Romanticism In John Irving's Rip Van Winkle

Romanticism is an artistic and literary movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that placed value on emotion or imagination over reason and usually focused on the individual, the subjective, and the spontaneous. Romantics encouraged contemplation and self-awareness and direct contact with nature. They also tended to place heavy emphasis on emotions such as awe and terror, leading to the supernatural elements found in many of the stories. Nature was described in terms that made even the most ordinary things seems like masterpieces. In America, Romanticism had a distinctly American voice and identity that was shaped by the revolutionary spirit, surging idealism and passion of Americans and their desire to break free of the

He starts by describing the Kaatskill Mountains and the village at its base in such a way that the reader can easily picture the location. He uses human like characteristics to describe how they how they are seen “west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country” and when the “weather is fair and settled they are clothed in blue and purple” (523). In describing Rip’s view from the top of the mountain, Irving brilliantly paints a colorful and rich picture that is designed to elicit an emotional response from the reader in classic Romantic style. He writes that Rip sees “the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands” (526). When Rip finally awakens from his slumber, it is a “bright and sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze”

When Rip heard someone call his name, he “felt a vague apprehension stealing over him” and he “perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks” (526). The person that Rip sees is described as “a short square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair and a grizzled beard” and he was dressed in “the antique Dutch fashion”, giving the impression that this person is perhaps a ghost (526). Then when Rip follows this main in the amphitheater, he is treated to the site of “new objects of wonder” (526). In the “centre was a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion” (526-27). The entire group “reminded Rip of figures in an old Flemish painting” (527). However, the most odd thing about this strange people playing nine-pins was that even though they “were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence and were, withal, the most melancholy party” (527). When they rolled their balls, the sound “echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder” (527) All of this combines to give the impression that there is more to there is something mysterious and supernatural about this group of people. Another supernatural element is the beverage given to Rip by these odd people. Once Rip’s “awe and apprehension subsided”, he was tempted to “taste the beverage, which he found had much the