Dead Souls. A Poem

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809–1852) — writer, playwright, critic, publicist, author of numerous works that have entered the golden fund of world literature.
About his own creativity, Gogol said: “Only what I took from reality came out well for me.” The writer... often turned to myths, legends, and folkloric sources, which is why the real world in his works often intertwines with the fantastical.
The poem “Dead Souls” was originally conceived as a guide to virtue and was intended to consist of three parts, which would have been a kind of repetition of “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso” by Dante, but, as is known, only the first part was completed. Nevertheless, the intent of the poem is entirely clear, as revealed by Gogol in one of his last notes: “Be not dead, but living souls.” A similarly profound meaning fills the play “The Government Inspector,” in which our conscience becomes the true inspector: “...terrifying is the inspector who awaits us at the doors of the grave.” Both works contain the idea of spiritual retribution, and the main opposing forces in them become good and the evil that it overcomes.
The edition includes the poem “Dead Souls,” the play “The Government Inspector,” as well as the stories “The Nose” and “The Overcoat.”