WASHINGTON IRVING

1. WASHINGTON IRVING Author of the New World

2. American Born • Born on April 3, 1783, Washington Irving was one of the members of the first generation who were natives to the newly created United States of America • Achieved respect of the literary community in Europe while still being faithful to the seeds he found in his native soil • Named after George Washington, Founding Father of our country; later wrote his biography • He, himself, became known as a Founding Father of Literature • He took elements of the American experience and wove them into wonderful narratives that helped establish the modern genre of the short story.

3. Growing Up • Irving was the youngest of 11 children, often sick, born in NY • Raised by a strict, Presbyterian father and a whimsical, vivacious mother • Father encouraged daily bible readings… later reflected on by Irving, saying “When I was young, I was led to think that somehow or other every thing that was pleasant was wicked.” • Kept from college because he was sick – encouraged to spend time outdoors • Traveled around NY, allowing his imagination to grow and creating his inability to settled into the mundane • His developing enjoyment of the sensational and unusual is evident in his boyhood claim that he “knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen.”

4. Adulthood • Father decided he needed a career • Began reading law though never grew attached – he preferred to write and be creative • Landed a job in a firm with Judge Josiah Hoffman • Fell in love with his boss’ daughter, Matilda • Committed himself to the profession in order to win his favor and win her heart • Matilda died unexpectedly from tuberculosis – led Irving in to depression • Traveled to Europe to work in the family business • Continued writing, creating stories that would appeal to the general population

5. Literature • Wrote in 1802 under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle • Later created a pseudonym of Diedrich Knickerbocker under which he published his first popular pieces • Allowed him to mock important figures of the time • Became a minor celebrity and landed the respect of important literary figures • Later works showed influences of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century European cultural movements: a gothic literature featuring supernatural apparitions and a broader Romantic movement characterized by an emphasis on imagination over reason, an attraction to the marvelous, and a longing for the legendary past.

6. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) THIS TALE IS TETHERED TO LOCAL EVENTS!!! • Tarrytown - a segment of the Hudson Valley caught between the British and American armies for most of the war and plagued with violent infighting among residents; • Ichabod - the representative of the race of hardheaded, restless pioneers who have the capacity to overrun local custom and history • Ichabod's attraction to Katrina Van Tassel - really based on his hungry-eyed appraisal of her father's farm; at one point he envisions selling it off for cash and then moving on to conquer new frontiers • Social commentary on a transient democratic society of people who are swayed by charismatic voices, by stories that may or may not be true • Authority and authenticity surface throughout the tale, especially in the way the story is framed, coming through a series of intermediating narrators, each of questionable reliability