Nikolai Gogol and the sanity of
madness
“They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they
outvoted me.”
-- Nathaniel Lee
The rise of the pathography
Romanticism fostered
interest in individual
lives and interior lives
Psychiatrists claimed
expert insight into
pathologies of artists
New triadic model
proposed by Moebius:
normal, abnormal, and
somewhere in between
Importance of literature in
Russia
Gogol’s Pathology: The two Gogols
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Gogol pronounced mentally ill
by the critic Vissarion Belinsky
for his Selected Passages from
Letters to Friends (1846)
First Gogol: ingenious satirical
writer, “realist” critical of Imperial
Russian society
Second Gogol: reactionary
author of Selected Passages;
proponent of autocracy,
ignorance, knout; religious
fanatic
Insane or merely odd?
“Diary of a Madman” is a
satire of Petersburg society,
satire “mirror held up to
society,” but also a mirror of
Gogol’s pathology
Nikolai Gogol, 1809-1852
“artist-monk, Christian-satirist, ascetic and humorist, martyr of the
exalted ideal and the unsolved riddle”
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Born into family of small
Ukrainian landowners
Capitalized upon provincial
background, identity of
country bumpkin
Series of appointments as
minor civil servant, adjunct
professor of universal history
at St. Petersburg University
Early folk stories of Ukrainian
countryside (1832), later
sharply satirical Petersburg
stories and plays “Inspector
General,” most famous novel
Dead Souls (1842)
Questions for Discussion
• Poprishchin’s (the madman) diary allows us
intimate access to his perception of reality
and his consciousness. What does
Poprishchin notice and why? What is
important to him, and how is it connected with
his mental illness?
• Consider one of Gogol’s most ingenious
literary devices: the correspondence of Medji
to Fidele. What is Gogol able to accomplish
using this device?
Gogol/Poprishchin: mirrored madness
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In “Diary of Madman” two
Poprischchin’s: Poprishchin,
titular counsellor, trivial,
snobbish, envious, fixated on
hierarchy, and King of Spain,
who disdains everything
Poprishchin values, (sees
women as devil) rejects world,
Christ figure
Similarities to Skoptsy
Gogol uses device of
estrangement (perspective of
madman, dogs) to show us
“shocking morass of trivial
things in which man’s life was
entangled”
Diagnosing social malaise
peculiar to St. Petersburg, but
Gogol/Poprishchin: mirrored madness
•
•
•
•
In “Diary of Madman” two
Poprischchin’s: Poprishchin,
titular counsellor, trivial, snobbish,
envious, fixated on hierarchy, and
King of Spain, who disdains
everything Poprishchin values,
(sees women as devil) rejects
world, Christ figure
Similarities to Skoptsy
Gogol uses device of
estrangement (perspective of
madman, dogs) to show us
“shocking morass of trivial things
in which man’s life was entangled”
Diagnosing social malaise
peculiar to St. Petersburg, but
also human sinfulness