Italian Travels of Goethe and Gogol. Intertextual Parallels (by the 270th Anniversary of Goethe and 210th Anniversary of Gogol)

Abstract

This article explores intertextual parallels in the works of Goethe and Gogol, inspired by Italian travels of these authors, who were aesthetically orientated to the literature and culture of Italy. Gogol’s early poetic work, his prose and various epistolary heritage patterns of the writer are closely connected not only with the long-lasted Russian literary traditions, but with the sphere of Goethe’s ideas and motifs as well. With the help of a comparative research method, the article examines the problem of the influence of Goethe’s biographical prose, lyrics, and dramaturgy on the structure and content of Gogol’s «Italian» works. The motifs of «rebirth», «the path», «the mask», «the carnival», and of «national idea», generated by the concepts of «time and eternity», «art and life», «person and society», that were the key concepts for these two writers, have correlations with the image of the Eternal City, whose atmosphere allowed Goethe and Gogol to acquire new aesthetic reference points. The article also considers the forms of intertextual connection of Gogol’s works with Goethe’s poetics; it discusses the peculiarities of interaction in the literary and artistic circles of Rome at the turn of the 18^th-19^th centuries and elements of Gogol’s and Goethe’s images reception in the Italian cultural paradigm.