© 1820 Washington Iriving; illustrations 1966, Leonard Fisher
58 pages
Long ago in a quiet part of the north country near Hudson Bay lived a superstitious and gangly schoolteacher whose amorous affections for a local heiress threw him headlong into trouble. The man's name? Ichabod Crane, and if that name sounds familar to you, so might the Tale of the Headless Horseman. Though I've been familar with Crane, the Horseman, and name "Sleepy Hollow" since childhood, I have never read the story. It's a short story, a fantasy-horror tale with a comic main character in a barely independent America. While I initially peeked into the petite volume to learn where the tale went (ending in dread mystery), surely it was worth reading for the language alone. Irving's prose is ornate, yet highly readable, like the rare piece of cursive writing that is rendered artfully without slowing down communication. The work has the added appeal of painting a picture of an America still very much wet behind the ears; America is still more a colony than a Nation, and the Dutch population of Sleepy Hollow have not yet been ironed out of existence by the forces of cultural homogenization. It is thus not only an elegantly-told short story perfect for occasions such as Halloween, but a charming piece of early Americana. Another example of such is the story of Rip Van Winkle, also laden with Dutch characters though much shorter. I trust the name and story are singularly familiar to most; the tale of a happy-go-lucky farmer who has a lie-down under a nap and wakes up twenty years later to find his wife dead, his country a republic, and his town burgeoning is also captivating.
This is in my Classics TBR pile.
ReplyDeleteAmerican students are taught most British classics as part of our own heritage, but I'm curious as to how English students might be presented American literature following the revolution; are there American and Canadian studies-type programs, for instance?
ReplyDeleteI never did English Lit at school (hard to believe I know) but from memory - considering it was 40 years ago! - I think they studied things like Dickens, Hardy and that sort of thing - Victorian authors in the main. The American lit studied here was always things like Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and probably some Steinbeck.
ReplyDeletePresently there's a huge row in the Education department over English Lit in schools. The Education Minister wants schools to study only ENGLISH Lit and none of this 'foreign' stuff. Of course missing the point that "English" denote the language and not the country.... Duh!