The Dutch World of Washington Irving (eBook)

Knickerbocker's History of New York and the Hudson Valley Folktales

Elisabeth Paling Funk (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
306 Seiten
Cornell University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5017-8167-4 (ISBN)

Infos

The Dutch World of Washington Irving tells an alternative origin story of American literary culture.

In December of 1809, before finding fame with "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Washington Irving published his satirical A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. Elisabeth Paling Funk explains that the History of New York and the Hudson Valley folktales that followed were part of an early trend of responding to the national desire for a historical record. Funk argues that these works uniquely describe this part of the American scene in the period of the Early Republic and bring forward the Dutch strain in its history and culture.

Funk explores what the young Irving would have read, heard, and observed during his early life and career in New York City, once part of the former colony of New Netherland, where he was surrounded by Dutch-speaking neighbors and relatives and Dutch literature. Based on these sources, The Dutch World of Washington Irving argues that Irving's Knickerbocker works—not only his History but also his Hudson Valley stories—represent a crucial effort to preserve Dutch life and folk customs in the Hudson Valley in the face of Anglo-Americanization.

Providing the first complete glossary of Irving's Dutch vocabulary and drawing on untranslated Dutch sources, Funk offers cultural historians, scholars of American folklore and literature, and the latest generation of Irving's readers unprecedented access into the Dutch world of Washington Irving and his American contemporaries.

Autor

Born in the Netherlands, Elisabeth Paling Funk received her PhD from Fordham University, taught English at the university level, and is now a translator, editor, and independent scholar. She lives in the Hudson Valley.

Inhalt

Introduction
1. Washington Irving and New Netherland: Knickerbocker's History of New York
2. Washington Irving and Jacob Cats: Knickerbocker as Historian
3. Washington Irving as Folk Historian: The Way They Lived Then
4. The Struggle Continues: "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
5. Family History, Recovered and Imagined: "Dolph Heyliger" and "Wolfert Webber, or Golden Dreams"
Epilogue

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.6.2025
• Reihe/Serie: New Netherland Institute Studies
• Zusatzinfo: 11 b&w halftones
• Verlagsort: Ithaca
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Regional- / Landesgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Washington Irving and New Netherland, Jacob Cats, Dutch culture, Hudson Valley folktales, folklorists
• ISBN-10: 1-5017-8167-7 / 1501781677
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5017-8167-4 / 9781501781674