Romanticism

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Washington Irving 1783-1859
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Romanticism

• Classicism reason is dominate
  characteristicnature and human nature are both
  governed by fixed unchanging laws. Reason over
  imagination, social over personal, common over
  individual. Value placed on clarity, order and
  balance.
• Age of Reason humans can manage themselves and
  their societies without the depending on
  authorities and past traditions. Humans can
  progress social evils are corrected
  superstitions and ignorance ended.
• Romanticism Began as a revolt against
  classicism. Attempts to show life as we might
  imagine to be. Favors the emotional, exotic,
  picturesque and mysterious. Glorifies nature and
  believes people are basically good and
  perfectable.

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Washington Irving Facts

• Named after president
• Known as Father of American Literature
• Born into wealthy New York family
• Youngest of 11 children
• Began study of law at 16 but more interested in
  travel European Lit.
• Transformed German folk tales to American with
  different plots and settings

• The Sketch Book , 1819, collection of short
  stories
• Used names Geoffrey Crayon, Diedrich
  Knickerbocker
• Gained popularity and literary respect in both
  Europe and the US

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Literary Impact

• Took element of American Experience and wove them
  into wonderful narratives that helped establish
  modern short story.
• Wrote fresh, charming picturesque stories that
  have become part of American folklore
• Used wit and satire
• Was a keen observer of manners and morals
• Descriptions of scenery rich in sensory details
• Wonderful caricatures much admired and imitated
  by Dickens
• Focus on localitiesbeginning of local color
  tradition

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Three Characteristics of a Short Story

• To be read in a single sitting
• Creates a single effect
• Contains a theme

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Three Characteristics of Folk Tales

• Often relate a series of events that are
  unrealistic or unlikely
• Involve stereotyped characters
• Teaches an important lesson or expresses a
  general truth about life

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The Devil and Tom Walker

• Walker meets the devil in the foreststrikes a
  bargain with devil
• Walkers wifegreedy, cranky, fearless
• Walker become a usurercheats people of Boston of
  their money
• Regretreads Bible, prays loudly
• Devil takes him away
• Everything he had is gone.

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Symbols

• The Walkers themselves
• The swamp
• Bible buried under mortgage papers
• Toms money turning to chips
• The outside of his housefirst and second homes

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Rip Van Winkle

• Possibly his most famous work
• Common motif in folk tales and fairy tales
  throughout the world
• Setting in the Catskill mountains during American
  Revolution
• Mythic quality
• Departure
• Dangerous journey
• Elements of supernatural
• Return and recognition scene
• Rips journey isnt actually heroic but evokes
  theme of identity, fear of passage of time and
  finding ourselves in a completely different world

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• Rip like America?
• Likeable, immature self-centered, careless?
• Innocent and childlike, refuses to grow up
• Rip rebels against his wife and her
  demandspetticoat government
• Her death
• relief to Rip a joke to the reader
• seen as the enemy
• doesnt even have name
• Rip as a romantic?

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Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• Gained reputation as a ghost story over the
  yearsIrving intended it as a comic tale of self
  delusion
• Irving presents the headless horseman as a
  creature of hearsay and foolish superstition
• The plot involves rival suitors after the same
  young woman
• Appetite the driving forcefor Ichabod food,
  wealth, admiration

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• Characters
• Ichabod crane like, ungainly, shows off singing
  and academic talents, trades superstitious tales
  with the women
• Brom Bones conveys an image of energy and
  strength, dominate figure in the community,
  leader of the pack of fun-loving friends, wild
  man
• Men are arch rivals of youth culture the nerd
  and the jock
• Also as city culture and country life, virtues of
  art and vitality of nature, imagination and
  reality, wish and will, brains and brawn

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• Story of the underdog who goes up against the
  local hero
• Who do the readers pull for?
• Do we pull for the underdog or enjoy the
  spectacle of his defeat?
• Do we side with the local hero or find ourselves
  drawn to the comical figure who becomes the
  victim?
• Does Irving manipulate our sympathies? Does he
  shade us from ridicule of Ichabod toward a more
  affectionate point of view

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Common Themes

• The mutability of life
• Fascination with change and nostalgia with the
  past
• Interest in the individual and distrust of
  civilization and its constraints
• Deep love of beauty
• Faith in intuition over reasoning
• Interest in the supernatural

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The Headless Horseman
Who is the headless horseman? After Ichabod is
knocked off his horse by the flying pumpkin he
vanishes. How plausible is this?
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Ichabod as typical American ?

• Longing for status
• Focus on material possessions as a measure of
  worth
• He is not the self-made wilderness hero but a
  fool
• His dreams of making a fortune on the frontier
  are just dreams

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Ichabod Crane a memorable comic figure A naive
dreamerswallows everything whole Huge
imagination Brom Bonescountry boy outwits the
Yankee boy and wins the prize--Katrina