Washington Irving
(1783-1859)
Biography:
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Named after George Washington, came from a wealthy family
First American author of “imaginative literature” to gain international fame
Thackeray called him “the first Ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the
Old.”
His book History of New York by “Diedrich Knickerbocker” (1809) marked the beginning of
the “Knickerbocker School” of New York satire.
His works “reflected the shift in American literature from the rationalism of the 18th century
to the sentimental romanticism of the 19th.”
Writing was “as much English as it was American” and “revealed a sense of the contrast
between continental Europe and America that later was reflected in Hawthorne and Henry
James.”
“Did not share the hopeful American vision of the New World as Eden, free from the corrupt
traditions of Europe.”
Wrote “nativist literature”
“Rip Van Winkle” (1819)
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From the book, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (1820)—the same book that
features “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
The legends for both this story and “Sleepy Hollow” were taken from German folklegends and reflect a turn from his early satiric writings to his later sentimental
romanticism.”
Story claims to have been found among the possessions of Diedrich Knickerbocker
Plot summary
The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary
War. Rip Van Winkle, a villager of Dutch descent, lives in a nice village at the foot of New
York's Catskill Mountains. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect,
he is loved by all but his wife.
One autumn day he escapes his nagging wife by wandering up the mountains. There he
encounters strangely dressed men, rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson's crew, who are
playing nine-pins. After drinking some of their liquor, he settles down under a shady tree and
falls asleep. He wakes and returns to his village, where he finds twenty years have passed. He
finds out that his wife has died and that his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere
else. He immediately gets into trouble when he proclaims himself a loyal subject of King George
III, not knowing that the American Revolution has taken place.
An old local recognizes him, however, and Rip's now grown daughter takes him in. Rip resumes
his habitual idleness, and his tale is solemnly believed by the old Dutch settlers, with certain henpecked husbands wishing they shared Rip's good luck.
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.
 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.
Major Themes:
-Change/mutability
-Change is inevitable
-Information taken from:
Anthology of American Literature. Ed. George McMichael, et al. Vol. 1. 7th ed. MacMillan: New York, 2000.
-Summary and Character List courtesy of Wikipedia