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Iurii Mann Gogors Poetics of Petrification • GOG0 L ' S SYMB0 LIe system of petrification and loss of speech, which may appear to be a limited aspect of his art, in fact leads us to the fundamental characteristics of his poetics. In a certain sense this symbolic system is analogous to that "sculptural myth" investigated by Roman Jakobson. Jakobson demonstrated that the functioning of this myth determines to a significant degree the peculiar stamp of Pushkin's poetic personality. I We can hardly be mistaken if we assume an analogous dependence for Gogol as well. Even on the external level GogoI's works are marked in this regardliterally dozens of formulas of muteness (or petrification) fill his works: "Horror fettered everyone in the hut"; the mayor "was transfixed with astonishment"; "everyone stood rooted to the ground," and so on. And in The Inspector General the factor of petrification even determines the style and texture of an entire fragment-the socalled mute scene. The symbolism of immobilization may play one of two roles in a work-either as the animation of a dead person or as the immobilization of a living one. Both forms are encountered in Pushkin. In Gogol only one appears: the immobilization of the living. Gogol has no "statues" that come to life, a plot device that is the basis of three "sculptural myths" of Pushkin (in The Stone Guest, The Bronze Horseman , and The Golden Cockerel).2 On the other hand, Pushkin's plea, "let not the poet's soul of passion / grow cold, and hard, and stiff as stock, / and finally be turned to rock / amid the deadening joys of fashion" (emphasis added), finds both analogy and development in Gogol.3 The Gogolian process is not multidirectional as in Pushkin but unidirectional: from living to dead, from mobile to immobile. If we speak specifically of the formula of petrification, that is, of the compact verbal construction with which Gogol usually expresses this process, then we must define another distinguishing feature as well. The formula of petrification is always unexpected and sudden; it is inserted into the text without preparation, often with the help of 75 ludi Mann the adverb suddenly (vdrug). In this sense it is close to Pushkin's "sculptural myth," but with a necessary adjustment: whereas in Pushkin it is the character's meeting with the statue (with the Bronze Horseman or the Stone Guest) that is "unexpected," in Gogol it is the transformation of the character himself into a statue. When we address the question of the cause, or more precisely the original stimulus, for the above-mentioned transformation, we again discover a recurring feature. Let us take the earliest sketch for the formula of muteness, in the story "Bisavriuk, or St. John's Eve" (the periodical version): when the people saw the broken pieces of pottery in Petro's sacks, "they all stood for a long time with their mouths open and their eyes bulging like crows, not daring to move even a whisker, such terror did this amazing event inspire in them" (1:364). Petrification is linked with some very powerful experience or shock. But there is more: the shock is attended by bewilderment and loss of orientation, which in turn are engendered by some sort of incomprehensible factors, an interruption in the ordinary and natural course of life. The people in "St. John's Eve" become paralyzed because gold coins have turned into broken pieces of pottery and the cause of the metamorphosis is supernatural. It is exactly the same with Kovalev in "The Nose": "Suddenly he stood as if rooted to the spot by the door of a certain house" (111:54), because his own nose has appeared in human form and in the uniform of a state councillor. That is, in Gogol's words, an "inexplicable phenomenon" ("iavlenie neiz"iasnimoe") had taken place, both for Kovalev and for any other ordinary consciousness. It is significant, moreover, that several cases of petrification in Gogol are directly provoked by a character's encounter with a supernatural person or with people who have fallen under supernatural influence. Thus Danilo in "A Terrible Vengeance ," upon seeing the sorcerer's meeting with Katerina, felt that "his limbs became fettered; he tried to talk, but his lips moved without a sound" (1:258). Chartkov also freezes at the sight of the usurerdevil coming out of the picture frame in "The Portrait." Such is the usual motivation of Gogol's formulas of petrification. There are very...

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