“Selected passages from correspondence with friends” by N. V. Gogol in the perception of Apollon Grigoriev

Perception Ap. Grigoryev considers Gogol’s books in the article, taking into account the reception of “Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends” in Russian society in the late 1840s. The subject of the analysis is Grigoriev’s article “Gogol and his last book” (1847), as well as “Letters to N. V. Gogol about his last book” (1848); the critic’s later appeal to the writer’s work is also taken into account (“A Look at Russian Literature from the Death of Pushkin”, 1859). The attracted material allows not only to compare the different approaches of contemporaries to Gogol’s “strange book”, but also to make certain additions to the interpretation of the personality of the critic and his heritage. “Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends” Ap. Grigoriev perceives it as a book that reflects not only the complex personality of the author, but also the “morbidity” of the time, modern man, including the critic himself. Peculiar intersections and repulsions of the critic and the writer - psychological, creative, spiritual - are also noted in the article.