"Rabelais and Gogol" as the Subject of M.M. Bakhtin's Research
The article is concerned with the problem of "Rabelais and Gogol" that was raised in Russian criticism by M.M. Bakhtin. The particular subject reveals essential theoretical problems concerning the study of the poetics and a writer's language. The connection between Rabelais and Gogol is regarded, on the one hand, in the context of the theory and history of the novel, and that of the theory and history of laughter. The article demonstrates how methods and notions developed by K. Fossler for the purpose of studying Rabelais' language (primarily, with the introduction of the category of "cocolah" - "coq-а-l'вne") were used by Bakhtin in his analysis of Gogol's language. Bakhtin's theory of laughter and catharsis through laughter is correlated with Henri Bergson's and Viacheslav Ivanov's philosophy of laughter.