Washington Irving Flashcards
Birth/Death
1783-1859
Early Career
Satirical Writing, including a History of New York, praised by Walter Scott
Influences
Addison, Shakespeare and Sterne
Expatriate
Lives in Europe for 17 years
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
First American to Achieve International Literary Fame (Not quite true - Phillis Wheatley)
Later Career
Diplomat, Minister to Spain
What younger writers does Irving influence?
Hawthorne, Longfellow and Melville as Schoolboys
Rip Van Winkle Sources
True sources in German Folk Tales; Frame narrative = found in papers of Knickerbocker, allusion to his satirical History of New York
Rip Van Winkle Setting
Catskills in the time of British Rule
Rip Van Winkle, Character
Anti-Franklinian Counter-Hero
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Setting
Sleepy Hollow, near Terrytown, NY
Ichabod Crane
School Master, Gangly, Mistaken for a Scare Crow. Used the rod on school children. Women admired his taste.
Katrina Van Tassel
- Beautiful and rich coquette
- Pastoral homestead filled with luxury
- Ichabod’s mouth waters with thoughts of plenty, luxury
Brom Van Brunt a.k.a. “Brom Bones”
- Jocular, Herculean Suitor of Katrina Van Tassel
- Claims to have raced the Headless Horseman
- Perhaps the Headless Horseman who chased off Ichabod?
Mock-Epic Courtship Plot
- Poking Fun at Crane as a Don Quixote Figure
- Katrina Van Tassel as Coquette
- -“He that wins a thousand common hearts, is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero.”