He never produced anything of note in the literary line thereafter, and the last three years of his life were chiefly devoted to releasing his relatives from serfdom, and furnishing them with land for cottages, which object he accomplished a few months before the general emancipation of the serfs.
In the work of Shevtchenko it is possible to follow the curious transformation from what may be called the collective-folk creative power, to the purely individual.

His figures, subjects, and the quiet, heart-rending sadness of his poems are precisely the same as those to be met with in any Little Russian folk-ballad.

The majority of his poems are not inventions, but are taken directly from popular legends and traditions, and the personality of the poet vanishes in a flood of purely popular poetry.

Nevertheless, he is not a slavish copyist of this folk-poetry.

The language of his compositions is strikingly simple, and comprehensible not only to native-born Little Russians, but also to those who are not acquainted with the dialect of that region.