美国文学史4.ppt

Washington Irving (1783 - 1859) I. A Brief Introduction to Washington Irving 1.Inclination, financial crisis, and emotional difficulties made him a professional writer when he was nearly forty years old with no sense of vocation, but recognizing his talent with words. 2.Neither a romantic or a neoclassical sentimentalist, Irving was a transitional figure with involvement and alienation. ( History of New York, 1809, neoclassical satire in America; The Sketch Book, 1819, romantic ) 3.He was a critical figure in the development of an American literary consciousness, being the first to find a literary identity in a country without its own cultural heritage. 4.He specialized in two romantic genres, the familiar essay and the gothic tale. 5.He was an important writer of the “School” of Knickerbockers, which came from Washington Irving’s pseudonym, Diedrich Knickerbocker. 6.At the time of his death, it was believed that anyone who read English had read Washington Irving. 7.He was the very first American writer who made a living with a pen, and who was first recognized by Europeans. 8.He created a special atmosphere and a way of writing with local materials ( people and nature ), and Bryant, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Bret Harte acknowledged the debt. 9.He was a man of his time rather than for all time, describing and recording his world. II. His Life Irving was born in New York City in 1783, named after the hero of the new country. Being the eleventh child, he grew up in a family with religious restrictions softened by a good library and cultural activities of his brothers. He read for the law from 1799 to 1804, and in 1806 was admitted to the bar, but he never made the most of his schooling; a family-financed tour of Europe in 1804-1806 was his substitute for Columbia College. And during his tour, he got the habit of journal writing. He fell in love with Judge Hoffman’s daughter Matilda Hoffman when he was 24, and was saddened by her death when she was 17. In his lat