A brief history of romance
What are some characteristics of American Romanticism?
love of nature, dislike of town life, supernatural elements, innovation, independence, etc.
What are some characteristics of the Romantic Hero?
Innovative, young, resourcefulness in nature, superman-like, etc.
1. Irving is the first belletrist in American literature, writing for pleasure at a time when writing was
practical and for useful purposes.
2. He is the first American literary humorist.
3. He has written the first modern short stories.
4. He is the first to write history and biography as entertainment.
5. He introduced the nonfiction prose as a literary genre.
6. His use of the gothic looks forward to Poe.
While Irving’s popularity and approval by his contemporaries was overwhelming, he has been
received with mixed enthusiasm over the past two centuries. Modern literary criticism has
predominantly explored gender issues, the relationship between his personal identity and the
burgeoning national identity, and the fluctuations in the quality of his writing (Bylington 217). Many
critics have classified Irving’s work as anti-feminist. Some argue that “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” reveals Irving’s fear of male disempowerment, while others explain that it is a gothic tale
which affirms the importance of marriage over the destructive power of the forest. There are also
differing opinions on the importance of a national identity in Irving’s writings. Many believe that
Irving recognized the potential of American writing to help establish the identity of Americans and
sought to establish an American hero, but others contend that his writings show reservations about
the emerging American system and include too many European analogies to reflect a true
American Nationalism (217). Scholars also debate the overall quality of his work. While some
pieces are considered exceptional, some of Irving’s writings are considered to be of a lesser quality
and not on the same level.
When an author emerges and makes the impact that Irving did on the relatively new canvas that
America was at the time, he will forever be revisited and be the object of new criticism. The fact
that Irving still receives significant attention shows his importance in the American writing
tradition. Even though there is ongoing debate, Irving’s accomplishments as being the first
American author accepted abroad, establishing the American short story genre, and his work as a
biographer and historian are undisputed and secure Irving as a permanent fixture in American
Literature.
4. 'Rip Van Winkle" is an early work that casts the American woman as the cultural villain. Analyze
the character of Dame Van Winkle in the story and discuss the significance Irving attributes to her
death.
6.) How is Irving “Romantic”?
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He was a transitional figure, exhibiting the literary ideals of both the 18th century
(Neoclassicism) and the new age of Romanticism.
His work reflected the shift in American literature from the rationalism of the 18th century to
the sentimental romanticism of the 19th century
His neoclassic qualities:
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His early satirical writing had displayed a neoclassical pleasure in the comic qualities of life.
His humor was often exaggerated, pun-ridden, and scornful of political liberalism.
His emphasis on social and aesthetic norms, restraint, order, and intelligent wit.
His relation to the 18th century tradition of the essay -- esp. Satire.
His romantic qualities:
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His taste for satire was mingled with a love of melancholy, of a mawkish, even morbid,
world of sentiment.
He was, like most of his writing, amiable, civilized, and gentlemanly, interested in moods
and emotions rather than in the metaphysical speculation that became a characteristic of
American romanticism
Literary nationalism, his emphasis on American regional settings and character types
Attraction to the sublime and the picturesque
Desire “to escape from the commonplace realities of the present” and lose himself in the
“shadowy grandeurs of the past” (vol. 1, pg. 626)
Use of the supernatural and of Gothic suspense and horror
Exploitation of folklore and legends
English -- vs. -- American:
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His writing was English as much as it was American, and it revealed a sense of the
contrast between continental Europe and America that later was reflected in the work of
Hawthorne and James
He tended to find value in the PAST and in the traditions of the Old World
He did not share the hopeful American vision of the New World as an Eden, free of the
corrupt traditions of Europe
The term designates a literary and philosophical theory that tends to see the individual at the
center of all life, and it places the individual, therefore, at the center of art, making literature
valuable as an expression of unique feelings and particular attitudes (the expressive theory of
criticism) and valuing its fidelity in portraying experiences, however fragmentary and incomplete,
more than it values adherence to completeness, unity, or the demands of genre. Although
romanticism tends at times to regard nature as alien, it more often sees in nature a revelation of
Truth, the "living garment of God," and a more suitable subject for art than those aspects of the
world sullied by artifice. Romanticism seeks to find the Absolute, the Ideal, by transcending the
actual, whereas realism finds its values in the actual and naturalism in the scientific laws the
undergird the actual.