Irony as a means of character description in the works by N.V. Gogol

The article considers irony as a conceptual category of the literary text, that contains author’s assessment in the implicit form. The ironic meaning as an integral component of the literary text is an evaluative and emotional way to represent the author’s worldview and values. The means of expressing irony in N.V. Gogol’s works of different genres (epos, lyrico-epic genre and drama) are determined. The similarities and differences in the author’s use of irony expression means in the poem Dead Souls , series of tales Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka , Mirgorod , Petersburg Tales , comedy The Inspector General within the author’s ironic character description are determined. The article concludes that genre peculiarities of literary works affect the author’s choice ofcertain means of ironyexpression. It is not typical of the author to use phraseological units as irony explicators in the genre of the tale; however, these linguistic means frequentlyverbalize ironical meaning in the drama genre - the comedy The Inspector General . The use of such textual means as author’s retreats and comments is not typical due tohigh plot dynamism and dialogization of the author’s narrative being characteristic genre features of the comedy. The article considers the means of irony expression in the author’s character description. It is shown that irony is manifested both in the characters’ and the author’s speech and is aimed at assessing the characters’ personality and behavior.