Washington Irving
Washington Irving
(1783-1859)
“Father of American
Imaginative literature”
“Father of the
American short story”
Ⅰ Life
Irving
was born into a wealthy New York
merchant family. From a very early age, he
began to read widely and write juvenile poems,
essays and plays.
Later, he studied law.
His first book A History of New
York, written under the name of
Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great
success and won him wide
popularity.
In 1815, he went to England to take
care of his family business there,
and when it failed, he had to write to
support himself.
With
the publication of The Sketch
Book, he won a measure of
《见
international recognition.
闻札
记》
Then
when he was fifty, he returned
to America and bought
“Sunnyside”, his famous home.
There he spent the rest of his life,
living a life of leisure and comfort,
except for a period of four years
(1842--1846), when he was Minister to
Spain.
View of Sunnyside
Ⅱ Achievement
•
A kindhearted farmer Rip Van
Winkle who helped a stranger
distribute wine on a mountain slope.
He drank a little and soon fell asleep.
When he woke and went back to the
village, it was 20 years later.
• Everything had changed.
The most important change
was the War of Independence
had been won and the portrait
of King George of Britain was
replaced by American
President George Washington.
• The story has become a part of cultural
mythology: even for those who have
never read the original story,
• "Rip Van Winkle" means either a person
who sleeps for a long period of time, or
one who is inexplicably (perhaps even
blissfully) unaware of current events.
Setting
• The story of Rip Van Winkle begins
about five or six years before the
American Revolution when under the
Dutch colonization and ends twenty
years later.
• The action takes place in a village in
eastern New York, near the Hudson
River and the Catskill Mountains.
Rip Van Winkle takes place in British colonial New York, near
the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains in pre-revolutionary
times.
Characters
• Rip Van Winkle - a henpecked husband who loathes
'profitable labor'.
• Dame Van Winkle - Rip Van Winkle's cantankerous wife.
• Rip - Rip Van Winkle's son.
• Judith Gardenier - Rip Van Winkle's daughter.
• Derrick Van Bummel - the local schoolmaster and later a
member of Congress.
• Nicholas Vedder - landlord of the local inn where menfolk
congregate.
• Mr. Doolittle - a hotel owner.
• Wolf - Rip's faithful dog
• The Ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew - Ghosts that
share purple magic liquor with van Winkle.
Great Changes
The village inn
The British
colonial America
George III
Large, wooded
building
The United States
of American
George Washington
Rip Van Winkle
The new born America: a
overgrown child
Dame Van Winkle
Puritan discipline and
the work ethic of
Franklin
Rip’s hometown
America—forever and
rapidly changing
Rest in
peace
The United States was still the land of
plenty, a country of endless resources.
This was a source of pride for Irving and
his American readers, and a subject of
fascination（迷恋） and wonder for his
British readers.
◎Irving uses lush imagery precisely for
its lushness, to demonstrate and
celebrate the endless resources of a
new, unproven（未开垦的） nation.