10/22
* Rip Van Winkle (legendary tale)
à Washington Irving
à Irving regularly addressed darker and more complex themes of historical
transformation and personal dislocation.
à “inventors” of the modern short story
à first American who was able to support himself solely through his writing
à lifelong bachelor
à Rip Van Winkle are hints that the single life suited Irving just fine
à Cooper, Hawthorne, and many other American writers were inspired by the
success of The Sketch Book
à many readers identified with Rip as a counterhero, an anti-Frank linian who made a
success of failure; and subsequent generations have responded profoundly to
Irving’s pervasive theme of mutability, especially as localized in his portrayal of the
bewildering rapidity of change in American life
à setting (time and place):
à Hudson, Kaatskill, Appalachian family, change of season, change of weather,
change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains
à deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with
fragments from the impending cliffs
à King George
à characters:
à Van Winkles:
1. obedient, henpecked husband (妻管嚴); he was a great favorite among
all the good wives of the village
2. amiable sex; he took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed,
whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossippings,
to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle; his children were ragged
and wild as if they belonged to nobody; his carelessness, and the ruin
he was bringing on his family
3. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes
4. solitudes
à dog Wolf
1. the only friend of Van Winkles
2. pun, ironic pun (for being condemned)
à stranger / peculiar
1. short, square built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a
grizzled beard
2. his dress was of the antique Dutch fashion – a cloth jerkin strapped
round the waist – several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample
volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at
the knees
3. All had beard, of various shapes and colors
à climax of the story
à “I’m not myself – I’m some – body else – that’s me yonder – no – that’s
somebody else, got into my shoes – I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on
the mountain, and they’ve changed my gun, and every thing’s changed, and
I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am.”
à ending of the story
à “make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more
important concerns of the election. Rip’s daughter took him home to live with
her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a
husband.”
à they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine pins; and it is
a common wish of henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs
heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van
Winkle’s flagon
* James Fenimore Cooper
à he helped chart the future course of American fiction
à wrote novels of manners, transatlantic and European fiction, and several historical
novels on the American Revolution
à The Pioneer; the book explore the imperial, racial, and social conflicts central to the
emergence of the United States; and their evocative portrayals of the frontiersman
Natty Bumppo and his Indian friend Chingachgook helped to develop what the
British novelist and critic D.H. Lawrence influentially called “the myth of America”
* Salem, Massachusetts
à Derby Wharf and the Custom House
à Witch House, The House of Seven Gables (Hawthorne)
à The Salem Witch Trails Tercentenary Memorial
* New Orleans
à French market (doughnuts and coffee)
à 聖女貞德
à seafood
à jazz
à Bourbon street
* James Town – The three ships
* Virginia
à不是北方人，不是南風人，是 Virginia 洲人
à eight presidents
* St. Augustine, Florida
à the first school
à 北美洲第一個永久的城市
* Boone Hall Plantation
* James Madison
à “knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own
governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
