Short Story Criticism | Nos, Nikolai Gogol - A. L. Bem (essay date 1928)

A. L. Bem (essay date 1928)

SOURCE: Bem, A. L. “‘The Nose’ and The Double.” In Dostoevsky and Gogol: Texts and Criticism, edited by Priscilla Meyer and Stephen Rudy, pp. 229–48. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1979.

[In the following essay, originally published in 1928, Bem evaluates the influence of Gogol's “The Nose” on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella The Double.]

I could tell you much about how … he, with his own typical atomistic analysis, perceived the character of Gogol's works.

—From a letter of Dr. Yanovsky to A.G. Dostoevsky

“My God! My God! Why such misfortune?”

—Gogol, “The Nose”

“My God! My God! … Give me strength in the inexhaustible depths of my woes. …”

—Dostoevsky, The Double

There is no need to prove the fact that the Gogolian manner, and in particular...

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