The poetics of nocturnal landscapes in Gogol's early works

In the present article the nocturnal landscapes of some of the short stories from the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka and Viy from the Mirgorod cycle, are reconsidered, thus analysis is focused on the depiction of the Evil and the author's attitude to the metaphysical background of this problem. The scrutiny is prompted by a few groups of questions: 1. what sort of poetic principles regulate the depictions of Ukrainian landscapes and the relationship between man and the 'scenery including him' in N. V. Gogol's early works? 2. how do a great variety of elements taken from different traditions cross each other at one point, such as the Bucolic (pastoral) poetry, clichés of Romanticism, folkloric archetypes and the author's own, independent artistic means? 3. what is hidden behind the apparent Dualism of the Good and the Evil in Gogol's early works? how do elements of Romanticist Weltanschauung and the traits of Evangelic ( paskhal'naya ) Aesthetics co-exist? With these questions traced down, the function of the multifoldness of the Gogolian prose can get verified alongside with identifying a close relationship between text and subtext. According to the approach of the author of the present article, the research into the ‘literary appearance' of Gogol's early works may reveal the various stages in the development of the writer's artistic idea.