Out of Stock
Overview
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. RIP VAN WINKLE1 (1819) By Washington Irving (1783-1859) Setting. The Hudson River and the Kaatskill Mountains were first brought into literature through this story, Irving being the first American master of local color and local tradition. Since 1870 the American short story, following the example of Irving, has been the leading agency by which the South, the West, and New England have made known and thus perpetuated their local scenery, legends, customs, and dialect. Irving, however, seemed afraid of dialect. There were, it is true, many legends about the Hudson before Irving was born, but they had found no expression in literature. Mrs. Josiah Quincy, who made a voyage up the Hudson in 1786, wrote: Our captain had a legend for every scene, either supernatural or traditional or of actual occurrence during the war, and not a mountain reared its head unconnected with some marvellous story. Irving, therefore, did not have to manufacture local traditions; he only gave them wider currency and fitted them more artistically into their natural settings. Irving chose for his setting the twenty years that embrace the Revolutionary War because the numerous social and political changes that took place then enabled him to bring Rip back after his sleep into a world not realized. You will appreciate much better the art of this time-setting if you will try your hand on a somewhat similar story and place it between 1820 1 From The Sketch Book. The elaborate Knickerbocker notes with which Irving, following a passing fashion of the time, sought to mystify the reader, are here omitted. They are hindrances now rather than helps. and 1840, when railroads, telegraph lines, and transatlantic steamers made a new world out of the old; or, if your story takes place in the Sou...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217992671 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217992676 |
| Weight | 0.62 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.42 In |
| List Price | $13.36 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 184 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
View All Offers
Sort by:
Price
