Page:Russian Literature - A Study Outline.djvu/24

20 STUDY OUTLINE ON Dead souls. In Wiener. Anthology of Russian literature, v. 2, p. 199-205 (extract). Its effect has never ceased increasing as a personification of the Russia of modern times. It has for forty years been the foundation of the wit of the entire nation. Every joke has passed into a proverb and the sayings of its characters have become household words. E. M. de Vogue. Nobody except Gogol has given us the ordinary cheerful Russian man in the street, with his crying faults, his abstract- ive good qualities, and his overflowing good human nature . . . Anyone who reads Gogol's early stories, even "Dead souls" will understand the inexplicable fascination hidden in a country which seems at first-sight so devoid of outward and superficial attraction, in a people whose defects are so obvious and unconcealed. Maurice Baring. Evenings at the farm : A may evening. In Cosmopolitan. 3 : 186-8. May '87. Every one of these stories smells of the south Russian soil, and is overflowing with sunshine, good-humor, and a mellow charm. . . . The sunshine and laughter of the south of Russia rise before us from every page of these stories of Gogol's. Maurice Baring. The revizor (The inspector-general). In Warner, Library of the world's best literature, v. n or 16, p. 6461-66 (extract). Wiener. Anthology of Russian literature, v. 2, p. 188-99 (extract). Revizor exhibits clearly the double nature of the author his genius for moral satire and his genius for pure fun.^ From the moral point of view, it is a terrible indictment against the most corrupt bureaucracy of modern times : from the comic point of view, it is an uproarious farce. William Lyon Phelps. Tavas Bulba. In Dupuy. Great masters of Russian literature, p. 363-82 (extract). The most Homeric romance in Russian literature ... to day in the world's fiction it holds an unassailable place in the front rank. ... In this story the old Cossacks, centuries dead, have a genuine resurrection of the body. They appear before us in all their amazing vitality, their love of fighting, of eating and drinking, their intense patriotism, and their blazing devotion to their religious faith. Never was a book more plainly inspired by passion for race and native land. It is one tremendous shout of joy. These Cossacks are the veritable children of the steppes and their vast passions, their Homeric laughter, their absolute recklessness in battle, are simply an expression of the boundless range of the mighty landscape. William Lyon Phelps.