Mythological Motives in Art of Nikolai Gogol. Philosophical Analysis

The work is a continuation of a study on the mythological motives of Nikolai Gogol, distinguishing him from simple fiction and making his creations not an allegorical depiction of reality, but an autonomous reality of myth-making. The methodological basis of the study is the classic of the philosophy of mythology - the fundamental works of Schelling, Cassirer, Losev, Hübner, and so on. The work of last year, which this master thesis is a direct continuation of, advocated a "tautegoric" (according to Schelling) interpretation of Gogol's myth-creation, which opposed all attempts to find a realist and a satirist in it; the problems of caring, sculpture, fate, laughter, apophatism in Gogol's art were examined in detail. It also has already identified two key aims of this thesis: the establishment and disclosure of the connection between Gogol’s myth-making and the child’s worldview, as well as with the ancient philosophical and mythological tradition, with the seemingly “childish” form of understanding the world that was presented by the ancient Greek philosophers, whose thought is inextricably linked with the mythical source. The child is a myth-creator: Gogol’s works reveal that child’s attitude that embodies the multi-color richness, strangeness and mystery, gloomy tension and also the joyful fullness of life inherent in myth. Communication with a child in our adult and often too adult world is like an outlet for that primordial, unconditional honesty and freshness of being that carries an ancient myth that is still incapable, like a child, of hypocrisy and soul-bending. Hardly any of the great writers came to childhood as close as Gogol – probably because it was he who embodied so many features of the mythological view of the world in his works most consistently and fully. And therefore, he is so close to the work of such, at first glance, distant authors, such as Heraclitus and Plato, classical philosopher-mythcreator. So the myth-creator Gogol is not a strange lonely genius; behind him stands a rich tradition of inextricably mythical, literary and philosophical creativity.