The Overcoat.pdf

The Overcoat (英文读物) Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky. Kafka. Nabokov. Heard of 'em? We could go on, but naming the people influenced by Gogol and this story is like listing a literary Who's Who. Gogol is probably one of the most famous and influential Russian authors of all time and "The Overcoat" is his claim to fame. But why is everyone making such a ruckus about the short story whose main character is named after poop? Good question; let's get to the bottom of it. Let's start at the beginning. It took Gogol two years to write the nearly 13,000 words that make up "The Overcoat." The story about a low ranking official who gains and loses a fine coat was published in a volume of Gogol's Collected Works in 1842. By this time, Gogol was already well established in the Russian literary scene. He was besties with people like Pushkin and the famous literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, so when his collection was released, "The Overcoat" and the other stories were well received by a wide audience.