Washington Irving

1. Washington Irving

2. Irving as Early Romanticist • descriptions of Nature’s beauty • his utilization of gothic imagery • Gothic literature--poetry, short stories, or novels designed to thrill readers by providing mystery, villainy, murder, and the supernatural • belief that man was inherently good and would act nobly without incentive to do so

3. A Writer of Firsts • first belletrist in American literature • belleslettres—”literature regarded as a fine art, esp. as having a purely aesthetic function”; Irving wrote for pleasure at a time when writing was pragmatic • first American literary humorist • first to write history and biography as entertainment • introduced nonfiction prose as a literary genre

4. Hudson River School • Themes in the art: • Discovery • Exploration • Settlement • Pastoral America

5. Thomas Cole—Landscape, 1825

6. John Frederick Kensett—Connecticut Shoreline in Autumn

7. Albert Bierstadt—Sierra Nevada Mountains

8. Asher Durand—Kindred Spirits

9. Rip van Winkle Themes • Loss/discovery of identity • challenge to American values and work ethic • Anti-republicanism--George III vs. George Washington