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Dostoevsky's The Double, written after the publication of Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat, was heavily influenced by the latter work. Dostoevsky's use of characters and themes directly from Gogol's short story exemplifies this influence in a very overt manner, and closer examination shows that the language and narrative style are at times also very Gogolian. On the other hand, The Double has the very Dostoevskyan quality of constant agony and highly introspective, psychological deliberations on the part of the main character. There is also an interesting related historical note: Dostoevsky’s original version of the novella, published in 1846, was subject to significant criticism from both literary critics and contemporaries, in part due to the prolonged narrative and its many tangential stories and dialogues, attributes which can be seen as Gogolian. The version we read today is a reworking of that original work and was published in 1866; Dostoevsky’s revisions included the elimination of these peripheral elements in the story and an overall “streamlining” of the plotline. However, Dostoevsky linked the story more directly to another work of Gogol, Dead Souls, with the subtitle of «A Petersburg Poema» (Dostoevsky, Sobranie Soch. 445); thus the novella’s relationship to Gogol did not even end after its initial publication.

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