Type

Text

Type

Thesis

Advisor

Scheckel, Susan | Newman, Andrew

Date

2017-12-01

Keywords

English literature | Irving | sleep | Washington

Department

Department of English

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/78249

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

Washington Irving's The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon is an exceptional case study into a species of imaginative discourse—sleep and reverie—as Irving seamlessly weaves the trope consistently through a litany of short sketches that attempt to map the uncharted territories of a nascent American identity. Stories like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and “The Mutability of Literature” all rely on either overt sleep or else a veil of drowsiness, stupor, or laziness to flesh out the historical relationship between the budding American Republic and its colonial predecessors. This paper attempts to justify Irving's use of the unconscious as a method for explicating the cultural ties between America and Europe. Irving is clearly separating the masculine notion of political cessation from European influence from the need to tap into the cultural roots that give America its force. By close reading Irving's key sketches (including its influences), tapping into criticism of Irving's struggle with national identity, and pulling from Coleridge's theory of imagination, this paper shows how representations of sleep become complicit in creating mystical discourse that seeks to define and tie American ethos with pre-republic roots. | 37 pages

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