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“The Citadel Within”: Washington Irving and the Search for Literary Vocation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Joy S. Kasson
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From his own time to the present, Washington Irving has seemed to many observers to embody the ambiguities of the American aesthetic response to Europe. The critical success of The Sketch Book, published in 1819–20, offered the first important reversal to the one-way flow of culture across the Atlantic. Through the persona of Geoffrey Crayon, genteel, literate observer of Old World customs, Irving offered a convincing argument that an American could be a man of letters, that a “demi-savage” from the New World wilderness could hold “a feather in his hand, instead of on his head.” Yet Irving's very success in conforming to European literary standards left him open to charges of imitativeness and overrefinement; critics complained that his work was too Anglicized and prettified, that he sold his native birthright for the pottage of international acclaim. More recent commentators have attempted to rescue Crayon for American literature, stressing Irving's humor, his incorporation of native materials, and his ties to the landscape. Both sides of the argument, however, tend to focus on Irving as he presented himself at the end of his career, after a quarter-century of elaboration on Geoffrey Crayon. By the time Irving published the Author's Revised Version of his works in 1848, a shelf full of books affirmed his identity as the gentle wanderer, graceful observer, resident of the Alhambra, and spectator at Bracebridge Hall.

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Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 3 , October 1978 , pp. 371 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

NOTES

1. For a discussion of contemporary critical response to The Sketch Book, see Williams, Stanley T., The Life of Washington Irving (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1935), I, pp. 174–77, 188–91.Google Scholar

2. Irving, Washington, Bracebridge Hall (Author's Revised Edition of 1848; New York: Putnam, 1857), p. 1.Google Scholar

3. For instance, Emerson included Irving in a list of “American geniuses” who “all lack nerve and dagger.” The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, eds., Plumstead, A. W. and Hayford, Harrison (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969)Google Scholar, VII, p. 200 (05 26, 1839)Google Scholar. Mencken, H. L. called Irving an “Anglomaniac” in The American Language (New York: Knopf, 1937), p. 67.Google Scholar

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7. See, for example, Irving, Washington, Journals and Notebooks (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1969) I, pp. 229–301.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., p. 51.

9. Ibid., pp. 347–48. Here, as in other quotations from the journals, canceled phrases have been silently ommited.

10. Irving, Pierre M., The Life and Letters of Washington Irving (New York: Putnam; Kurd & Houghton, 1865), I, pp. 139–40.Google Scholar

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21. From undated manuscript fragment, probably 1823, printed in Williams, , Washington Irving, II, p. 258.Google Scholar

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29. Ibid., p. 192.

30. Ibid., p. 252.

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34. Ibid., II, p. 258. See also ibid., I, pp. 102–107 and Williams, Stanley T., “Introduction” to Washington Irving, Notes While Preparing Sketch Book & c. 1817 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1927), pp. 24–42Google Scholar. For a recent treatment of the question, see Ellmann, Richard, “Love in the Catskills,” The New York Review of Books, 23, No. 1 (02 5, 1976), 27–28.Google Scholar

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39. Irving later had a romance with and perhaps proposed to Emily Foster in Dresden. See Williams, , Washington Irving, I, pp. 239–54.Google Scholar

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47. Ibid., p. 403. (One misprinted word dropped.)

48. See Williams, , Washington Irving, I, pp. 153–58.Google Scholar

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56. SirScott, Walter, Familiar Letters (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1894), I, p. 441.Google Scholar

57. This account of Irving at a transition point in his life was written much later, and Preston may have benefited from hindsight, especially when he suggested that the notion of a Sketch Book was already matured at this point. Williams, , Washington Irving, I, p. 165.Google Scholar

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66. Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, p. 404Google Scholar, or Williams, , Washington Irving, I, p. 169Google Scholar. The latter gives the date as July.

67. Irving, , Letters to Brevoort, pp. 293–94.Google Scholar

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70. Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, p. 409.Google Scholar

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72. Ibid., pp. 412–14.

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75. Ibid., pp. 309–10.

76. Ibid., p. 314.

77. Publishing information from Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, pp. 416, 420, 427, 428, 447, 448, 459Google Scholar. For content of numbers see Williams, , Washington Irving, I, p. 426.Google Scholar

78. Irving's promotional scheme is described in Williams, , Washington Irving, I, pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

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80. Sketch Book, I, p. 5.Google Scholar

81. Ibid., p. 9.

82. Ibid., p. 8.

83. Ibid., VII, p. 34.

84. Ibid., I, p. iii.

85. Ibid., p. iii.

86. Irving, , Letters to Brevoort, pp. 299–300.Google Scholar

87. Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, pp. 440–41.Google Scholar

88. Hedges, , Washington Irving: An American Study, p. 141.Google Scholar

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91. Ibid., p. 409.

92. Ibid., pp. 432–33.

93. Ibid., VI, p. 118.

94. Ibid., VII, p. 92.

95. Ibid., IV, p. 300.

96. Ibid., VII, p. 54.

97. Ibid., p. 65.

98. Ibid., p. 66.

99. Ibid., pp. 70–71.

100. Ibid., p. 69.

101. Ibid., p. 69.

102. Ibid., p. 68.

103. Ibid., p. 71.

104. Ibid., pp. 86–87.

105. Ibid., pp. 88–89.

106. Both mentioned by Hedges, , Washington Irving: An American Study, p. 137.Google Scholar

107. Sketch Book, III, p. 220.Google Scholar

108. Ibid., pp. 220–21.

109. Ibid., p. 221.

110. Ibid., p. 242.

111. Ibid., p. 175.

112. Ibid., p. 191.

113. Ibid., pp. 180–81.

114. Ibid., VII, p. 33.

115. Ibid., p. 32.

116. Irving, , Letters to Brevoort, p. 273.Google Scholar

117. Sketch Book, VII, p. 36.Google Scholar

118. Ibid., p. 38.

119. Ibid., IV, p. 287.

120. See Williams, , Washington Irving, I, p. 177.Google Scholar

121. Ibid., pp. 187–88.

122. See Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, p. 431Google Scholar, for a comment by Matilda Hoffman's mother linking “Rural Funerals” to her daughter's death. For the notebook passage on Matilda Hoffman, see Irving, , Notes While Preparing Sketch Book, pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

123. Sketch Book, VII, p. 11.Google Scholar

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125. Ibid., pp. 26–28.

126. Ibid., IV, pp. 247–248.

127. Ibid., p. 249.

128. Ibid., pp. 250–51.

129. Ibid., p. 251.

130. Ibid.

131. Ibid., p. 261.

132. Ibid., p. 263.

133. Ibid., p. 264.

134. Ibid., p. 266.

135. Melville, Herman, “Hawthorne and His Mosses: By a Virginian Spending a July in Vermont,” Literary World, 08 17, August 24, 1850Google Scholar; rpt. in Melville, Herman, Billy Budd and Other Prose Pieces, Vol. XIII of The Works of Herman Melville, ed, Weaver, Raymond W. (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), p. 132.Google Scholar

136. Sketch Book, II, p. 102.Google Scholar

137. Ibid., p. 109.

138. Ibid., p. 118.

139. Ibid., p. 111.

140. Ibid., p. 119.

141. Ibid., pp. 157–58.

142. Ibid., p. 159.

143. Ibid., pp. 159–60. Note the appearance of these two avatars of Geoffrey Crayon, corresponding to the jolly Master Simon and the arid parson of the Bracebridge sketches.

144. Ibid., p. 161.

145. Ibid., p. 162.

146. Ibid., p. 164.

147. Ibid., p. 167.

148. See letters of July 11, 1817, and March 10, 1821, to Brevoort, in Irving, , Letters to Brevoort, pp. 252–55 and 353–56Google Scholar. See also letter to Irving, William, 12, 1817Google Scholar, in Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, pp. 392–93.Google Scholar

149. See Irving, , Letters to Brevoort, p. 340.Google Scholar

150. Ibid., p. 168.

151. See Pochmann, H. A., “Irving's German sources in The Sketch Book,” Studies in Philology, 27 (07 1930), 477–507Google Scholar. See also Williams, , Washington Irving, I, pp. 179, 183–84.Google Scholar

152. Irving, P. M., Life and Letters, I, pp. 448–49Google Scholar. Here P. M. Irving offers Van Wart as a source for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and says that Irving “scribbled off the framework” for the tale “in a few hours” after a conversation in 1818. This story seems oddly close to the legend that he wrote “Rip Van Winkle” overnight at the Van Warts' house. See Williams, , Washington Irving, I, pp. 168–69Google Scholar. Whether one or both of these tales were born in this manner, it is interesting that both were remembered as the products of intense excitement and rapid composition in an atmosphere connected with home.

153. See Pochmann, , “Irving's German sources.”Google Scholar

154. Irving, , Letters to Brevoort, p. 307.Google Scholar

155. Ibid., pp. 327–28.

156. Ibid., p. 323.