Washington Irving

Introduction

Washington Irvin was an author of classic American literature, a master of romantic short stories and historical research. He was the first U.S. professional writer, widely known in Europe. He was also an essayist, poet, a great lover of legend and mystery, the traveler and biographer, he also wrote under the pseudonyms Jonathan Oldstayl, Diedrich Nikerbokker, Jeffrey, and Launcelot Langstaff Kreyan. In his works, he weaved realism and mysticism, fairy tales and fantasy. Therefore, all the issues related to Washington Irvin will be discussed in detail.

Discussion

Washington was the youngest among the 11 children, three of whom died in infancy. He was born on April 3, 1783 in New York. His father, William, a Scot by birth, during the war with France was a junior naval officer at New York, where he met the beautiful Sarah Sanders, granddaughter of English vicar. They married in 1761 and two years later moved to New York. William Irving left the sea to engage in trade, but the business got affected because of the city firing in the British ships. The time came for the American revolutionary war independence. Washington, who was born in a house on William Street (near Wall Street), got its name in honor of one of the founders of the United States - George Washington. When the first President arrived in New York, Irving maid caught him in the store and introduced him to a guy. "Please, your honor," said Lizzie, "this child is named in honor of you! Washington put his hand on the boy's head and gave him his blessing. The father of the nation, perhaps, did not realize that blessed father of American literature, and his meticulous biographer (Burstein, 83).

Rip Van Winkle, the title character of one of Washington Irving's well-known tales, is the henpecked village wastrel of an old Dutch settlement in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City. One day in the 1760s, having escaped to the hills to hunt squirrels, Ripis summoned to serve a keg of liquor to a party of silent figures in antique clothing. He, too, drinks his fill—then falls deeply asleep, awakening twenty years later to find his beard grown, his wife dead, and his (now post-Revolutionary) village transformed. Rip, now become a man out of time, settles down with his daughter and lives his remaining years in the sanctioned idleness of old age.

Rip remains among the best-known characters in American literature. With its fish-out-of-water comedy and pathos, the tale was a staple of the American stage in the nineteenth century and continues to appear on high-school and university reading lists, as well as in adaptations for younger readers. Much of the popularity of the story lies with the fact that Rip is a congenial, easygoing character. He undergoes an experience that solicits readers' sympathy, compels their wonder, and excites their imagination. The tale, in its structure and many of its particulars, derives from German folk tradition, represented by the Grimm Brothers' tale "Karl Katz" ...