Fear Obscured: The Apophatic Horror of Nikolai Gogol

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This dissertation analyzes Nikolai Gogol’s contributions to horror poetics,

arguing that his development of new techniques of obscurity and negation

should be understood in the context of horror fiction. Despite the supernatural

tales of terror present in Gogol’s early prose, he has rarely been analyzed with

the tools of horror theory, and questions remain regarding his place in the

development of horror. This study analyzes his prose using the concept of

apophatic horror, a literary strategy that relies on withholding representation to

push the boundaries of what may be expressed with language. Chapter One

draws on apophatic mysticism, horror theory, and the sublime to define the

category of literary apophatic horror; this concept is then applied to Gogol’s first

collection, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. Chapter Two analyzes the changes

Gogol made in revising his novella Viy for a second publication; these revisions

constitute responses to the demands of contemporary criticism but also

contribute to the further evolution of Gogol’s poetics into the realm of obscurity

and negation. Chapter Three argues that the novel Dead Souls constitutes a

transposition of his logic of obscurity onto the abstract level, transferring the

threat of horror from tangible supernatural interference to the non-signification

and emptiness of language.