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Washington irving bio and rip van winkle essay
Washington Irving Writing
Washington Irving Writing
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Biographical Summary
Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in Manhattan, New York City. He was the youngest of eleven children born from his parents, William and Sarah Irving. During the week in which he was born, the Americans emerged victorious in the Revolutionary War and his parents named him after the war hero, General George Washington. When Irving was six-years-old, he met his namesake and Washington blessed the child, which sparked a sense of gratitude and interest in the president. This encounter would inspire Irving to write his five volume biography on George Washington, which was completed in 1859.
Washington Irving grew up in a wealthy merchant family and he received a good education, although he was an uninterested student. In his early teenage years he would often skip class to attend plays at theaters. During his free time, Irving would read tirelessly and explore the nearby Hudson River Valley. Both contributed to his ever growing imagination. His ventures in the valley also exposed him to local myths and folktales, which are lucidly displayed in his short stories. In 1798, Yellow Fever broke out in Manhattan and Irving’s family sent him to live with James Paulding in Yorktown, away from the disease. While there, he familiarized himself with the Dutch town of Sleepy Hollow and became fascinated with their ghost stories. Irving based perhaps his most famous work, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” on his experiences there. During his childhood, he also took adventures through the Hudson River Valley to Johnstown New York and the Catskill Mountains, which became the setting for another of his short stories, “Rip Van Winkle.”
At age nineteen Washington Irving began his literary career by writing t...
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...literature and society, some of which can still be seen today. In the same way that the headless horseman lives as the ghost of the fallen soldier, Washington Irving’s legacy lives on through the ideas he has implanted deep into American culture.
Works Cited
Canby, Henry S. “Washington Irving.” World Literature Criticism. Ed. James P. Draper. Detroit:
Gale Research Inc., 1992. Print.
Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. New york: William Morrow and Company Inc.,
1990. Print
Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories. New York: Airmont Publishing
Co., 1964. Print.
Wagenknecht, Edward. “Washington Irving.” World Literature Criticism. Ed. James P. Draper.
Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992. Print.
"Washington Irving." UXL Junior DISCovering Authors. Detroit: U*X*L, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
Throughout Irving’s story, he used characterization, irony, the dreams, and other literacy devices to bring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to life for Irving’s audience.
George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 at the Bridges Creek Plantation in Wakefield Virginia. George was the eldest child out of
In Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle,” an allegorical reading can be seen. The genius of Irving shines through, in not only his representation in the story, but also in his ability to represent both sides of the hot political issues of the day. Because it was written during the revolutionary times, Irving had to cater to a mixed audience of Colonists and Tories. The reader’s political interest, whether British or Colonial, is mutually represented allegorically in “Rip Van Winkle,” depending on who is reading it. Irving uses Rip, Dame, and his setting to relate these allegorical images on both sides. Irving would achieve success in both England and America, in large part because his political satires had individual allegorical meanings.
Fifteen years separate Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” The two share an eerie connection because of the trepidation the two protagonists endure throughout the story. The style of writing between the two is not similar because of the different literary elements they choose to exploit. Irving’s “Sleepy Hollow” chronicles Ichabod Crane’s failed courtship of Katrina Van Tassel as well as his obsession over the legend of the Headless Horseman. Hawthorne’s story follows the spiritual journey of the protagonist, Young Goodman Brown, through the woods of Puritan New England where he looses his religious faith. However, Hawthorne’s work with “Young Goodman Brown” is of higher quality than Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” because Hawthorne succeeds in exploiting symbols, developing characters, and incorporating worthwhile themes.
The original story by Washington Irving starts out in a small town of Sleepy Hollow. Irving paints an image of bountiful crops, beautiful scenery, and prosperous landowners. Ichabod Crane was a local pedagogue, who taught at the local schoolhouse. He was known for his strict ways and yet he was very popular amongst the families of his students- especially the ones who had ?pretty sisters.? Ichabod enjoyed spending fall evenings with the old widows as they sat by a fire and told stories of ghosts and demons and other supernatural beings. One story that was always told was one of the legendary Headless Horsemen. The tale tells of a soldier who had his head shot off with a cannon ball. His ghost now roamed Sleepy Hollow on his horse, looking for his lost head. In place of his head, sits a jack-o-lantern, which had a fiery glow.
Over time the language of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Irving has been reworked to accommodate the change in audience. The Heath Anthology of American Literature has an unabridged version of the original wording (1354-1373). A complete copy of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" can be found in the young adolescent classic section of a bookstore or the juvenile section in the library. A juvenile edition of the text adapted by Arthur Rackham from 1928 was a replicate of the original it is filled with seven colored illustrations and numerous sketching. A young adolescent version adapted by Bryan Brown from 2001 has been abridged to accommodate the current young reader. The format is changed in Brownâs edition. The yo...
Washington was born in Westmore County, Virginia, on February 22, 1732. He is the son of the late Augustine Washington and Mary Ball Washington. Augustine was a tobacco farmer and a stock raiser. Washington spent most of his early childhood on the Ferry Farm in Fredricksburg, Virginia. He attended school up until his fifteenth year. Washington married Martha Dandridge on January 6,1759.
The Romantic era writers, Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe, had many similarities but even more differences, in both writing theme and style. This is very evident in their works, “Rip Van Winkle”, by Irving, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Poe.
With the end of the American Revolution, came an explosion of politicians hoping to influence the young democracy. At the time various political groups were attempting to fashion America politics into their vision of democracy. It was only natural that literature in the country at the time began showing the influence of this newly created democracy. Born in New York in 1783 and named for the American Revolution hero and first president, Washington Irving grew up a nation engulfed in the democratic passions. An atmosphere of this kind of politics could lend the idea that Irving would satire politics of this time. This satirical writing can be seen in the nature of the historical references and symbolic characters Irving uses in “Rip Van Winkle” where he mockingly compares colonial life under British rule to the young democracy that is the United States of his time.
Irving Washington. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 5th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. 948-69.
George Washington was born on February 22th, 1732 in Virginia. He grew up as a country boy and loved his family. At the age of 17 he became a surveyor and had made a good reputation for himself as a responsible man. At the age of 20 he was assigned by the governor to send be a messenger
In Washington Irving’s work “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving demonstrates all characteristics of an American Mythology rather humorously. These characteristics affect the story attracting the attention of readers and impacting the reader’s experience of the story by relishing America’s unique attributes and values. In “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving incorporates attributes of American Mythology by setting the story in exciting pastimes, filling the story with strange and exaggerated characters, and featuring magical mysterious events.
Washington Irving was born in New York City in 1783, he always had an appreciation of the land and people from there. Irving was quite opposed to the fact that New York was becoming and would become one of the biggest and most prominent cities in the entire world. Irving seemed to be fonder of the lush foliage and the rolling hills of the city, rather than a crowded city and huge port. Irving conveys his beliefs through Knickerbocker in "A History of New York," in the essay Irving says "Happy would it have been for New Amsterdam could it always have existed in this state of blissful ignorance and lowly simplicity, but alas! the days of childhood are too sweet to last! Cities, like men, grow out of them in time, and are doomed alike to grow into the bustle, the cares, and miseries of the world." (Irving 570). Irving believed that his New York would not be the same if it was given all of the exporting and importing power in the east, which it was and is not the way he wished it was.
Washing Irving was born April 3, 1783, in New York. He was the youngest out of eleven children raised by Scottish-English immigrant parents William Irving Sr. and Sarah Irving. Washington had a good private education, he studied law, and he began to write regularly. Irving although did not get his college education, which his father expected from all of his sons. Irving and two others his brothers James Kirke Paulding William Irving wrote the Salamagundi papers, which were amusing essays (The life of Washington Irving). Salmagundi was an accomplishment widening Irving’s name and reputation beyond New York. In the mid 1815 he left for England to attempt to resume the family trading company. Within three years the company was bankrupt, and without any support Irving decided to earn a living by writing. After mo...
Washington Irving's, "Rip Van Winkle" presented a tale of a "dreamer." Rip Van Winkle was a family man