Biblical allusions in N.V. Gogol’s novella "The Overcoat"
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2025-3-107-115
The literary tradition of the religious and philosophical study of N.V. Gogol’s novel "The Overcoat" is mainly associated with the identification of evangelical images, motifs, plots (e.g., allusions to the parables of the marriage feast, about the rich man and Lazarus, etc.), as well as components of the hagiographic text (primarily, the lives of St. Acacius of Sinai, as well as St. martyr Acacius). The purpose of the article is to consider the semantic dominants of the story in the context of the epistles of the Apostle Paul, whose personality and theology had a significant impact on Gogol’s worldview and creativity. In the "The Overcoat" there are motifs letter – spirit, old – new, etc., which go back to the apostolic text. The letter – spirit antithesis is not just a background motif of the story, but forms a microplot of writing inside the plot about the official, which is formed with the help of such semantic nodes as the writing person, text, letter. Bashmachkin’s "Official for writing" exists in a world of text that breaks down into letters and is devoid of meaning. His focus on the service of the letter and indifference to everything else, including the spiritual world, correlates with the antithesis of the dead letter – life-giving spirit indicated by the Apostle Paul. The binary oppositions old – new, "inner man" – "outer man", emphasized in the epistles of the Apostle Paul, define the core of Gogol’s artistic anthropology, which asserts the idea of spiritual formation and spiritual choice of man. In this regard, the plot of Bashmachkin is read as a story about the tragic fall of a man from his high destiny, as a story about a man who did not make the transition from a sinful existence to a meaningful existence in the spirit.
Keywords: N.V. Gogol, "The Overcoat", the Apostle Paul, apostolic text, St. Petersburg text, the plot of the letter, the plot about the official, letter, word, text, scriptwriter, "little man"
References:
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Issue: 3, 2025
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND INTERCULTURAL LITERARY RELATIONS
Pages: 107 — 115
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