On American Romanticism and Washington Irving

On American Romanticism and Washington Irving: As a literary genre that emerged in the early 19th century, American Romanticism consisted of writers who often transposed historical events into fictitious contexts. Two of the genre's earliest pioneers included James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. While both authors' origins can be traced to New York state, it was Irving who based more of his publications in the surrounding geography of his hometown (Tarrytown, NY). In just two years (1819 & 1820), Irving published perhaps two of the most popular short stories in American Romantic literature: "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." For the story of "Rip Van Winkle," Irving adopted the literary technique of flash-forwarding through time. As a Dutch colonial settler in the Hudson Valley, Van Winkle fell asleep after drinking moonshine in the Catskill Mountains. He woke up decades later only to discover that the American Revolution had occurred and that New York had become part of a new, independent nation. And as for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Irving developed a fantastical tale of ghosts, ghouls, and haunts, in a post-Revolutionary War town along the Hudson River. The most memorable of which was the Headless Horseman, who notoriously terrorized the story's protagonist (Ichabod Crane) in a climatic chase.