WASHINGTON IRVING's a TOUR on Thi PRAIRIES, ASTORIA, and the ADVENTURES of CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE by ARCH RAGAN MAYFIELD, B.A., M.A
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AN EXAMINATION OF SELECTED ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN WASHINGTON IRVING'S A TOUR ON THi PRAIRIES, ASTORIA, AND THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE by ARCH RAGAN MAYFIELD, B.A., M.A. A DISSERTATION IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Accepted May, 1988 Copyright 1986. Arch Ragan Mayfield TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 11 NOMINALITY 29 CHAPTER III IRVING'S SENTENCES 57 CHAPTER IV FOREGROUNDING 84 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION 105 BIBLIOGRAPHY 112 APPENDIX 121 I) CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Irving's Persistent Sensitivity to Style From his formative years as a writer, Washington Irving was unusually attentive to prose style. For example, in a letter in 1802. when he was only nineteen, he wrote of welcoming his editorial responsibilities during the absence of his brother. Peter, editor of the New York Morning Chronicle, because he would benefit from the discipline of "arranging and expressing" his thoughts.^ Although ideas would be important to the young writer, their expression would require a proper arrangement or manner to achieve a desired effect. Even in his earliest journals. Irving revealed his concern with style through his persistent revision of his notations. Nathalia Wright, in her introduction to irving's Journals and Notebooks. Volume 1. 1803-1806. points to Irving's habit of revision, indicating "that he was conscious of how he was expressing himself."^ As an apparent self-reminder of the necessity for good form in expression. Irving recorded in a notebook in 1810 his definition of "prethinking": "the determination not only of the content but of the actual form of the sentence before it should be written down."^ The preoccupation with style became a lifelong habit for Irving. Years after he had become known in America as the author of Diedrich Knickerbocker's A History QI Ijto iSct (1809) and a few years after he was internationally recognized for The Sketch Book (1819). he wrote in 1823 to his brother Peter of his desire that his works should endure as a result of their styles 1 wish in every thing I do to write in such a manner that my productions may have something more than mere interest in narrative to recommend them, which is very evanescent: something. If I may use the phrase, of classic merit, i.e. depending on style . which gives a production some chance for duration beyond the whim and fashion of the day."^ At the end of his literary career. Irving was indeed praised highly for his prose style. In 1859. before Irving's death in the same year. George Greene praised the mysterious simplicity of Irving's unique style and saw Irving as "imbued with the pure spirit of classic literature."^ In a similar tribute. William Cullen Bryant, speaking at a memorial meeting of the New York Historical Society one year after the death of Irving, eulogized^ "We have wits, and humorists, and amusing essayists, authors of some of the airiest and most graceful compositions of the present century ... but the Evening Star, the soft and serene light that glowed in their van, the precursor of them all. has sunk below the horizon."^ Irving's reputation as an engaging prose stylist continued through the later years of the nineteenth century, and twentieth-century estimates of his work consistently comment on Irving's accomplishments in style. Charles Dudley Warner's biography. Washington Irving f 1884). again marvels at Irving's distinctiveness^ . there remains a large margin for wonder how. with his want of training, he could have elaborated a style which is distinctively his own. and is as ... felicitous in the choice of words . spontaneous . clear and as little wearisome when read continu ously in quantity as any in the English tongue.^ Twentieth-century biographer Stanley Williams refers to Irving as a "natural stylist."® Others, too numerous to mention, comment on the excellence of Irving's style, using such descriptive terms as "mannered," "piquant." "colorful." "elegant." and "refined."^ The stylistic achievements most often and most highly acclaimed, of course, are in such well-known favorites as "Rip Van Winkle." "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." and Diedrich Knickerbocker's A History of New York. Both the works produced earlier than any of these and some that came later, however, have been subjects for stylistic comment.^ ^ Those works often ignored or considered less important came after Irving's return to America in 1832 after seventeen years abroad, especially the three Western works which appeared in the first five years after the author had again established himself in his homeland. Such well-known scholars as William Hedges claim that the fifty-year-old Irving no longer possessed the creative and artistic impulse, even though he continued to write for more than a quarter of a century; but the opinion is by no means unani mously accepted for the Western writings. ^^ The Western Works A consideration of the genesis and shaping of the western works shows at once that Irving continued to be concerned with style.^^ With his reputation as a man of letters well established. Irving, at age 49, returned from his long sojourn in Europe eager to reacquaint himself with his home land. Irving and two of his companions from the trans-Atlantic voyage were introduced to Henry L. Ellsworth, recently appointed as one of the commissioners to oversee Indian settlement west of the Mississippi River. Always intrigued by the West,^"^ Irving accepted Ellsworth's invitation to join the expedition, which covered the period from October 10 until November 8, 1832. Early in the trip, Irving began recording—in journal form—impressions, tales swapped around the campfires, and various other materials. Following the trip, he characteristically spent much of 1833 and 1834 shaping the materials.^^ Seeing the account as slight and thinking it would not satisfy public expectation. Irving nevertheless published in 1835 his recounting of the journey as A Tour on the Prairies (hereafter. Tour), making the short narrative the first of a multi-volume work raiiftfi Thf^ ^^rayon Miscellany. "Crayon" in the title could recall to the style-conscious author, as well as to his readers, the sketcher of word pictures and ostensible author Geoffrey Crayon of the earlier masterpiece. The Sketch Book. Tour, in spite of Irving's reservations, proved immensely satisfying to Irving's readers. ^^ One of those readers was John Jacob Astor. financier and fur magnate. Astor's appreciation of Irving, combined with the success of the Western book, prompted Astor to suggest another book dealing with Western exploration and expansion. Consequently, Astor turned over to Irving his voluminous collection of documents related to the Northwest and the fur trade, a subject which had long interested Irving. Expressing his hopes for the work in a letter to his nephew, Pierre Munro Irving, whom he had asked to serve as research assistant and scribe. ^^ Irving remarked "I. have no doubt I shall be able to make it fAstorial a rich piece of mosaic."^® Irving's metaphor of the mosaic, suggesting a work pains takingly comprised of intricate, strategically placed units, indicates the author's continuing attention to style. The result of his efforts, Astoria. was published in October of 1836. The last of the three Western books seemed to evolve naturally from the previous two. During one of his lengthy stays at the Astor mansion. Hell Gate. Irving met Captain Benjamin Louis E. de Bonneville. The captain had been struggling with his own journals and notes from his Western travels. He. however, had had no luck in marketing the manuscript. Again. Irving took over material not originally his own and shaped it into a com mercially successful work. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. U. S. A. (1837) (hereafter. Bonneville). Regarding Bonneville. Irving expressed his usual concern for style when he wrote in the introduction of his emphasis on "tone and coloring" In the book.^^ Certainly the Western works were the product of Irving's having im mersed himself in the spirit of and recorded accounts of the westward expansion of his day, and naturally many of the comments about the works have dealt with their importance to historians and geographers.^^ However, the enduring quality of the works cannot be explained simply by the historical value, as important as that value may be. The Western works continue to be valued as literature. From the time of their original publication, all three works have remained in print; and all three have appeared in present-day scholarly editions. Excerpts from IQUL continue to be anthologized.2 ^ and the recent Selected Writing? fit Washington Irving (1984) prints Tour in its entirety.^^ In addition, the Western works have enjoyed recent critical and scholarly attentlon.^^ 8 A few critics have remarked upon Irving's achievement as stylist in the Western works. Edgeley W. Todd, for instance, says. "Irving's style has been probably the one quality of his work that has been most persistently praised. It is the chief literary and creative element in Astoria. .. ."^^ Others have expressed essentially the same view about Astoria and the other Western works.^^ These critics, however, actually do not go beyond an epigrammatic reference to style. The closest, in fact, that critics have come to analyzing elements of style in Irving's Western works are brief studies of diction and of selected figures of speech. In From West 1Q East: Studies jn Itlfi Literature Qi IM American West. Robert Edson Lee mentions some of the picturesque phrases Irving used in Tour: but mainly Lee faults Irving's diction, specifically attacking the author's use of cliches and charging that "the worst limitation is the language."^^ in another treat ment of diction.