ON THE TRAGIC BEWILDERMENT IN THE WRITINGS OF PUSHKIN AND GOGOL

Abstract

The article attempts to apply the concept of “tragic bewilderment”, which relates back to the Nevel philosophical school (in particular, to the works of Matvei Kagan), to interpret the patterns of the creative evolution of Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol. Overcoming tragic bewilderment, Pushkin and Gogol rethink the nature of the relationship between literature and extra-­literary reality: they move away from the idea of the aesthetic autonomy of art and open up new possibilities for literature, associated with its dialogic appeal to the world of the reader.