"KNICKERBOCKER HISTORY OF NEW YORK" by Washington Irving, American, 1783-1859

1961 ◽  
Vol 40 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 64-64
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
History Of

Washington Irving

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Scraba
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
Christopher Columbus ◽  
Hudson Valley ◽  
New Amsterdam ◽  
Critical Success ◽  
History Of

Washington Irving (b. 1783–d. 1859) had a long and diverse career as an author and public figure. Irving first published satirical essays (as “Jonathan Oldstyle”) for his brother Peter’s newspaper in 1802–1803. He collaborated with his brother William and James Kirke Paulding on the 1807–1808 satirical periodical Salmagundi, which was wildly popular in New York. A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809), narrated by the fictitious xenophobic historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, was at once an accurate history of New Amsterdam, a satire on Thomas Jefferson’s administration, and a meditation on the writing of history. Irving moved to Europe in 1815 as an agent for his brothers’ business, but after the business went bankrupt in 1818, Irving set about making a living through his writing. The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820) was published nearly simultaneously in installments in the United States and the United Kingdom to secure copyright in both; it was an immediate success and was lauded on both sides of the Atlantic. His attempts to follow up this initial success with similar collections of tales and sketches (Bracebridge Hall [1822] and Tales of a Traveller [1824]) met with considerably less commercial and critical success. Invited to Spain in 1824 to translate newly available documents from Columbus’ expeditions, Irving instead produced The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), which became the standard English-language account of Columbus and went through 175 editions in the United States and Europe. Irving’s subsequent travels in southern Spain produced A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829) and the immensely popular “Spanish Sketch-Book,” The Alhambra (1832). During this period Irving also produced a biography of the Prophet Muhammad, which was eventually published in 1849 as Mahomet and His Successors. Irving finally returned to the United States in 1832, almost immediately participating in an expedition preparing for Indian removal, which was recounted in A Tour on the Prairies (1835). John Jacob Astor then commissioned him to write Astoria (1836), a history of the fur-trading colony, while he also collected materials for another Western narrative, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837). Apart from a period as American Minister to Spain (1842–1846), during which he mediated on behalf of Isabella II during the Carlist Wars, Irving spent much of the rest of his life building his Hudson Valley home called Sunnyside. His final work was the monumental five-volume Life of George Washington (1855–1859). Not only was Irving the first American writer to achieve international celebrity, but he served as a US ambassador; revived tourist interest in Andalusia; shaped the profession of authorship in America and Europe; produced the first comprehensive histories of New Amsterdam/New York, Columbus, and the founder of Islam in English; and wrote the first and perhaps best-known American short stories.

scholarly journals Historical Suggestions in the Ancient Hindu Epic, the Mahábhárata

1885 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-292
Author(s):  
Charles J. Stone
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Single Author ◽  
Waverley Novels ◽  
History Of

This word is a combination of mahá, great, and bhárata, supporter. Bhárata is the ancient name of northern Hindustan, and was derived from a celebrated early monarch. This ‘great supporter’ poem extends in length to about 215,000 longlines, as Professor Monier Williams of Oxford has observed. Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’ only contains about 10,600. Even the voluminous Spenser's ‘Fairy Queen’ has not more than some 30,000. It is ascribed to a celebrated ancient Sage, who is also recorded to have compiled the Vedas (i.e, books of knowledge), and to have written thePuranas (i.e. ‘ancient’ books of the Hindu religions), which belong to phases of religious thought subsequent to the Vedic but professing to be associated with the Vedas. As his name simply means ‘collector or compiler,’ it is suggestive of his being mythical. Introductory recitals, in the poem itself, assign it to Vyasa, just as Washington Irving ascribes his ‘History of New York’ to Knickerbocker. Vaisampayana is said to have recited it to a king, and may have been the author. Modern commentators of late years seem generally to have assigned it to several authors. Comparing it, however, with the Waverley novels, as the work of one man, it does not seem beyond the capacity of a single author. Fifteen years’ labour, about the time bestowed by Gibbon on his ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ would complete the work at the rate of some fifty lines per diem, allowing for holy days. It is written in what is styled the classical Sanscrit.

Diedrich Knickerbocker, Regular Bred Historian

2018 ◽  
pp. 29-55
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Insko
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The Self ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chronological Sequence ◽  
Alter Ego ◽  
Rip Van Winkle

Chapter 1 analyzes the self-consciousness—and uncanny postmodernity—of Washington Irving in the various works attributed to his historian alter ego Diedrich Knickerbocker, particularly A History of New York and “Rip Van Winkle.” I argue that Irving’s Knickerbocker writings inaugurated an under-recognized tradition of antebellum writing devoted less to the creation of a coherent national past than to theorizing “history” itself. Irving’s A History of New York (1809) forms a kind of practical illustration of the dismantling of history writing in our own time. Irving’s metahistorical discourse, I claim, cannot be adequately accounted for by conventional historicist contextualization, by confining his works to a particular moment in time, much less one that has been superseded by or that is irretrievably distant and distinct from the critical present. Working in tandem with A History of New York’s disquisition on the mutability of historical knowledge is the experience of history “Rip Van Winkle” offers to its readers. A story of temporal dislocation, “Rip Van Winkle” exploits and critiques Rip’s—and the reader’s—desire to settle upon an orienting present and locate that present within a chronological sequence (before, during, and after the war).

Postcolonial Columbus: Washington Irving and The Conquest of Granada

1993 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-43
Author(s):  
Richard V. McLamore
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
Postcolonial Identity ◽  
History Of

Irving's politically pious persona in The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829), "Fray Agapida," indicts Irving's own exemplification of the postcolonial American literary sanctification of discovery, conquest, and colonization presented in The Life and Voyages of Columbus (1828). Through his satire of Agapida, Irving undermines the nationalistic and religious grounds upon which both the Conquest of Granada was most often justified and his biography of Columbus was commissioned to further. Irving links the reconquest of Moorish Granada, Columbus's voyages, the Inquisition, and the Crusades to Irving's satire of contemporary acts of literary, mercantile, and political imperialism in A History of New York. Instead of being a writer absorbed in his own romantic fantasies, in The Chronicle Irving attacks the casuistic use of religion, nobility, and enlightenment to sanctify conquest and usurpation. The conflict indicated by Irving's satire of self- and nation-fashioning reflects many of the United State's own struggles to establish a postcolonial identity.

Sunnyside

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Wright
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
Scottish Gaelic ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman French

This book traces developments in the history of British house-names from the tenth century, beginning with medieval house-naming practices referencing the householder’s name, the householder’s occupation, and the appearance of the house. In the early fourteenth century heraldic names appeared on commercial premises: tavern names such as la Worm on the Hope, and shop names such as the Golden Tea Kettle & Speaking Trumpet. From the eighteenth century five main categories are identified: the transferred place-name, the nostalgically rural, the commemorative, names associated with the nobility, and the latest fashion or fad. From the nineteenth century new developments are ‘pick & mix’ names consisting of uncoupled elements from British place-names joined together in new combinations, and jocular house-names. Historically, the house-name Sunnyside predominates in Scotland, and is traced through Middle English, Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman French Scottish Gaelic, and the influence of Old Norse, recording a prehistoric Nordic land-division practice known as solskifte. It was spread southwards in the eighteenth century by Nonconformists, and became a Quaker shibboleth. Quakers took the name to North America where it remains in use as a church name. A specific historic Sunnyside in the Scottish Borders influenced author Washington Irving to name his famous New York Sunnyside, which boosted the name’s popularity. London Sunnysides of the 1870s were grand suburban residences owned by rich industrialist Nonconformists with Scottish family ties, confirming the trend.

Messy, Energetic, Intense: A Roundtable Conversation among New York's Asian American Experimental Filmmakers of the Eighties with Roddy Bogawa, Daryl Chin, Shu Lea Cheang, and Rea Tajiri

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-78
Author(s):  
Vince Schleitwiler ◽  
Abby Sun ◽  
Rea Tajiri
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Asian American ◽  
York City ◽  
American Film ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
History Of

This roundtable grew out of conversations between filmmaker Rea Tajiri, programmer Abby Sun, and scholar Vince Schleitwiler about a misunderstood chapter in the history of Asian American film and media: New York City in the eighties, a vibrant capital of Asian American filmmaking with a distinctively experimental edge. To tell this story, Rea Tajiri contacted her artist contemporaries Shu Lea Cheang and Roddy Bogawa as well as writer and critic Daryl Chin. Daryl had been a fixture in New York City art circles since the sixties, his presence central to Asian American film from the beginning. The scope of this discussion extends loosely from the mid-seventies through the late nineties, with Tajiri, Abby Sun, and Vince Schleitwiler initiating topics, compiling responses, and finalizing its form as a collage-style conversation.

The Modernities of H. Lawrence Freeman

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-779
Author(s):  
David Gutkin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
White Press ◽  
Grand Opera

H. Lawrence Freeman's “Negro Jazz Grand Opera,” Voodoo, was premiered in 1928 in Manhattan's Broadway district. Its reception bespoke competing, racially charged values that underpinned the idea of the “modern” in the 1920s. The white press critiqued the opera for its allegedly anxiety-ridden indebtedness to nineteenth-century European conventions, while the black press hailed it as the pathbreaking work of a “pioneer composer.” Taking the reception history of Voodoo as a starting point, this article shows how Freeman's lifelong project, the creation of what he would call “Negro Grand Opera,” mediated between disparate and sometimes apparently irreconcilable figurations of the modern that spanned the late nineteenth century through the interwar years: Wagnerism, uplift ideology, primitivism, and popular music (including, but not limited to, jazz). I focus on Freeman's inheritance of a worldview that could be called progressivist, evolutionist, or, to borrow a term from Wilson Moses, civilizationist. I then trace the complex relationship between this mode of imagining modernity and subsequent versions of modernism that Freeman engaged with during the first decades of the twentieth century. Through readings of Freeman's aesthetic manifestos and his stylistically syncretic musical corpus I show how ideas about race inflected the process by which the qualitatively modern slips out of joint with temporal modernity. The most substantial musical analysis examines leitmotivic transformations that play out across Freeman's jazz opera American Romance (1924–29): lions become subways; Mississippi becomes New York; and jazz, like modernity itself, keeps metamorphosing. A concluding section considers a broader set of questions concerning the historiography of modernism and modernity.

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