Washington Irving&#039;s Critique of American Culture: Sketching a Vision of World Citizenship

J. Woodrow McCree

doi:10.5771/9781793619624

Summary

Washington Irving’s Critique of American Culture: Sketching a Vision of World Citizenship challenges long-standing views of Washington Irving. He has been portrayed as writing in the 18th century style of Addison and Goldsmith, without having much substance of his own. Irving has also been accused of being insufficiently American and adrift in an identity crisis. The author argues that Irving addressed the American cultural context very extensively—he was a writer of substance who articulated an ethic of world citizenship that was found in the philosophy of ancient Greek cynics and stoics. This ethic was united with a love of picturesque travel, which emphasized variety and texture in experience, resulting in an extraordinary affirmation of the value of cultural diversity in the new Republic. Irving was, in fact, a liminal figure straddling Romantic and neoclassical modes of writing and acting. The author draws attention to Irving’s success as a writer in the pictorial mode. Irving also expressed a critique of cultural loss and environmental destruction like that articulated by the artist Thomas Cole. The work embraces an interdisciplinary approach, where insights from philosophy, religion, art history, and social history shed light on an underestimated writer.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2021
Copyright Year: 2021
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-1961-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-1962-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 184
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. List of Illustrations No access
3. List of Illustrations No access
4. 1. Notes No access
1. Too English? No access
2. Valuing the Past and Assessing “Progress” No access
3. The Substance with the Style No access
4. Notes No access
1. Cultural Egocentrism 101 No access
2. Notes No access
1. The Beginning of Irving’s Art No access
2. The Art of Landscaping No access
3. Notes No access
1. American Ovid—A False Start No access
2. American Virgil, American Claude No access
3. The Shattered Pumpkin: Subverting the Sublime No access
4. Notes No access
1. Great Trees as Antiquities No access
2. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 173 - 180
Index No access Pages 181 - 182
About the Author No access Pages 183 - 184