A bold attempt at solving the riddle of Gogol's novel Dead Souls. Gogol constructed the novel strictly according to a moral pattern. The novel thus proves to be a true descendant of medieval romance with its inseparable interrelation between ethics and epics.
Urs Heftrich holds the Chair of Slavic Literatures at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of four monographs. As an editor and prize-winning translator of Czech and Russian poetry, he has been mediating Slavic Literatures in Germany since 1989.
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction: Of Beauty, Truth, and Evil
Part One: Chichikov¿s Prehistory
Ethos and Epic
The Ground Plan of Dead Souls
The Ground Plan of Dead Souls Revisited
Part Two: Chichikov¿s Crime
On Truth and Lies in a Moral Sense
The Five Faces of Lying
In the Shadow Realm of Lies
Part Three: Chichikov¿s Punishment
Judgment and Rumor
The Five Acts of the Drama
Ethos and Epic: Chichikov¿s Crime and Punishment
Illustrations
Bibliography
Index