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confident humorist, — who used his talent on subjects of small
compass, taken at first from the country life of Little
Russia, which he knew so thoroughly, and then from the
lower, poorer, gay, disorderly life in St. Petersburg. In
these tales, he weaves into his pictures of real life a
free imagination. That he starts from romanticism is
shown by such tales as “King of the Spirits of Earth,”
“Notes of a Lunatic,” or “The Nose.” This last story,
which is essentially a study after E. T. A. Hoffman, is
the wildest capriccio on the theme: a suddenly lost and
then regained nose, an ingenious and humorous story
for children of an older growth, but without any deeper
meaning. The celebrated history of the “Quarrel
between Iván Ivánovitch and Iván Nikiforovitch" is a
humorous, amusing story, well carried through in style,
on the all-consuming spirit of frivolity and conceit in
Little Russia, written in much the same style as
Gottfried Keller later wrote his humorous stories about the
faults and vices of the Swiss.
With the historical romance “Taras Bulba,” which, in
Russia, is of repute as an heroic epic, Gogol entered upon
a new path. The narrative describes the heroic period
in the Cossack world during the struggles for liberty
against the Poles. But in spite of the greatness of the
style and the realism with which this picture of a wild,
extinct past is painted, the book has the common defects
of historical romances. The idealism which, as a rule,
has dictated them weakens their effect. That which is
most beautiful in them is not true; we feel behind the
whole description that he started out with the intention
of glorification; we notice how the author puts
opportunities in the way of this heroism, which in the middle of
the battle displays itself in a single combat, and fastens
upon it the gaze of all.
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