. Nikol'skii explains that the device (he calls it deviz or

nadpis', terms synonymous with inscriptio) "is inscribed on or composed for the inscription on the object for which it is written or uttered"

(2:115). Nikol'skii notes that "Inscriptions are often allegorical, and, in this case, they are always accompanied by hieroglyphs or visual

signs. The Moscow Zaikonospassky Academy bears such an inscription with the depiction of a candle, burning in fog, and the words: 'Non

mihi, sed aliis,' i.e., Not for me but for others" (2:116). It is noteworthy that Nikol'skii considers this an emblem; although he does not use the

word, he describes the emblem in terms similar to those of Mak- simovich-Ambodik: a two-part structure in which words and "visual

signs" interact.

Gogol's knowledge of the emblem genre is confirmed in his letter of December 18, 1835 to his mother:

On this occasion, I have enclosed vegetable seeds: incidentally, this is appropriate for the New Year. It is an emblem and a device and also a wish that you will sow a lot of good things at the beginning of the year and, at the same time, that you will lead a joyful and happy life, which will last henceforth forevermore (10:379)."

4 All translations, unless indicated otherwise, are mine.

5All references to Gogol's works in the original are to Polnoe sobranie sochinenii and, unless the translations are mine, are followed by the name of a translator, volume and

page numbers.

210



THE EMBIEM IN GOGOL

Gogol was evidently familiar with the emblem as an established genre and aware of its degeneration into a cliche. In Dead Souls, he succinctly demonstrates the changes that the emblem as a genre had undergone in the course of its history. Chichikov, when introducing himself to new characters, compares his life at least eight times to a ship in a stormy sea and even to a shipwreck (see Proffer 61). For example, while becom- ing acquainted with Tentetnikov, Chichikov "likened his life to a vessel in the midst of the seas, buffeted from all quarters by treacherous winds" (7:27; Guerney 256). On another occasion, he says: "What misfortune is it, then, that dogs me? Tell me! Every time when one begins to see one's efforts beginning to bear fruits and, so to say, to stretch one's hand toward them, a storm unexpectedly springs up, or one strikes an underwater reef, or one's ship is smashed to smithereens" (7:111; Guerney 354).6

Depictions of life as a stormy sea and human destiny as a ship appear frequently in emblem books (see Henkel and Sch6ne 1464-68). For example, Selected Emblems and Symbols contains an emblem entitled "The Ship Cast into Safety by a Storm" (Fig. 1). The subscriptio to this emblem reads: "The End Crowns the Deed."7 This emblem can often be found in

Figure 1

Baroque literature. In English, it appears in Sir Henry Godyere's (1571- 1627) The Mirrour of Maiestie; in Polish, in Daniel Naborowski's (1573- 1640) "Impreza," "Contemplation"; in Russian in Archpriest Av-

6 Gogol employed the same emblematic image in his correspondence to describe his own destiny. In his letter to Mikhail Pogodin of March 30, 1837, he wrote: "I'm homeless, I'm beaten and rocked by waves. And I can only rely upon the anchor of dignity, which was installed in me by Supreme Forces" (11:92).

7 This emblem depicts what Chichikov so much desires but fails to achieve.

211




vakum's (1621-82) Zhitie im samim napisannoe, Life of Avvakum Written by Himself (Freeman 32-33; Sokolowska and Zukowska 1:188; Avvakum

60-61). This emblem, frequently repeated during the course of Dead Souls, is

Chichikov's impresa, which the protagonist invents for himself and uses in order to gain the sympathy of the other characters. Gogol's originality lies in using this well-known emblem as an impresa for the protagonist's characterization of himself. His main innovation, however, is to use it for the purpose of irony. Although Chichikov's impresa is taken at face value by the novel's personages, it is clearly perceived by the reader as a deceitful device, especially at the end of Part 1 (ch. 11), where

Gogol describes circumstances of Chichikov's life prior to the events

depicted in the novel. Chichikov appears here as a rogue who was

prosecuted according to his just deserts, and not as the unjustly perse- cuted victim he claims to be. By placing this verbal emblem repeatedly in Chichikov's mouth, Gogol demonstrates how the emblem becomes

banal, and ultimately a cliche. Chichikov's verbal impresa strengthens the reader's perception of the character's poshlost' ("vulgarity"), as

Gogol scholars have repeatedly noted (see Nabokov 71-74; Proffer 61). Apparently familiar with the emblem's importance in Baroque cul-

ture, Gogol employs it in one of the crucial episodes of Taras Bulba, set in the Baroque Ukraine. The passage describes Taras's reaction to the decision of the Cossack leadership to sign a peace agreement with the Poles:

When the regimental clerk presented the terms of the peace, and the leader signed it, Taras took off his trusty blade, a costly Turkish saber of the finest steel, broke it in two like a stick, and flung the parts far away in different directions, saying: "Farewell! As the two parts of that sword cannot be united and make up one blade again, so shall we comrades never meet again in this world! Remember my farewell words . . ." (At this word his voice rose higher, gathering uncanny strength, and all were confounded at his prophetic words.) "You will remember me at your dying hour! Do you think you have bought peace and tranquillity; do you think you are going to live at ease? A strange sort of ease you will enjoy: they will flay the skin from your head, leader, they will stuff it with chaff, and for years it will be seen at the fairs! Nor will you Cossacks keep your heads! You will perish in damp dungeons, buried within stone walls, if you are not all boiled alive in cauldrons like sheep!

"And you, lads!" he went on, turning to his followers: "who among you wants to die a genuine death, not on the stove or on a woman's bed, or drunk under a tavern fence like any carcass, but an honest Cossack death. . ." (2:167-68; Kent 2:128).

The reader's attention is arrested by the superhuman effort exerted by Taras Bulba in proving his point. Gogol underlines the hero's unusual

strength by mentioning the sword's high-quality steel; its apparent solidity and its elasticity contrast with Taras's ease in breaking it. Taras's breaking the sword illustrates the point graphically, his sub-

212



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

sequent speech provides the explanation for the act, and together they constitute the descriptive emblem. The description of the act and the speech serve as the emblem's pictura and scriptura, respectively.

The descriptive emblem Gogol employs in Taras Bulba can easily be traced to the emblem entitled "A Broken Sword," in Selected Emblems and Symbols. The subscriptio to the emblem reads: "Cannot be soldered together. The loss cannot be remedied" (Fig. 2). The book's introduction sheds an additional light on the meaning of this emblem: "A broken

i/ S 2.........

Figure 2

sword signifies the loss of a good opinion, name, honor, and glory" (LV). This comment and the emblem's subscriptio correspond to the contents of Taras's speech. His speech, in turn, serves as commentary to his act of breaking the sword and as a warning to the Cossacks that in signing the peace treaty with the Poles they will lose their lives and their freedom; only by battling the enemy can they preserve their honor and independence.

By incorporating this emblem into his story set in the Ukraine, which was pervaded by Baroque culture, Gogol conveys the atmosphere of the time. Indeed, according to the internal logic of the tale, Taras Bulba's use of the emblem in his speech to the Cossack audience was well motivated since the emblem then was one of the most effective ways of influencing the people.

Although Gogol may have familiarized himself with Selected Emblems and Symbols at Troshchinskii's library, he was probably also acquainted with it from other sources; it was very popular among the gentry of early nineteenth-century Russia, as Ivan Turgenev's A Nest of Gentlefolk

213




demonstrates (2:174 and 324).8 Gogol, however, included the sword emblem only in the 1842 edition of Taras Bulba, written while he was

abroad, so that one cannot discount the possibility that he found it in a Western emblem book (see Henkel and Sch6ne 1496-99).

While the sword episode in Taras Bulba is related directly to the concrete emblem, Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka alludes to a

complex of emblems that share the same motif. The reference here is to bee emblematism, which pervades the work both thematically and

structurally. In emblem literature a bee frequently symbolizes the labor of a writer

or artist, as in Maksimovich-Ambodik's "Introduction" to his Selected Emblems and Symbols, where the bee is synonymous with artistic

craftsmanship (XLV). The ancient Greeks believed that those who

possessed supernatural shrewdness, particularly bards, were fed during their infancy by bees. They also believed that such a diet endowed the babies with wisdom and eloquence. Moreover, they viewed muses - pa- trons of divine songs-as akin to bees (Cook 7-8). In ancient Rome, Lucretius, Horace and Seneca tend to compare a bee's activity to that of a writer, emphasizing the processes of gathering and metamorphosis (Greene 73-74; see also Stackelberg).

Bee symbolism also played an important role in pre-Baroque Russian literature. Maksim the Greek (ca. 1470-1556), when discussing the fastidiousness of the writer, says: "And I wanted to become like the bees that fly over all flowers, but who do not collect honey from all." In Baroque emblem literature, a collection of writings is sometimes likened to a "honeycomb," as Aleksei Korobovskii entitled his anthology of epigrams in 1695 (Bulanin 8 and 13).

In view of this symbolism, it is not surprising that Gogol, in Evenings, cast a publisher in the role of a beekeeper. Furthermore, the character's reference to honey and to a honeycomb in the Introduction can be

perceived as an encoded reference by Gogol to his craft of writing and to the work as a whole.9 The beekeeper, Rudyi Panko, says: "and you will find no better honey in any village, I will take my oath on that. Just imagine: when you bring in the comb, the scent in the room is

something beyond comprehension; it is as clear as a tear or a costly crystal such as you see in earrings" (1:107; Kent 1:7).

The importance of the bee emblem to the cycle's structural unity becomes more evident when we look at the subscriptiones of a few beehive

' The reference to this emblem book in Turgenev's novel was noted in Chyzhevs'kyi, "Emblematische Literatur" 175-76, and in Praz 231.

?' St. Nicholas, for whom Gogol was named, was, according to folk beliefs, a patron of beekeeping. See Uspenskii 84-85. By making Rudyi Panko a beekeeper, Gogol encoded his own name in the authorship of the cycle.

214



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

emblems which appear in Selected Emblems and Symbols. Two of them

emphasize the secret nature of a beehive, one reading "The secret of this is open to no one," the other, similarly, "Not open to anyone. Nobody can see what is inside" (Figs. 3a and 3b). The mysteriousness

?~~~ .:

..- ?.

••..

F rF r

Figure 3a Figure 3b

of the beehive expressed in these two subscriptiones may be linked to the atmosphere of mystery that pervades the Evenings.

Another beehive emblem in Selected Emblems and Symbols contains the subscriptio "Bitterness from sweetness. Bitter from Sweet" (Fig. 4; see also Henkel and Schdne 921-27). This emblem can be linked to many

Figure 4

stories of the Evenings where happiness and joy are transformed into

215




bitterness and sadness. This striking change can be seen already in "The Fair at Sorochintsy," the first story of the cycle, which ends with the change from joy to sorrow and emptiness: Is it not thus that joy, lovely and fleeting guest, flies from us? In vain the last solitary note tries to express gaiety. In its own echo it hears melancholy and emptiness and listens to it, bewildered. Is it not thus that those who have been playful friends in free and stormy youth, one by one stray, lost, about the world and leave their old comrade

lonely and forlorn at last? Sad is the lot of one left behind! Heavy and sorrowful is his heart and nothing can help him! (1:136; Kent 1:32-33).

A similar change of mood is found in "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich

Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich." Although the story was later included in the cycle Mirgorod, it appeared initially in the almanac Novosel'e (The Housewarming), with the subtitle "Odna iz neizdannykh bylei pasichnika Rudogo Pan'ka" ("An Unpublished True Story by the

Beekeeper Rudyi Panko"). The story opens with a description of Ivan Ivanovich's bekesha (winter overcoat), amusing in its exaggerated en- thusiasm, and closes with the famous exclamation: "It is a dreary world, gentlemen" (2:276; Kent 2:214).

Like his use of the shipwreck emblem, Gogol's use of the bee emblem shows great ingenuity in dealing with an emblem that had become banal. His originality is seen also in his use of the emblem that describes a moth (fly, butterfly) flying into a candle flame. Its popularity is evident in its frequent appearance in emblem books with the didactic title Brevis et Damnosa Voluptas (see Henkel and Sch6ne 910-12). This sentiment is echoed by the subscriptio to the emblem on the same subject which appears in Selected Emblems and Symbols: "Harmful fancy. My pleasure costs me my life" (Fig. 5).

Figure 5

By Gogol's time, this emblem had already degenerated into a cliche,

216



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

and was used as such in romantic literature, for example by Mikhail Lermontov in his first published imitative poem, Khadzhi Abrek (1834), where the death of Leila at the protagonist's hand is foreshadowed through likening her dancing before him to the image of a moth whirling in the rays of a sunset (3:271). Gogol uses the same emblem in his fragment "Devitsy Chablovy" ("Chablov Maidens"), probably written in 1839 (see 3:723), where he notes that the Chablov maidens "pondered over their existence while a thoughtless and fainthearted one indiscrimi- nately threw herself upon the light as a moth upon a candle" (3:335).

Gogol's treatment of the motif is quite different from that of the Romantic school exemplified by Lermontov's poem. The strong didactic overtones of Gogol's treatment recall the way the emblem was originally used in emblem books. Most important, however, Gogol succeeds in retrieving the emblem from banality and, through use of a pun, endows it with new meaning: in Russian, svet means "light," but in this context it may also mean "beau monde"; thus, the beau monde can be as dangerous for inexperienced youth as a candle is for a moth.'0

Side by side with emblem-books, which tended toward didacticism and edification, there appeared collections of imagini. Modeled upon Ripa's Iconologia, the imagini depicted human vices and virtues. One such collection is Stoeber's Iconology, most likely known to Gogol from Troshchinskii's library (Fedorov 42), which contains an allegory of Avarice (Fig. 6).

,! " , I|,'t G ,•t'z

L .

,i ...

., • ...

~r

Figure (

10 Gogol's dislike for the beau monde is expressed both in his fiction and in his correspondence. See 6:174-75, and 11:91, respectively.

217




The description reads:

This vice is represented by the image of an old pale, lean, and dishevelled woman; the rags that cover her and the golden chain that serves her as a belt mean that grubbing for wealth enslaves her so that she denies herself the most necessary things. The purse, which she squeezes in her hands, bears a Greek inscription, Plutos, the name of the god of riches. A thin and hungry wolf, which stands near her, signifies insatiability and predatoriness. (38-39).

This description of the allegory of Avarice evokes the portrayal of Pliushkin given in ch. 6 of Dead Souls:

Near one of the structures Chichikov soon noticed some sort of figure that began bickering with the muzhik who had driven in the cart. For a long while Chichikov could not make out the sex of this figure, whether it were a peasant woman or a muzhik. The clothing upon it was utterly indeterminate, resembling very much a woman's gown; on its head was a nightcap, such as village serving women wear about the house . . By the keys that were dangling from her waist and from the fact that she was cursing out the muzhik in rather abusive terms, Chichikov concluded that this must surely be the housekeeper. (6:114; Guerney 98-99).

Further on, Gogol notes that Pliushkin's face was "as that of many gaunt old men" (6:116; Guerney 100)"1 and then draws attention to his outfit:

Far more remarkable was his attire. Through no means and efforts could one ferret out what his dressing-gown had been concocted from; the sleeves and upper portions had become greasy and shiny to such a degree that they resembled the sort of Russia leather which is used for boots; dangling in the back were four flaps instead of two, out of which the cotton-wool quilting was actually crawling in tufts! (6:116; Guerney 100-01).

Later, in discussing Pliushkin's transformation into a pathological miser, Gogol remarks that "His lonely life afforded rich fare to his

miserliness, which, as everybody knows, has a wolfish appetite and

which, the more it devours, the more insatiable it becomes" (6:119; Guerney 103). Pliushkin's portrayal bears a striking resemblance to the description of Avarice given in Stoeber's book. The name Pliushkin

echoes, perhaps ironically, the name of Plutos, the god of riches, which

appears in the allegory description. (Gogol could not call his character Plutkin because this would have created an erroneous association with Russian plut, "rogue.") Thus perceived as an old woman in threadbare

clothes, Pliushkin resembles the image of the allegory; like her he is lean and wears a belt. However, the belt of Avarice is a golden chain that symbolizes her sacrifice to the desire for enrichment, whereas upon Pliushkin's belt hang the keys to all of his actual wealth (that is why, at first, he was taken for a female housekeeper). The irony is that

Pliushkin's wealth, because of his pathological miserliness, has turned

" In Selected Emblems and Symbols (XX), the allegorical figure of Avarice is described as an old man rather than an old woman.

218



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

into dust and rot (see 6:119; Guerney 103-04). In further description of Pliushkin's vice, Gogol employs the metaphor of an insatiable wolf; in the allegory, too, a lean and hungry wolf symbolizes predaciousness and insatiability.

Thus, in his portrayal of Pliushkin, whose name became synonymous with extreme miserliness in Russian literature, Gogol drew creatively upon many iconographic elements of the allegory. By obscuring Pliushkin's gender at first, Gogol intended to show that his character's extreme miserliness deprived him of one of the main traits of a human

being. The device of gender obscurity was perhaps also designed to

prepare the reader for the subsequent statement that Pliushkin is "a rent on the cloak of humanity" (6:119; Guerney 104). Pliushkin's keys to his possessions and, perhaps, his last name, which resembles that of the god of riches, underline the pathological miserliness that ironically turns him into a pauper; the metaphorical use of the wolf's image conveys the insatiability of miserliness. Overall, Gogol's portrayal of

Pliushkin, with its distinct didactic and edifying overtones, is akin to the description of Avarice in Stoeber's Iconology.

It was a common practice of Baroque writers to design (or commission

professional artists to design) frontispieces and title pages filled with emblematic meaning. Such illustrations were meant to convey the es- sence of the book's content. One famous example of such emblematic art in European Baroque literature is Grimmelshausen's frontispiece for his novel Simplicissimus (Daly, Literature 180-84). Gogol achieves a similar effect in his design of the cover for the first edition of Dead Souls

(Fig. 7).12 The title--Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova ili Mertvye dushi. Poema N.

Gogolia (The Peregrinations of Chichikov, or Dead Souls: A Poem by N. Gogol) - interacts clearly with its pictorial elements, as in the title pages of

Gogol's Baroque predecessors. Gogol's cover, however, is unique in that this interaction takes place also on different levels, each section of the title interacting with its pictorial entourage.13 Thus, the title can be divided into three main sections: Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova, Mertvye dushi, and Poema.

1. Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova. The carriage at the top on the cover con-

veys the idea of the protagonist's peregrinations (pokhozhdeniia); low

12 To the best of my knowledge, Gogol was the only Russian writer of the first half of the 19th century who designed a book cover that appeared in print. Lermontov designed a cover for his early poem Cherkesy (The Circassians, 1828), and Pushkin drafted the title page for his Dramaticheskie otryvki (The Dramatic Fragments, 1830); see Lermontov 3: 13, and Pushkin 7: between 98 and 99. These, however, remained in manuscript form.

13 Markovskii (167-68) was the first to notice Gogol's cover design and its emblematic nature. While this article was in press, a book by the Soviet scholar Elena Smirnova was published. I am pleased to discover that she confirmed some of my observations regarding Gogol's cover design for Dead Souls. See E. A. Smirnova 76-78.

219




I'OX•II ?iIR tt.., KO iA ..j

..

~ 1:?...

d- K ? E, 4?

'"

, g

Figure 7

buildings, a city gate, a town well at the top left, and a belfry at the top right symbolize provincial Russia in which the action of Dead Souls takes place. The theme of gluttony, so pronounced in Dead Souls, is represented by fish lying on a plate and hanging, and by the abundance of wine bottles and glasses.

2. Mertvye dushi. The second section of this title is graphically represented by numerous skulls and a few skeletons. Gogol used the cover to create the impression, apparently designed to evade censorship, that dead souls referred only to deceased serfs; on the far left, the writer depicted a large bast shoe, typical peasant footwear, as well as a barrel and a boot-probably to symbolize peasant crafts. On the far right is a peasant in his festive outfit, typical of the period from 1830 to 1860 (cf. Ivanov 84 and Ryndin 2:170-71). He is raising a wine glass in one hand and holding a Russian folk musical instrument, most likely a balalaika, in the other. This image is echoed in the conceit, which compares Sobakevich's face with a pumpkin, of which the balalaika is

220



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

made (see 6:94; Guerney 80). Peasant artistry is the particular subject of Chichikov's digression at

the beginning of Part I, ch. 7. In this lyrical passage, Chichikov con-

templates the fate of recently acquired dead serfs, among whom were artisans: Maksim Teliatnikov, a cobbler, and Stepan Probka, a car-

penter (his surname literally means "cork" and has a possible "barrel"

association) who walked through the provinces with his boots on his shoulders (see 6:136; Guerney 119). 3. Poema. Gogol attached great importance to the poematic character of Dead Souls; it is therefore no accident that the word poema appears in the largest print on the cover. (This fact was noted by V. A. Zhdanov and E. E. Zaidenshnur; see 6:904.) Gogol's definition of poema as a

genre is given in his Uchebnaia kniga slovesnosti dlia Russkogo iunoshestva

(The Textbook of Philology for Russian Youth). In the section "Men'shie

rody epopei," "Smaller Kinds of Epic" (8:478-79), where, although he mentions neither poema nor Dead Souls explicitly, it is clear that he

speaks about the genre and uses Dead Souls as a model. Gogol maintained that even though such works may be written in prose, they can be viewed as poetic creations.

The poetic nature of Dead Souls is represented on the cover by the musical instruments. On the far left, a lyre links Gogol's work to the classical tradition. (Gogol views poema as a smaller kind of epopeia [epic], best represented, in his opinion, by Homer's Iliad and Odyssey [8:478].) However, such typical Russian instruments as svirel' (a sort of whistle- like flute), buben (a sort of tambourine), and rozhok (a sort of horn), which Gogol depicted from top to bottom on the far right of this section of the cover, were apparently designed to allude to the national (Rus- sian) nature of Dead Souls (cf. Vertkov et al. 26, 42, 32-33 and Figs. 6-8, 99, and 30-32 respectively).14

In addition to the poetic nature of poema, Gogol maintained, the

genre may contain a satirical element. (He gives as an example Cer- vantes's Don Quixote, where, according to Gogol, his Spanish predecessor pokes fun at his contemporaries' belated passion for adventure, 8:479). To emphasize the satirical element in Dead Souls, Gogol drew on his cover two masks of satyrs. The masks resemble the heads of the Della Valle satyrs that Gogol probably saw in Rome (see Haskell and Penny 301-03). In visual art, particularly frontispieces and title pages, satyrs seem to symbolize evil passions. These masks most likely embodied those passions which, as Gogol showed in his poema, "are in the beginning submissive to the will of man and only later on become fearful

14 I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Robert Oldani of Arizona State University for help in identifying these Russian musical instruments.

221




tyrants dominating him" (6:242; Guerney 229). At the very bottom of the cover, Gogol depicted the head of a sphinx,

wishing, perhaps, to suggest that enigmatic wisdom lies at the basis of Dead Souls. Not without reason did Konstantin Aksakov raise the point of the mystery of Russian life that Gogol's work embodies (47). Further- more, by this sphinx, Gogol may suggest that Dead Souls would solve the riddle of his own existence. The writer, indeed, expressed this idea in a letter of May 9, 1842 to his close friend, Aleksandr Danilevskii, written shortly after he had drafted the design for the cover of his book: "In a week after this letter, you will receive the printed Dead Souls, a somewhat pale threshold of that great poem which has been building up in me and which will finally solve the riddle of my existence" (12:58).

Emblematic thinking as an integral part of Gogol's world perception accompanied the writer up to the last days of his life. After burning the second volume of Dead Souls for the second time, shortly before his death, Gogol drew a sketch in which a man, whose features strongly resemble his own, is crushed between the covers of a book (Fig. 8). This

/i~

/1/\N

Figure 8

sketch can be interpreted emblematically as follows: the book, which in concrete terms is the burnt volume of Dead Souls but, in a more general sense is Gogol's universe, has crushed its creator, indicating that the writer has lost control over his creative power (see Zolotusskii 502).

Comparisons of the world to a book were used frequently in the Baroque epoch and can be found in emblem books. Johann Arndt's Samtliche Geistreiche Biicher Vom Wahren Christenthum (Complete Ingenious Books of True Christianity; Schilling 71, 276) contains an emblem depicting 222



THE EMBLEM IN GOGOL

the letters of which the Book of the World is set up (Fig. 9). The

i _..

'•tn' l''•fu•li t•.i "k .

" ,"• - - '

.

Figure 9

motif of a book as the world was popular also in Slavic literature of the time. In his Prodromus Pansophiae (1637), the Czech theologian, pedagogue, and philosopher Jan Amos Komensky (1592-1670), viewed a book as the symbol for the world (Chyzhevs'kyi, "Das Buch" 90); Waclaw Potocki, the Polish poet (1635-96), encapsulated this concept in his epigram "Swiat jest ksiega" ("The World is a Book") (1:368-69); Simeon Polotskii (1629-80) wrote a poem of the same title (Panchenko 239).

Concomitant with the motif of a book as the world was the motif of the writer as godlike creator. As God "wrote" the Book of Nature, so the writer in his book created a universe. But while Baroque writers acknowledged their subordination to God, in the Romantic period,

223




contemporary with Gogol, it was not uncommon for writers to perceive themselves as godlike (Buffum 149; Chyzhevs'kyi, Comparative History 144).

In his attitude toward the task of a writer, Gogol identifies with the

Baroque perception of the world rather than with that of the Romantics.

Acknowledging the supremacy of the Divine, he views himself and his

writings as a part of the great plan of the Creator. On May 6, 1851, he wrote to Petr Pletnev:

That the 2nd volume of Dead Souls is more clever than the first one, this I can say as a man who has taste and who can also look upon himself as upon a stranger, so that, perhaps Smirnova is partially right; but when I consider all the process, when I consider how it was created and produced, I see that the only clever one is the One Who creates

everything, using us all as the bricks for the construction, according to the design, of which He is the one truly intelligent architect. (14:229).

Gogol maintains that a writer comes closest to understanding the mysteries of Divine Creation when he exercises his own creativity; the writer's universe, his book, epitomizes the creation from chaos. He

expresses this attitude in a letter to the poet Vasilii Zhukovskii on December 2, 1843:

I continue to work, that is, to jot chaos down on paper, from which chaos the creation of Dead Souls should occur. Labor and patience and even forcing myself reward me

greatly. Mysteries are revealed that the soul hasn't yet heard of. And much in this world becomes clear after this labor. Practicing, though a little, in the science of creation, one becomes much more sensitive to the great mysteries of God's Creation. (12:239)15

Thus, while understanding himself and his work as part of the Grand

Design, Gogol perceives an analogy between the writer as a creator and God the Creator, and, consequently, between the book of the writer and God's Book of the World.

'5 An abbreviated version of this paper was delivered at the annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages on 29 De- cember 1986 in New York City.

Cornell University

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Documents

The Emblem and Its Reflection in the Works of Nikolai Gogol