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Biography
America's first international literary celebrity was born
in New York City, the eleventh child in a close-knit family.
After writing satirical sketches and essays for his brothers'
newspapers for some years, Irving captured the nation's attention
with the fictitious A History of New York, supposedly
written by a curious old gentleman named Diedrich Knickerbocker.
In May 1815, Irving left the country for what would be a
seventeen-year sojourn in Europe, where he worked first as
an importer in Liverpool, then as an attaché to the American
legation in Spain, and finally as secretary to the American
legation in London. His diverse works range from The Life
and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) and The
Alhambra (1832), both written during his stay in Spain,
to A Tour of the Prairies (1835) and The Adventures
of Captain Bonneville U.S.A. (1837), studies of the American
West written on his return from Europe, to a five-volume
life of George Washington. However, his Sketch Book (1819-20),
which included Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow, remains his most recognized and influential
contribution to American literature.
Explorations
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was published in February
of 1820, as the last piece in the last installment of The
Sketch Book. Rip Van Winkle had been published
in the first installment in 1819. As our first truly successful "man
of letters," Irving is delightfully hard to classify as a
member of any particular literary movement. A voluminous
writer, he turned out satires in the eighteenth-century tradition,
comic and Romantic travel accounts and legends; he published
histories, biographies, and parodies of both genres. In subject
and style, his free range and geniality made him very popular,
but also liable to charges, in the midst of his career, of
being a bit too urbane and Continental to be a truly "American" writer.
The best reply to that accusation is probably his lasting
success in imagining and haunting the Hudson River landscape.
For the Catskills, the Tarrytown region, and old Dutch New
York, Irving is the maker of lasting legends. 1. The last words of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow --
in some ways the "last words" on all the stories in The
Sketch Book -- are these by the storyteller: "I don't
believe one half of it myself." These words come after
the statement of three bits of wisdom which "the story
was intended most logically to prove." Is this a didactic
fable, a comic parody of such a tale, or both? By poking
fun at both the listener and the storyteller, what effect
does Irving achieve?
2. Take a moment and try reading The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow as an allegory, the way that many people read Rip
Van Winkle. With his mixture of book-learning and
superstition, what might Ichabod Crane represent? How
about Brom Bones? Work out an allegorical reading of
the tale -- and then comment on the advantages and disadvantages
of reading the story this way.
3. With regard to Susanna Rowson and Charlotte:
A Tale of Truth, readers often comment on the peculiar
status of imaginative fiction in the young American republic
and on Rowson's attempts to dignify and justify her narrative
with long patches of didacticism and moral exhortation.
How does Irving explicitly and implicitly address the
practice of telling "legends" and freewheeling imaginative
tales?
Other sites to consult:
Romanticism:
Washington Irving. A bibliography, overview,
and study questions on the PAL: Perspectives in
American Literature site maintained by Paul P.
Reuben (California State University, Stanislaus).
Also includes a link to an online text of "The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow."
Irving
online texts. A vast repository of Irving's
works.
Rip
Van Winkle site. This site from Daniel
Anderson's classes at the University of Texas at
Austin provides analyses of the story and a link
to the complete text online.
Irving
overview. From "A Student's History of American
Literature" on the Bibliomania site.
Nineteenth-century
Irving biographies.
Sunnyside:
the home of Washington Irving.
http://www.bartleby.com/people/Irving-W.html:
Project Bartleby’s Washington Irving page.
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/irving.htm:
A page of links to materials on Washington Irving.
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