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

1.  Ethos and Epic

2.  The Ground Plan of Dead Souls

3.  The Ground Plan of Dead Souls Revisited

Part Two: Chichikov¿s Crime

1.  On Truth and Lies in a Moral Sense

2.  The Five Faces of Lying

3.  In the Shadow Realm of Lies

Part Three: Chichikov¿s Punishment

1.  Judgment and Rumor

2.  The Five Acts of the Drama

3.  Ethos and Epic: Chichikov¿s Crime and Punishment

Illustrations

Bibliography

Index