Anthony Nguyen
Inci Sariz-Bilge
International Short Story
5 December 2014 Chronology of Creativity: The Evolution of American Short Story For many centuries, humans have been able to successfully communicate complex thought and ideas to one another through verbal means. By word of mouth, stories would be passed down from generation to generation, changing to some degree along the way. Because of this, storytelling, is as old as spoken language. Written narratives, however, did not come about until c. 2150-1400 BCE when The Epic of Gilgamesh was produced (“Gilgamesh”). Much later during the nineteenth century, German writers eventually developed fictional prose narrative that resembles short story. The growth of the novel around this time
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Irving wasn’t as influential to romanticism as the other two, but his stories and essays paralleled the values of this time. Romanticism “came about to some extent, to counter America’s embrace of materialism, development, rationality, and fraud” and Irving indisputably wrote to protest the same aspects of the national predicament. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving uses this story as the lens into his beliefs. For instance, his idealization of the past suggests his distaste for development. Also, he challenges rationality by incorporation supernatural elements and imagination. Finally with regards to materialism, his plot in Sleep Hollow depicts exactly how he was against this value of American culture …show more content…
Newspapers and magazine are a huge reason as to its speedy evolution. Short stories were the most viable option for a writer in the nineteenth century. With all different kinds of people from various backgrounds writing about whatever fit their time period, all of that culminated into a melting pot of ideas and themes. American life and American values were told by some, especially during the era of realism. From movement to movement, aspects like style, form, structure, and setting fluctuated from one thing to the next. Although short story as a literary form is extinct, it still lives as an art form. Post-modernism still continues today as the general public are more open to to reading as authors are more open in writing. Yes, the novel is the classic American favorite, but one must not forget about the contribution of the short story to American literature as a
Throughout Irving’s story, he used characterization, irony, the dreams, and other literacy devices to bring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to life for Irving’s audience.
The readings “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving and The Monster by Stephen Crane are to amazing readings. However, these two texts represent violence and conflicts in different ways, which shows that although they have the same concept their tactic for this same concept is used in a different approach.
The change from differing mediums, novel and film, reveal characteristics and possibilities of narratives. Through the advancement of technology, modern writers
Influential people will change a town. This is exactly what happened to the town of Sleepy Hollow. It will never be the same after Ichabod Crane enters. He leaves a lasting impression on the town and the reader. Ichabod grows in multiple different ways as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” progresses. Ichabod's is greed, self-centered personality, and anti-hero disposition is shown throughout the entire story. In his story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” Washington Irving develops the main character, Ichabod through actions, setting, and other characters.
Humans have progressed significantly in the past few thousand years and are continuing to progress even to this very day. In the beginning there was old english when stories were told from mouth to mouth and only kept alive in the hearts of the people who told them. These early stories, these myths and legends were nothing more than the imagination and dreams of the people at the time. Possibly for strength or courage, wisdom or fame, people created stories and told them and in them the people truly lived. This wasn’t simply seen in the early literature but throughout all of human literature. Geoffrey Chaucer’s short stories The Canterbury Tales, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein, and George Orwell’s dystopian
Since the beginning of time, the human race has had the tradition of recording historical tales, or stories. Some of the stories that were first told were tales of heroic men, journeying their land in search of some moral prize. These stories are known as epics. Merriamwebster.com states, “Epics are long poems, typically derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation” (www.merriam-webster.com). This gives an insight into how the early humans lived and how they thought.
Hoffman, Daniel G. "Irving's Use of American Folklore in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"" PMLA 68.3 (1953): 425-35. JSTOR. Web. 7 Oct. 2015.
First we shall examine the background of text so that we might understand how the culture and society had an impact on the works. The story of Gilgamesh supposedly started to take form around the year 2500 B.C., but was not written down until about 1300 B.C. The epic was passed down and developed in oral form for approximately one thousand years. As a result, the story must have changed drastically from the original, until it was finally written down on Sumerian clay tablets.
From 1804 to 1806 Irving traveled throughout Europe and spent most of his time away in England, allowing him to experience European culture as well as how it feels to be a foreigner (May). Irving parallels his alien status in his characterization of Ichabod Crane, a character that one analyzer identified as “an outsider, a Yankee schoolmaster among the canny Dutch farmers” (Yarbrough). It is clear that Irving felt out of place in Europe, but he embraced his differences proudly and enjoyed absorbing the foreign culture just as Ichabod did. This willingness to absorb the surrounding culture is clearly paralleled by Ichabod’s views on witchcraft, in which he “most firmly and potently believed,” just as Irving was eager to adopt and adapt the traditional folktales he learned in Europe (“Legend of Sleepy Hollow”). Irving characterizes Crane as superstitious primarily to develop him as an intelligent and harsh schoolmaster and as a foil to the simpler countryfolk natives while also displaying his own love for exploring literature. Washington Irving’s development of Ichabod Crane as a superstitious outsider reflects his early experiences as a stranger and his embrace of foreign
Irving, Washington. "Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."" The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Ed. Paul Lauter. Sixth. Vol. B. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. 2321-40. Print. 2 vols. The Heath Anthology of American Literature.
In Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the conflict between Enlightenment and Romantic ideals is narrativized. Irving’s story is an exploration of the conflict between these two schools of thought. Irving uses his setting, his characters, and his “moral” (or lack thereof) to critique the Enlightenment. At first reading, “Sleepy Hollow” may seem no more than a dreamy folk tale. But when read in the context of the emerging resistance to Enlightenment thinking, it reveals itself to be a striking denunciation of the ideals of the Enlightenment.
In our world today, we are lucky to know thousands and thousands of languages and their cultures. The first language ever recorded is Sumerian. This time period consists of 3300 to 3000 BC. During this time, records are purely logographic with not much dialectal content. Different cultures have many very different archetypes that clearly show what their their literature follows, and in Sumerian culture, the major archetype is the hero’s journey and its different stages. The Sumerians believed in their fair share of gods and supernatural forces and that reflects in their pieces of literature.In The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was translated by N.K. Sandars and based on Sumerian culture, the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh overcomes many stages of a hero’s journey when he begins his long quest to find immortality. Gilgamesh
The improbable plots and unlikely characterization showed how much they used creativity. According to a Romanticism article, “The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate ‘shaping’ or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity” (“Romanticism”). They believe that imagination is an essential and amazing ability that humans possess. Romantic authors often included examples of imagination and creativity within their works. In the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the supernatural plot and improbable characters illustrate the imagination of Romanticism writers (Irving). Washington Irving must have used a significant amount of creativity to come up with a story that involves a headless ghost riding a horse. He thought outside of his reality and environment in order to create an impossible and fascinating character. The Romantics favored imagination and creativity because they realized how invaluable it truly
The short stories of Washington Irving are examples of the literary movement of Romanticism and its characteristics which are evidenced in this author’s works. These
When the term “literature” crossed the mind, one may immediately think of a classical definition of literature. Large libraries with stacks upon stacks of books may enter the mind. However, literature in the broad, informal sense can be traced back much further. In order to trace the evolution of literature, the evolution of human communication must first be considered. For thousands of years, humans have told stories through verbal and written communication. The first written communications are attributed to drawings on writings on prehistoric cave walls. Many of these works however are not considered true literature. Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest known literary works and dates to around 2000 BC in Mesopotamia.