Washington Irving

Washington Irving

Rip Van Wrinkle:

Evil of banks

Epigraph [a quotation at the beginning of some piece of writing] – a question of truth

Diederich Knickerbocker [I might have misspelled this] – the origin of the nickname for New Yorkers – irving’s comic view of History

Romantic descriptions:

Rip as a stereotype – good and abused by wife, marriage is altered and removed

Remember the puritans believed in putting others over themselves

Theme:

escape --> how to get away

a) outside

b) inn (tavern, drinking away sorrows)

c) the woods

Fancy = imagination

Strange changes, and the possible explanations [autry cut off the slide show here and never picked back up]

Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

Postscript: the search for a motive in the tale is a distinctly puritan/neoclassical idea, stories may not be told simply for pleasure, they must have some other reason for existence – what does the story prove?

The purpose is to teach and to delight

Teaching is like a sermon, but if there is too much it will lose the delight

Delight is the escapism or entertainment, but if there is too much it will lose the morality and have no message

Reference the postscript for more info

In the story:

Politicians --> laugh at KB’s story without listening to it (fakeness of political figures)

Ratiocination = conclusion: the proposition arrived at by logical reasoning

Teaching = didactic – twain made fun of the “good little boy” and “bad little boy” stories used to teach youth because only the “bad little boy” ever had any fun

Irving is a transition figure who defended the entertainment of his story against the puritan or conservative desire of moral teaching

-see pg. 379 “sequestered grin known as sleepy hollow”

Ichabod is led into a trap

He has an odd physical appearance (see p 380 for details) – his disproportion in size creates comedy

Golden Maxim = spare the rod, spoil the child

Understatement – in Ichabod’s school the children were not spoiled (understates the way he beats them) – the school was next to a patch of birch trees with their birch rods

Puritans believed in this kind of education but the reformers did not [e.g. Thoreau example – Thoreau was told to beat his kids and he randomly selected one, beat him/her and then resigned from office]

Pg. 382 – Ichabod was considered to be educated for having read 2-3 books, and he believed in witchcraft [this sets him up to be duped by the “headless horseman”]