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. Wayne Kime in "Washington Irving and Frontier Speech." compiles a list of "specialized frontier terms" from the three Western books and discusses Irving's linguistic interests. Kime shows that Irving was careful to draw attention to and to explain terms unfamiliar to his audience.^^ Kathryn Whitford. in "Romantic Metamorphosis in Irving's Western Tour" discusses Irving's European vocabulary and metaphors, arguing that the author's diction helps to romanticize the work.^® Each of these writers devotes a few paragraphs to some aspect of Irving's style, but none has attempted a full analysis.

Since the three Western books have been continuously in print for almost a century and a half, with current interest unquestionably high, their enduring quality has certainly been proved. Scholars who undertake an examination of what the texts say seem to become admirers of what

Irving wrote. Though John Francis McDermott was critical of Tour as a literary work when he published in 1944 the Western journals on which it was based, he reversed his decision later when he produced an edition of the work in 1956. praising its style and calling it "a minor classic."^^

Stanley T. Williams in a biography essentially critical of a large portion of

Irving's efforts nevertheless praised style in Tour: "... one can ... perceive how, as a natural stylist, he [Irving] warmed to his task; how more and more he appreciated the richness of his materials; how easily the romantic glow, which the everyday citizen also craved, was diffused over the pages of his narrative."^^ Furthermore, the editors of the Twayne 10 definitive texts of the Western works said they found, as they examined the texts closely and produced textual apparatus, that their interests in what the narrative said and their admiration of how Irving said it increased rather than diminished following the meticulous study of the texts. ^' The element of style emerges as a common denominator in all of these assessments.

Literary Style and Studies of Style

The attempt to find a useful definition of literary style reveals almost as many formulations as formulators. Some pronouncements, though eloquent, are more inventive than instructive, such as Paul Fulcher's In the

1927 Foundations of English Styles

Style is not a garment to be slipped on that the bare and shivering idea may be warmed, or decorated, or padded out. It is an integral part of the pure. warm, living, naked body of the thought, bone of Its bone, muscle of its muscle, heart of its heart. Style is organic. Whosoever touches it. touches

a man.^2

Other definitions are quite terse, such as Northrop Frye's reference to style simply as an author's individual "conventions." ^^ Furthermore, the 11 attempt to define style has prompted extensive debate and resulted in entire conferences devoted to the subject, such as the 1958 Conference on

Style held at Indiana University. Participants included 1. A. Richards and

Rene Wellek; Technology Press of M. 1. T. published the papers produced for the conference as Style in Language (1960). Surveying the record of the quest for a definition. Bennison Gray in Style (1969) observes, "Few problems in literary scholarship continue to generate so much endeavor and so much conflict as the problem of style,"^^ Gray then concludes, "The only agreement, in fact, existing among the many interested parties ... is that there is such a phenomenon as style."^^

In the final analysis, if a definition of style is to be useful in the examination of particular literary works, it must be—in Jonas Barish's words—both "definite enough and flexible."^^ Therefore, the concepts of style which underlie this study of Irving's Western works are those which refer to individuality and distinctiveness. For example. Donald C. Freeman in Linguistics and Literary Style, explains, "Literary style generally has been defined as a writer's typical femDhasis added] use of linguistic variables."^^ In other words, most things can be written in a variety of 12 ways. Therefore, to the degree that one can observe typicality in a writer's work, one can make observations about that writer's style.

Similarly, Huntington Brown's introductory chapter to EllQSfiSlyJfiS refers to style as "that which we take to be characteristic [emphasis added] in a work of art or a class of works."^® Another aspect of Brown's discussion relevant to this study Is his observation that"... when critics describe the style of a ... literary work they are commonly concerned first with

features of the fabric from word to word and phrase to phrase and only

thereafter with broader phases of form."^^ The "word to word and phrase

to phrase" approach Is part of the method of this study and will be

elaborated upon below.

As definitions of style have proliferated, so have approaches to the

analysis of style. The published papers from the 1958 Indiana Conference

on Style mentioned above were grouped under headings such as "Linguistic

Approaches," "Phonological Aspects of Style," "Semantic Aspects." and

"Psychological Approaches." to name just a few."^^ Almost a decade later.

Richard Ohmann prefaced his "Generative Grammars and Concept of Literary

Style" with a discussion of twelve approaches, ranging from 13

"impressionism" and "tropes" to "diachronic stylistics" and "statistical studies of grammatical features."'^^ This study of Irving's Western works aims at a middle course, avoiding what Barish refers to as "two pillars of unwisdom ... extreme statistic-hunting on the one hand and rank impres­ sionism on the other."'^^ Thus, the study does not attempt to cite every

instance of a particular device or feature, but sufficient instances to

illustrate or substantiate a point.

The research approach of this study follows Leo Spitzer's general advice, as described by Barish,"... first the scrutiny of an author's

linguistic habits to discover what details of style are peculiar to him, and

then—with the aid of provisional hypotheses—the use of these elements as keys to the artist's larger outlook... ."^^ Although no one model has been used exclusively or completely, W. K. WImsatt, Jr. (The Prose Style of

Samuel Johnson) and Barish (EfiD Jonson ml ihfi Language Qt Prose Comedy) validate the approach of this study of Irving's style. At least one fellow analyst of style regards these works as "two of the best" of what he calls

"the most serviceable studies of style."^^ (Some of the features discussed

in Barish's and Wimsatt's analyses which are also examined in this study Of Irving's Western works are parallelism, sentence length, imagery, and the loose period, as described by Morris Croll."^^) Another study which has been helpful in verifying the need to be selective is Aspects of Literary

StyligtiC? (1975), in which Anne Cluysenaar states^

All description is selective. If it were not. the critic would simply have to hand over the entire text. ... 1 take the view that, if we want to pick out from amongst the mass of lin­ guist ic features in any text those that are of special importance to the reader—the receiver of comunication—our criteria of selections cannot remain solely linguistic. Many linguistic features will be doing no more than their everyday communicative job: they could not be omitted from the text, but they play no special role in it."^^

Plan for This Study

As the evidence cited thus far indicates. Irving remained a controlled prose stylist, dedicated to producing a style of some merit in his Western works also. An examination of the texts, more thorough than apparently has been done to date, seems overdue; therefore, this study—examining individual words, phrases, sentence structure, and overall sentence patterns in the three works—focuses on Irving's recurring stylistic habits which give his style its individuality. 15

Three observable, frequently occurring features of Irving's usage serve as a basis for the examination of the texts, beginning with the smallest unit, or individual words, progressing to sentence structure or arrangement of words, and finally moving to passages or groups of sentences."^^ The first is Irving's tendency to use nouns in preference to verbs, referred to here as "nomlnallty." The second has to do with his predilection for absolute constructions, broken symmetry, and cumulative clauses to create the effect of spontaneity—a characteristic of "loose style." The third is his penchant for drawing attention to certain passages so that they stand apart stylistically from those around them, referred to In this study as

"foregrounding."

The clearest definitions and descriptions of these stylistic tendencies occur in three separate twentieth-century sources: "nominallty" in an essay entitled "Nominal and Verbal Style" by Rulon Wells^®; "loose style" in the essays of Morris Croll in Style. Rhetoric 3Dil Rhythm^^; and "fore­ grounding" in Linguistics aDd Literature by Raymond Chapman.^^ These three stylistic tendencies—having been used by other analysts to explore linguistic elements in Greek and Sanskrit, to probe essays of Bacon and 16

Browne, to discuss styles as diverse as those of Edward Gibbon and Ernest

Hemingway—furnish a broad base for examining Irving's style in the

Western works.

The second chapter focuses on nominality, or Irving's habit of noun

usage rather than verb usage in the three works. Part of what appears to

many readers to be Irving's convoluted style Is a result of his "nomi­

nal Izing." accompanied by prepositions and adjectives. As Wells points out.

"A nominal sentence is likely to be longer, in letters and In syllables, than

its verbal counterpart."^^

Note the following passages from Tour and Astoria, respectively:

The grizzly bear alone, of all the animals of our western wilds, is prone to unprovoked hostility. His prodigious size and strength make him a formidable opponent, and his great tenacity of life often baffles the skill of the hunter, with­ standing repeated shots of the rifle and wounds of the hunting knife.^^

... it will be found in the course of this work, that one of the daughters of the hospitable Comcomly eventually made a conquest of the great Eri of the American Fur Company.^^

Clearly Irving chose a pattern of nominality and its attendant adjectives

and prepositional phrases. One wishing to emphasize objects, places, and 17 names would use the stylistic element of nominality. Additionally, Irving's nominallzing style complemented his efforts to inform his readers and to

"capture" the West for them. This style is further evident in his tendency to use epithets.

The third chapter explores Irving's sentence structure and patterns by using, as an analytical tool, information on at least one feature of what

Morris Croll calls baroque prose style. The chapter concentrates on

Irving's frequent use of loose style or loose periods (sentences). Each of the three Western works contains passages that illustrate the character­ istics of the loose period, including making and then breaking of symmetry and combining, as Croll describes the usage, "the effect of great mass with the effect of rapid motion."^"^

As an example, note the following excerpt from Bonneville:

in the green pastures bordering upon these lakes, the travellers halted to repose, and to give their weary horses time to crop the sweet and tender herbage. They had now ascended to a great height above the level of the plains, yet they beheld huge crags of granite piled one upon another, and beetling like battlements far above them. While two of the men remained in the camp with the horses. Captain Bonneville, accompanied by the other men. set out to climb a neighboring height, hoping to gain a commanding prospect. 18 and discern some practicable route through this stupendous labyrinth. ... As they ascended still higher, there were cool breezes that refreshed and braced them, and springing with new ardor to their task, they at length attained the summit.^^

The passage exemplifies the accumulation of phrases and clauses associ­ ated with the loose period. As Croll indicates, the loose period often necessitates using numerous coordinating conjunctions—evidenced In the passage above. These features, accumulation of phrases and clauses and the attendant coordination, help produce a rambling, often spontaneous effect. Not only would the effect of spontaneity be desirable in the material in general (as this study will demonstrate below), but the accumulation of phrases and clauses in the passage above appropriately suggests progress.

The fourth chapter examines foregrounding, which, Raymond Capman points out. is "the kind of deviation which has the function of bringing some item into artistic emphasis so that it stands out from Its surroundings."^^ In Irving, foregrounding often involves a heightened use of imagery and more frequent figurative language and alliteration than In the "nonforegrounded" passages. Irving introduces the following paragraph 19 from Bonneville by saying that although one would expect rival trappers to remain rivals after the trapping season had ended, just the opposite Is true:

No such thing! Never did rival lawyers, after a wrangle at the bar meet with more social good-humor at a circuit dinner. The hunting season over, all past tricks and manoeuvres are forgotten, all feuds and bickerings buried in oblivion. From the middle of June to the middle of September, all trapping Is suspended: for the beavers are then shedding their furs, and their skins are of little value. This, then, is the trapper's holiday, when he is all for fun and frolic, and ready for a saturnalia among the mountains. (111)

In order to stress the reversal In the trappers' attitudes. Irving fore­ grounds the description. The stylistic devices, such as alliteration and figurative language—including ellipsis in the omissions from "The hunting season over" and "all feuds and bickerings buried"—certainly are observable

In other passages, but here they occur with greater frequency than in the paragraphs immediately preceding and following the foregrounded passage.

The "flight of fancy" emphasizes the actual high-spirited behavior of the trappers: thus, the foregrounding combines form and meaning.

The fifth and final chapter summarizes the foci of the preceding three chapters: selected stylistic features appearing frequently enough or 20 appearing in contexts that make their occurrence noteworthy in relation to any of Irving's overall aims or design. Furthermore, the chapter draws conclusions that are more complete and specifically substantiated than the

vague and general assessments, such as Hedges's comment that Irving,

during the last third of his life, was "deemed capable of handling almost

any topic with grace and distinction."^^

The texts used are the definitive editions published by Twayne

Publishers of Boston under the auspices of The Center for Editions of

American Authors of the Modern Language Association of America: A Tour

on the Prairies in The Crayon Miscellany (1979). edited by Dahlia Terrell;

Astoria: QL. Anecdotes QL m Enterprize Beyond ltl£ Rocky Mountains (1976). edited by Richard Rust; and Iti£ Adventures QL Captain Bonneville (1977), edited by Robert Rees and Alan Sandy. 21

Note?

^Washington Irving, "To Amos Eaton" in Letters. Volume 1. 1802-1823. Ralph M. Aderman, Herbert L. Kleinfield and Jenifer S. Banks, eds. (Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1978). p. 6.

^Nathalia Wright, ed.. Introduction. Journals and Notebooks. Volume 1. 1805-1806. by Washington Irving (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1969). p. xxviii.

%anley T. Williams. The Life of Washington Irving. Volume I (New York: Oxford University Press. 1935). p. 156.

"^Pierre M. Irving. The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. Volume II (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1886), p. 2.

^George Greene. Biographical Studies (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1860). pp. 155-158. 163-165.

^From Bryant's "A Discourse" in Andrew B. Myers, ed.. A Century of Commentary QD iha Work? OL Washington IrvIng (Tarrytown. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1976), p. 17.

^Charles Dudley Warner, Washington Irving (1884: New York: Chelsea House, 1980). pp. 293-294.

^Williams. Vol. II. p. 80.

^See. for example. Terence Martin's "Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagination." American Literature 31 (May 1959), 137-149: Lewis Leary's Washington Irving (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963); Henry Pochmann's "Introduction" to Washington Irving: ReDresent;itivf> Select ions (New York: American Book Company. 1934); Richard Cracroft's Washington Irving: iti£ i/fi£i£m WoilS (Boise. Idaho: Boise State 22

University. 1974); and Wayne Kime's Pierre M. Irving and Washington Irving: A Collaboration in Life and Letters (Waterloo. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 1977).

'^The following are representative of numerous complimentary critical discussions of the works: In "Fallen from Time: The Mythic Rip Van Winkle." Kenyon Review. 22 (1960). 547-573. Philip Young emphasizes Irving's imagery and picturesque style in the creation of the native scenery vital to the story. In Form and Fable jjQ American Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press. 1961). Daniel Hoffman says that "the stylistic control of the atmosphere [in "Sleepy Hollow"] shows Irving's own talent at its best. . . ." In "Tragedy and Irony in Knickerbocker's History." American Literature. 12 (May. 1940). 157-172. Charlton Laird explains that in the Knickerbocker work Irving's style is infused with deep, rich irony and a keen sense of tragedy.

^ ^For discussions of influences on Irving's style, see Philip McFarland's Sojourners (New York: Atheneum, 1979) and Van Wyck Brooks's It]£ World QL Washington Irving (New York: £. P. Dutton & Company. Inc.. 1944). See John Clendenning. "Irving and the Gothic Tradition." infiBudmeliBfivieyj^. 12 (1964). 90-98. for discussion of Irving's gothicism. In the "Introduction" to Rip Van Winkle & The Legend of SleeDg Hollow (Tarrutown. New York: Sleepy Hollow Restorations. 1974). Haskell Springer treats Irving's humorous style. See William Hedges. Washington Irving: AD Aoom^aP SliKlU. 1802-1852 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. 1965). on Romantic style. For discussions of Irving's stylistic diction and spelling, see, respectively. Pochmann's "Introduction" to Washington Irving: Representative Selections and Edward Wagenknecht's Washington Irving: Moderation DisDiaued (New York: Oxford University Press. 1962). Martin Roth does an extended study of Irving's humor, including burlesque and satirical styles in Comedy and America: iti^Lost World QL Washington Irving (Port Washington. New York: Kennikat Press. 1976).

^^see, for example. Hedges, p. viii; see also Leary. p. 41 and Pochmann's "Introduction." pp. Ix-lxxxiv. 23

^^While a comparison of the "finished product" of each of the Western works with the extant sources would be an interesting study in itself, that is beyond the scope of the present study. See Appendix for a sample of the parallel accounts. See also John Joseph's "The Romantic Lie: Irving's 'A Tour on the Prairies' and Stendhal's Promenades dans Rome" in Brodwin, 127-37 for parallel accounts of the bee hunt in Tour. See Wayne Kime's "Washington Irving's Revision of the Tonquin Episode in Astoria." "Western American Literature. 4 (Spring 1969). 51-59.

^'^For a discussion of twenty-year-old Irving on the Canadian frontier, see Williams, Vol. I, pp. 28-34.

^^Irving worked from his own notes and recollections of the tour to fashion the literary account. As always, he gave strict attention to the way he was telling the story. For a discussion of Irving's process of composition of A Tour on the Prairies, see Dahlia Terrell's "Introduction" to The Crayon Miscellany (Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1979).

^^For a discussion of the immediate reception of Tour, see Martha Dula's "Audience Response to A Tour On the Prairies in ISSS," Western American Literature. 8 (Spring and Summer. 1973). 67-74.

^^For an extended treatment of the collaboration, see Kime, particularly pp. 33-35. 39. 42-45. 46-47, 48. 51n. 152, 336. Kime notes from "evidence in the extant portions of the Astoria manuscript it appears that the infrequent corrections Pierre did venture to insert were limited to minor matters of syntax and verbal taste." (p. 47) Richard D. Rust, in the Introduction to his edition of Astoria, concurs, adding that Irving continued to work on Astoria for several months after Pierre left Hell Gate, the Astor mansion. See Rust. Astoria (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), p. xxviii.

^^Pierre M. Irving. Vol. 11. p. 295. 24

^%ee Irving's "Introductory Notice" in The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. Robert A. Rees and Alan Sandy, eds. (Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1977), p. 6. As Sandy explains, the fact that neither Irving's nor Bonneville's manuscripts are extant leaves incomplete the story of the composition of the third Western work. However, Sandy's argument that "it is not certain that Irving contributed the Irvingesque aspects of the book" (p. xxxii) may be somewhat misleading. What Sandy points out is the possibility that Bonneville, In conversations with Irving, was influenced by Irving's literary style. It is hoped this study will demonstrate the close stylistic resemblance among the three Western books so that a more justifiable conclusion may be drawn about Irvingesque style in Bonneville.

^^See. for example. Frederic L. Paxson. History of the American Frontier: 1763-1893 (Cambridge. MA The Riverside Press. 1924). pp. 332-333. Paxson describes Captain Bonneville's trip to the Rocky Mountains, commenting that Irving "immortalized the trip" in his book; then Paxson adds, "The literary exploitation of the Far West began at this time. . . ." (p. 333) See also. Hiram M. Chittenden. The American Fur Trade of the Far West. Volume 1 (New York: Barnes & Noble. Inc., 1935), p. xv; Dan E. Clark. IM West io American History (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 1937), p. 439; Lucy L. Hazard. The Frontier in American Literature (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1927,). p. 117: Lewis 0. Saum. Iti£ EilL Trader SEKI M Indian (Seattle. Washington: University of Washington Press. 1965). pp. 8. 180-181. 183.

2^See. for eyampie. flajor Writers of America. Perry Miller, ed. (New York: Harcourt. Brace and World. 1962): American Poetry and Prose, ed.. Foerster et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1970); and The American Tradition in 1 iterature. I, ed., Bradley et al. (New York : Grosset and Dunlap. 1974).

^^Selected Writings QL Washington Irving, based on the Author's Uniform Revised Edition, originally published by G. P. Putnam in 1860-61 (New York: The Modern Library. 1984).

;^ 25

^"^See. for example. Washington Irving Reconsidered: A Symposium. Ralph M. Aderman. ed. (Hartford: Transcendental Books, 1969). containing two essays on JwL (Kathryn Whitford's "Romantic Metamorphosis in Irving's Western Tour." pp. 31-36 and Dahlia Terrell's "Textual Errors in A Tour on th£ Prairies." pp. 37-40); Wayne Kime "The Completeness of Washington Irving's AliM.mIte Prairies." Western American Literature. 8 (Spring and Summer. 1973). pp. 55-65; Wayne Franklin." The Misadventures of Irving's Bonneville: Trapping and Being Trapped in the Rocky Mountains." In Merrill Lewis's and L. L. Lee's edition of The Westering Experience in American Literature: Bicentennial Essays (Bellingham: Bureau for Faculty Research at Western Washington University, 1977) pp. 122-128; William Bedford Clark, "How the West Won: Irving's Comic Inversion of the Westering Myth in A Tour on the Prairies." American Literature. 50 (November. 1978), 336; William J. Scheick. "Frontier Robin Hood: Wilderness. Civilization and the Half-Breed in Irving's A Tour on the Prairies. Southwestern American Literature. 4 (1974), 14; Dula. see footnote 16.

^"^Edgeley W. Todd, ed., Astoria (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1964). p. xli.

2^See. for example. Vernon L. Parrington. Um Currents in American Thought. Volume 11, Book II (New York: Harcourt. Bruce and Co.. 1927-1930. 1954); John F. McDermott's "Introduction" to The Western Journals QL Washington Irving (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1944); and William B. Cairns. A History of American Literature (New York: Oxford University Press. 1930).

2^Robert Edson Lee. EIQCQ i/gsi IQ £2Sl= Studie? in j^ Literature oL the American West (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1966). pp. 61-69,

^'^wayne R. Kime. "Washington Irving and Frontier Speech," American Speech. 13 (February, 1967), 5-18.

28v/hitford, see note 23. 26 29 ^^John Francis McDermott. ed.. A IfiUL QD il3£ Prairies (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1956). pp. ix. xxxii.

^^Williams. Volume II. pp. 80-81.

^^Dahlia Terrell, personal interview. November 1985. Richard D. Rust, letter to the author, 17 November 1987. Robert A. Rees. telephone interview. 10 December 1987.

^2paul M. Fulcher. Foundations of Fnglish ^ty|^ (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co.. 1927). p. vi.

^^Northrop Frye, IM Well-Tempered Critic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1963), p. 60.

^"^Bennison Gray. SUU£(The Hague: Mouton. 1969), p. 7.

^^Gray. p. 11.

^^Jonas A. Barish. B£D Jonson and IM Language ^ Prose Comedy (Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. 1967). pp. 44-45.

•^^Donald C. Freeman. Linguistics and Literary Style (New York: Holt. Rinehart and Winston. Inc., 1970). p. 258.

^^Huntington Brown. Prose Styles (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1966). p. 3. Brown prefers the term "prose styles" to "prose style" because the latter erroneously implies "a single ideal for all varieties of nonmetrical composition." p. 3.

^%rown. p. 4.

"^^Thomas A. Sebeok. ed.. Style in Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. and Cambridge. MA: The Technology Press of M. I. T., 1960). pp. xv-xvii. 27

41 ^'Richard Ohmann. "Generative Grammars and the Concept of Literary Style." Freeman, ed., pp. 259-262.

^^Barish, p. 44.

"^^Barish. p. 44.

"^^Ohmann, pp. 227. 262.

"^^Morris W. Croll, Style. Rhetoric, and Rhythm: Essays by Morris W. Croll. J. Max Patrick and Robert 0. Evans, eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 219-29.

"^^Anne Cluysennar, Aspects Qt Literary Stylistics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), p. 16.

^^See note 39 .

^^Rulon Wells, "Nominal and Verbal Style," Freeman, ed.. Linguistics and Literary Style (New York: Holt. Rinehart and Winston. Inc.. 1970), pp. 297-306.

^%roll In Patrick and Evans.

^^Raymond Chapman, l Inguistics ml Literature (Edinburgh: T. & A. Constable Ltd., 1973).

^^ Wells in Freeman, p. 301.

52Dahlia K. Terrell, ed.. AIQUL flPM Prairie? in IM Crayon pi see 11 any (Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1979), p. 90. All subsequent references are in parenthesis with page number. 28

^^Richard D. Rust. Astoria: QL Anecdotes QL m. Enterprize fifiufioi tM Rocky Mountains (Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1976). p. 60. All subsequent references are in parenthesis with page number.

^"^Croll. p. 221.

^^Robert A, Rees and Alan Sandy, eds.. IM Adventures QL Captain Bonneville (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977), p. 135. All subsequent references are in parenthesis with page number.

^^Chapman. p. 48.

^^William Hedges, "Washington Irving," in Major Writers of America. Perry Miller, ed., p. 63.

^\ CHAPTER II

NOMINALITY

Throughout the three books on the West. Irving relies extensively on nouns. For Instance, Irving uses nouns and noun phrases exclusively in the chapter headings of all three books.^ Furthermore, within the chapters themselves, Irving frequently opts for nominal—noun—forms, as exem­ plified in the following: "to give a name to" (Astoria. 61). rather than "to name"; "would form a great temptation" (Tour. 22). rather than "would greatly tempt" or "would tempt greatly": and "The wandering whites ... have invariably a proneness to adopt savage habitudes" (Bonneville. 47). rather than "are prone to act savagely." Beyond the anomaly of the dispro­ portionate noun use, one wonders whether this stylistic tendency answers any of Irving's expressed concerns.

Noun usage helps create an effect of stability or permanence, certainly a valuable result for Irving, In that he was concerned that the American

West would soon vanish. In Astoria Irving lamented the transitoriness of

29 30 the frontier:

The march of mechanical Invention is driving everything poeti­ cal before it. The steamboats, which are fast dispelling the wilderness and romance of our lakes and rivers, and aiding to subdue the world Into commonplace, are proving as fatal to the race of the Canadian voyageurs as they have been to that of the boatmen of the Mississippi. (29)

In fact. Irving's concern was part of a longstanding view: in IM Pictorial

Mode. Donald A. RInge points out that Irving had a "lifelong obsession with

the theme of mutability."^

A general correlation between noun use and the sense of permanence or

stability has been described by a number of scholars, employing the term

"stativeness" to refer to the result of noun use. Randolph Quirk, for

example, writes that nouns "can be characterized naturally as 'stative' in

that they refer to entities that are regarded as stable, whether. . .

concrete ... or abstract." ^ Similarly, in an essay entitled "Nominal and

Verbal Style," Rulon Wells defines and discusses the relative merits of the

two styles and comments that nouns are "more static .. . than verbs.""^

Wells also notes that those who advocate nominal style "defend it as a means to an end,"^ a defense relevant to the present study of the 31 correlation between nominality and Irving's Interest In permanence. In a book-length analysis of verbal artistry In the poetry of Frost. Stevens, and

Moore. Marie Borroff contends that "words are called stative or dynamic depending on whether the concepts they signify are regarded as stable or changing, permanent or temporary, absolute or variable."^ Furthermore, she states that "it Is the noun, as signifier of entitles, that is most Intrinsi­ cally stative."^ Particularly pertinent to the present study of Irving Is

James Perrin Warren's use of the terms "stative" and "dynamic"—he cites both Quirk and Borroff for support—in his analysis of Whitman's style in

Song of Myself. In Warren's terms,"... the stative character parallels

Whitman's attempt to retrieve the past."® The same parallel exists in

Irving's Western books.

All of these scholars seem to agree that noun usage produces stative­ ness: one could conclude that reliance on nouns is one way of stabilizing— in a sense preserving—in a literary account. Borroff, in fact, points out in her general discussion of stativeness, "When language attempts to hold its subject matter constant, its grammar inevitably takes on stative characteristics."^ Throughout the three Western books. Irving's style of 32

nominality with its resulting stativeness answers his concern about the

fast-fading West. If the West itself could not be preserved, at least

Irving's treatment of his material about the West helps accomplish a kind

of literary preservation. In Tour. Bonneville, and Astoria, three observable

stylistic features related to Irving's noun usage and producing a sense of

permanence Include Introduction of new vocabulary, use of epithets, and

description with numerous adjectives and adjectival prepositional phrases.

Irving achieves the effect of permanence and. consequently, preserves

part of the transitory West by Introducing new vocabulary. According to

Wayne Kime's article "Washington Irving and Frontier Speech." Irving

recorded "an existing vocabulary."^^ However, the terms were either

appearing in print for the first time or being used in a context different

from any earlier recorded usage. Certainly Irving would benefit from a

presentation that, in Borroff's words, "[held] Its subject matter

constant."^ ^ The overwhelming majority—eighty-six out of ninety-six—of

the terms Kime lists, as recorded by Irving, are nouns. Since the noun

form is stative. Irving was achieving the kind of style he wrote about in

^ 33

the letter to his brother Peter. "I wish ... to write in such a manner. ..

which gives a production some chance for duration.... "^^

One definite feature of Irving's preservation of vocabulary which

correlates with noun use is the focus on objects and places rather than

action per se. For example, in the twenty-third chapter of Bonneville.

Irving introduces the term "bull boats":

All hands now set to work to construct "bull boats." as they are technically called: a light, fragile kind of bark, character­ istic of the expedients and inventions of the wilderness: being formed of buffalo skins, stretched on frames. They are some­ times, also, called skin boats. (125-26)

Irving draws attention to the object itself and the name for it—"'bull

boats.' as they are technically called" and "sometimes, also, called skin

boats"—rather than focusing on the process of construction. Although it is

clear in the narrative that the boats were being built at the time, Irving

simply notes. "All hands now set to work to construct..." (125-26).

Irving's treatment Is similar to that observed by Warren in his discussion

of Whitman: -[he] concentrates on the main objects and persons in the

dramatic scene, while the action—the process of the episode taking place

in time—is subordinate, conceptually as well as grammatically, to the

A 34 timeless, 'motionless' quality of the objects and persons."'^ The remaining comments In Irving's description (after "All hands now set to work to construct") deal with the boat as fait accompli, thus sustaining the stativeness. Consequently, by deemphasizing action and the passage of time and by emphasizing the object and name—noun forms—Irving creates a sense of permanence.

In several other presentations of new vocabulary, Irving focuses on a thing or place in stative terms. To introduce "trapping ground" in Astoria. he writes, "The numerous signs of beaver met with during the recent search for timber gave evidence that the neighborhood was a good 'trapping ground.'" (189-90) The passage contains a high incidence of nouns, typically stasis-producing, in proportion to verbs, typically less static.^"^

Similarly, describing a food called "cowish" or "biscuit root" in Bonneville.

Irving focuses on the object in stative terms, "The cowish. also, or biscuit root [is] about the size of a walnut: which they [the lower Nez Perces

Indians] reduce to a very palatable flour..." (190). Besides the numerous nouns, the choice of the verb "reduce"—rather than dynamic options such as

"grind" or "pound"—helps make the description more stative. Also in 35

Bonneville. Irving draws attention to a Mexican horseman and introduces the term "bottina." a kind of legging: "A Mexican dragoon, for Instance, is represented as arrayed in a round blue jacket, with red cuffs and collar; blue velvet breeches, unbuttoned at the knees to show his white stockings; bottinas of deer skin; a round-crowned Andalusian hat. and his hair queued.'

(214) In this passage Irving "hold[s] subject matter constant" through his noun usage.

Likewise, in other instances. Irving's characteristically stative terminology seems to suspend the action and preserve some aspect of the passing West. In the following excerpt from Bonneville. Irving gives an extended description of the wife of a free trapper and introduces the word

"esquimoot": "From each side of the saddle hangs an esquimoot. a sort of pocket, in which she bestows the residue of her trinkets and nicknacks. which cannot be crowded on the decoration of her horse or herself" (82).

Most of the remainder of the passage deals, in stative terms, with the wife's riding hat. robe, leggins. moccasins, and jewelry. Similarly, in

Tour. Irving introduces the word "lariat." mainly in stative terms (in other words, relying heavily on nouns): 36

He [Tonish. the Frenchman] took the field with a coil of cordage hung at his saddle bow. and a couple of white wands something like fishing rods, eight or ten feet in length, with forked ends. The coil of cordage thus used In hunting the wild horse, is called a lariat, and answers to the laso of South America. (63)

Irving's use of the phrase "coil of cordage" twice before actually giving the name "lariat" certainly contributes to the unusually high incidence of nouns. Also in Tour. Irving uses the term "cross timber" in a primarily stative description:

About midday we reached the edge of that scattered belt of forest land, about forty miles in width, which stretches across the country from north to south, from the Arkansas to the Red River, separating the upper from the lower prairies, and commonly called the "Cross Timber." (62)

Irving sketches a verbal picture in this instance, as well as in those previously mentioned, primarily by using nouns. Given the essentially static or stative character of the noun, the author's stylistic habit helps

"capture" the disappearing frontier—at least in literary form.

The epithet, a device which by definition Involves noun usage. ^^ also enabled Irving to stabilize and give permanence to what was "fast passing

into oblivion." By vividly impressing the reader's Imagination and memory. 37

many of the epithets create a lasting account of the West. Furthermore,

the epithet, as a venerable literary device, allows Irving to ally his

material with literary tradition and thus help to make the source of the

material—the West—seem less transitory. Frequently this alliance takes

the form of an allusive epithet.

The epithet is also stasis-producing because it uses nouns to call the

reader's attention to some particular feature, such as the land itself or

objects and people associated with the land—whether the prairies (in the

case of Irving's first-hand account of his "tour") or the larger far Western

frontier (in the case of Irving's reworking of Astor's and Bonneville's

materials). The first group of epithets, basically non-allusive, includes

those that seem somewhat mundane—such as food—as well as those which

seem like an attempt to characterize entire classes.

For example, at one point early in Tour. Irving describes a group of

rangers gathering around a campfire and being visited by three Osage

Indians. The Indians take the food offered them: however, what they really

desire is coffee, for which Irving uses the epithet "this beverage which

pervades the West" (26). Later in Tour, in a chapter subtitled "A bee hunt."

.\ 38

Irving mentions the phenomenon of rapidly increasing bee populations in the

Far West and refers to the time-honored belief that bees are the advance guard for human civilization by using two epithets: "harbinger of the white man" (29) and "heralds of civilization" (29). In the same chapter, Irving portrays the Indians' enjoyment of honey, "this unbought luxury of the wilderness" (30). In another instance in Tour. Irving has been involved In a buffalo chase that separated him from the rest of the hunting party.

Before rejoining the troop, Irving sights a single black mare; immediately

Impressed by the beauty and Independence of the animal, he refers to it as

"a free rover of the prairies" (88). Near the end of Tour. Irving appropri­ ately devotes an entire chapter to prairie dogs. After several paragraphs discussing such things as appearance, attributes, and behavior of the prairie dogs and commonly held beliefs about them, Irving employs the epithet "this little inhabitant of the prairies" (109). Later in the chapter.

Irving describes a visit that he and a companion made to one of the prairie dog villages. The more Irving observes, the more impressed he is with the so-called moral qualities and dignity of the prairie dog and uses a final epithet, "these little politic animals" (110). 39

Similar epithets in Astoria focus attention on the area and its

Inhabitants. In the opening chapter of Astoria. Irving describes a class of men that arose from the trade between the Canadian shop owners and the

Indians. Initially these men had familiarized themselves with the wilderness by following the Indian hunts: then they began to stock canoes with goods for sale to the Indians and to venture into the most remote areas to sell their wares. These adventurous merchants have the French name Coureurs des bois. "Rangers of the woods." The term itself is an epithet which Irving uses repeatedly (6. 7. 9. 28), but he also adds his own epithet, "these profligates of the wilderness" (8)—so named because they had become "renegades from civilization" (8). Later in Astoria, epithets are used in the account of a party of travelers who lose their horses. A band of Crow Indians frightens the horses belonging to the men led by

Robert Stuart (nephew of one of the partner's on Astor's merchant ship, the

Tonouin). The men become "the unhorsed travellers" (275) and "our unfortunate travellers" (277). While they are unburdening themselves to make their walk easier, they realize they are being watched by someone or something from the top of a cliff. At first they think the watchers are 40 wolves but later decide they are Indian scouts. The epithet used is "these aerial observers" (277).

Finally. In Bonneville, the epithet "the noble minister to the pride, pleasure, and profit of the mountaineer" (48) describes a horse owned by one of the free trappers. Horses owned by the Indians are "those prime articles of Indian wealth, and objects of Indian depredation" (70-71).

Irving also cites Captain Bonneville's details about the class of men referred to above as free trappers and then adds the epithets "these

.;/ rangers of the wilderness" (48) and "these cavaliers of the mountains" (48),

In another epithet in Bonneville. Irving clearly shows that meals were not always what one desired. The Nez Perce Indians welcome Captain

Bonneville and his traveling party to their lodges and their banquet table.

The famished travelers are treated to a feast of nothing but roots, which

Irving refers to as "these humble viands" (172).

Other epithets maintain stasis by fixing the reader's attention on the numerous Indian tribes which Irving writes about in the three books, in

Tour, for example, Indians—Pawnees specifically—are described as "Red children" (88); other epithets for Indians include "those men of iron" (93) 41

and "the solitary and savage rovers of the wilderness" (93). Even though

many of the epithets seem pejorative—in Astoria the Shuckers or Diggers

are "these lonely fugitives among the mountains" (194) and the warring

SIOUX are "these piratical marauders" (118); in Bonneville, the predatory

Indians are frequently called "savage hordes" or "hostile hordes" (126. 221)

—the effect Is one of making these Western inhabitants memorable to the

reader. Inasmuch as the epithets emphasize nouns and thus result in

stativeness, they lend stability and permanence to the literary account of

the subject.

In other instances, the sense of permanence comes from Irving's allu­

sive epithets. Because the allusions draw on a great body of learning, they

help anchor the transitory frontier in a timeless literary world. Because

the allusions, as epithets, are expressed in stative—noun— form, there is

an added dimension of stability or permanence.^^ Irving's allusions range

from the classic and historical to the literary, including a number of

biblical allusions. The intention in citing the representative examples

below is not to place every allusion into a strict category, but rather to give an idea of the breadth and depth of Irving's use of the device. 42

Irving frequently turns to the classics as a source. In Tour, for instance, he alludes to the Spartan and Athenian lawgivers, respectivley. In the reference to the old settler determined to punish the Indian horse thief as "Lycurgus. or rather Draco, of the frontier" (21). He also refers to the handsome but "spoiled" Antolne as "an Adonis of the frontier" (Tour. 16). In

Astoria a group of Astor's employees attempts at night to transport a supply of provisions past a group of Indians thought to be hostile. Clerk

John Reed is carrying a shiny tin box containing papers to be delivered to

Astor. Reed unwittingly leaves the box out. and It catches the moonlight, thus exposing the party's location to the Indians. In describing the scene.

Irving alludes to "the brilliant helmet of Euryalus" (248). the Trojan whose shining helmet exposed him to the enemy during a night raid. In Bonneville.

Milton Sublette—brother of Captain Sublete, the leader of the Rocky

Mountain Fur Company—helps navigate one of the bull boats. Irving calls

Sublette "the Pelorus of this adventurous bark" (222). alluding to one of the

Spartan survivors who later helped build Thebes. Also in Bonneville. Irving describes the trappers' revelry as "saturnalia among the mountains" (111: also see 202). 43

Among the historical or geographical allusions, there is a particularly memorable epithet in^filQciaas Irving alludes to the legendary swiftness of Russian punishment. One of the Russian trading posts was presided over by a hard-drinking Russian count who enjoyed initiating greenhorns. Irving describes one of the escapades:

In proportion as they [the Count and a newly appointed young naval officer] grew fuddled they grew noisy, they quarrelled in their cups: the youngster paid old Baranhoff in his own coin by rating him soundly: in reward for which, when sober, he was taken by the round of four pickets, and received seventy nine lashes, taled out with Russian punctuality of punishment. (332)

Irving's allusion to "Russian punctuality of punishment" moves the story beyond its isolated frame of reference on the frontier. Similarly. Irving refers to the Irishman. John Reed, as "that worthy Hibernian" (Astoria.

312) and "the sturdy Hibernian" (324). In Bonneville. Irving portrays the

Crow Indians as having "a Billingsgate vocabulary of unrivalled opulence."

(223). alluding to the notorious area of London. In Tour, in one of several discussions about wild horses. Irving mentions the possibility that they are descendents of "the pure coursers of the desert, that once bore Mahomet and his warlike disciples across the sandy plains of Arabia" (67). These 44 geographical references certainly enlarge the boundaries of Irving's literary treatment of the West. However, they do so primarily in static terms: that is, through stasis-producing nouns.

Irving's literary treatment, in its use of epithets, also includes a number of strictly literary allusions which lend permanence. For example.

Irving describes John Ryan, the veteran hunter in Tour, as "this real old

Leather stocking" (79), alluding to Cooper's fictional hero of the frontier.

Ryan is one of the more durable characters in Tour, so it seems that

Irving's identification of him with Leatherstocking is more than just superficial. In fact. Irving also refers to Ryan as "the Nestor of the camp"

(56). an allusion to the venerable advisor in The III lad. Also in Tour, the

French Creole nicknamed Tonish is unfavorably characterized by the allusive epithet "Gil Bias of the frontiers" (11). a reference to Le Sage's picaro. Irving alludes to Sinbad in Astoria in a characterization of the elder Stuart, who "rivalled Sinbad in his long tales of the sea" (36). and his description of the lengthy voyage of Astor's chief agent Wilson Price Hunt:

"a year's seafaring that might have furnished a chapter in the wanderings of Sinbad" (336). 45

In both Tour and Bonneville. Irving alludes to Cervantes. One of the old prairie inhabitants is a "hard riding knight errant of the frontier" (Tour.

20). Irving then continues the allusion:

As he drew near to us the gauntness of his figure and ruefulness of his aspect, reminded me of the descriptions of the hero of La Mancha. and he was equally bent on affairs of doughty enterprise, being about to penetrate the thickets of the perilous swamp, within which the enemy lay ensconced. (20)

One of the Nez Perce Indians in Bonneville is depicted as "a heavy clog . . . doltish and taciturn; lazy in the extreme, and a huge feeder" (191). Irving then writes, "this worthy Sancho of the wilderness would take his seat quietly and cozily by the fire . . . eyeing in silence, but with wistful

Intensity of gaze, the savory morsels roasting for supper" (191-92).

Finally, there are numerous epithets involving biblical allusions. All of the following examples occur in Bonneville. The armed, roving bands of

Blackfeet Indians are "Ishmaelites of the first order" (35). "Balaamite mule" (129). an epithet used for one of the trapper's recalcitrant mules. alludes to the story of Balaam's ass in the twenty-second chapter of

Numbers. "The Nimrod of the party" (194) describes a vagabond Indian who took up with Captain Bonneville's party and proved to be "very expert as a 46 hunter" (194). an apt allusion since the Old Testament Nimrod in Genesis

10:9 was "a mighty hunter." The same Indian was also characterized as "a kind of prodigal son" (194), having abandoned the "precepts and imperative commands of the chiefs" (194).

All of the aforementioned epithets, whether or not allusive, help reinforce an established tradition: the simple epithets, because they are conventional forms; and the allusions, because they are grounded in a rich heritage. Furthermore, the compactness of the epithet and its essentially

"noun" composition make it one of the most immediately recognizable aspects of Irving's style of nominality. Both the form and the sense conveyed exert Influence in holding onto the Western scene.

One of Irving's most effective means of achieving permanence in the

Western books is through memorably vivid description of scenes and people.

The description depends to a great extent on the unusually generous use of adjectives and adjectival prepositional phrases. Seldom is a noun left unmodified. Of course, adjectives, grammatically, work in conjunction with nouns. Wells, for instance, has observed. "[It is a] fact of syntax that adjectives go with nouns.. . ."^^ Furthermore, Quirk and others maintain 47 that adjectives are "predominantly" and "characteristically" stative.^®

Thus, the stativeness associated with noun use Is enhanced by Irving's imagery and focus on detail, both effected through adjective use: and stativeness tends to "hold subject matter constant" so that it is preserved, made more permanent. Specifically, Irving is most memorable in presenting and preserving the grandeur and sensuousness of the Western landscape and Its characters.

Engraving a lasting image in the reader's Imagination, Irving uses adjectives in numbers proportionate to the expansive lands he was describing. One passage from Tour (39-41). in which Irving describes crossing the Arkansas River, contains eighty adjectives, excluding articles and personal possessive forms. Similar passages on navigating the

Missouri River in Astoria (94-95) and the Nebraska in Bonneville (20-21) contain seventy-four and sixty-one adjectives, respectively. To engage the reader's senses in these three passages, Irving uses single adjectives such as "sleek," "savoury." "woody." "lofty," "golden," "chilling," "buoyant."

-turbulent." "sunken," "zig zag." "craggy," "wayward." "high rolling."

"glowing." "mantling." and "rustling." Irving also uses a great number of 48 pairs of adjectives, further elaborating or delineating the description. For example, the passage just cited from IQUL contains twelve pairs of adjectives: "steep, crumbling": "deep, rapid": "better, fording"; "dried, buffalo": "small, eyelet": "trussed up, ready": "half serious, half comic":

"proud, saturnine": "broad, sandy"; "long, shining": "high, embowered":

"yellow, autumnal."^^ In passages such as these. Irving's word-pictures seem suggestive of the landscape paintings of such nineteenth-century artists as Frederic Church. Thomas Cole. George Bingham, and Albert

Bierstadt.2^ Irving captures every possible element of the image he wishes to preserve.

Irving's depiction of character depends heavily on adjective use to give insight Into personality and behavior and thus preserve and immortalize characters of the West. For example. Irving's observation In Tour of the

Irony Involved when otherwise intrepid Indians are plagued with super­ stition is no less memorable than his elaborate descriptions of places and physical characteristics.^^ In instances such as this. Irving's adjective use does much more than appeal to the reader's senses: it reveals person­ ality and character. 49

A particularly memorable instance of Irving's treatment of personality is that of Pierre Beatte. the half-French. half-Osage hunter in Tour.

Initially. Irving admits disliking Beatte's "looks" and then proceeds to describe Beatte's physical appearance. Soon, however, Irving begins to comment on the hunter's personality and behavior. Beatte is "cold and

laconic" (16). "superior" (18) to people around him. He is "mortified" (37) when he has an unsuccessful hunt and later exhibits "dogged discontented"

(39) behavior when Irving reprimands him for provoking and killing a pole cat. On subsequent pages Irving uses adjectives such as "vast" (41) and

"sovereign" (54) to describe the contempt Beatte has for the novices he accompanies. Strictly speaking, the adjectives "statue-like" (68), which

Irving uses to describe Beatte's overall demeanor, and "sardonic" (70), which he uses specifically to describe Beatte's smile, may refer to out­ ward appearance: however, they actually seem consistent with personality traits Irving notes in Beatte. The ordinary "imperturbable" (70) Beatte is

"discomfited" (91) by his adventure with a bear, and his characteristic reticence eases. Shortly thereafter, he composes himself and becomes once again the "taciturn Beatte" (95). With Beatte. as with several other 50 individuals In Tour. Irving proves that his ability to describe extends beyond the physical description to the delineation of character.

In Astoria and Bonneville also, even though Irving was not present to observe and comment firsthand on personalities in the way that he was in

Tour, he maintains his principle of depicting not just appearance but substance as well. In Astoria. Jonathan Thorn, captain of the ill-fated

Tonquin. is presented early in the book as "honest, straight forward, but somewhat dry and dictatorial" (33). On following pages, Irving reminds readers that the Captain is "crusty and dogged" (37). "techy and harsh" (37.

50). "Inflexible" (39). "anxious" (43), and "Impatient" (57)—adjectives which reinforce the portrayal of Thorn as an intractable character and which foreshadow the Captain's demise when, in his typical obstinance, he does not heed M'Kay's warning that the Indians who board the ship are armed. (73-75) In Bonneville, the adjective used most frequently to describe Bonneville himself is "worthy" (see pages 14, 18. 58. 72. Ill,

268): he is also characterized as "buoyant" (20) in spirit, "genial" (20, 69). and "kind" (69). Whether recalling his association with individuals he had travelled with and knew Intimately or drawing from his storehouse of 51 knowledge and description. Irving vividly depicts people in the three

Western books. His keen representation of human traits and behavior results in large measure from his deft adjective use—the natural accompaniment to nouns and thus an integral part of the static portrayal.

Irving's liberal use of evocative adjectives to capture and preserve all aspects of the West Involves numerous, often consecutive, prepositional phrases used as adjectives. For example. Irving describes an encampment in the following sentence from Tour: -it was in a grove of scrub oaks, on the borders of a deep ravine, at the bottom of which were a few scanty pools of water" (73). Of the seven prepositional phrases which form the bulk of the sentence, five modify nouns, thus functioning as adjectives. In

Astoria, the frequent adjectival use of prepositional phrases is similarly illustrated by five of the prepositional phrases in the following sentence which refers to the attempts to end the treachery among rival traders: "To put an end to these sordid and ruinous contentions several of the principal merchants of Montreal entered into a partnership in the winter of 1783. which was augmented by amalgamation with a rival company in 1787" (9).

In Ronneville. Irving describes the indifferent departure of some trappers 52 from the scene of a murder. One of their number had discovered that his traps were missing and summarily vowed to "kill the first Indian he should meet" (208). The trapper soon fulfilled his pledge. Irving's description employs several prepositional phrases, most of them adjectivally: "The trappers now left the scene of this Infamous tragedy, and kept on west­ ward, down the course of the river, which wound along with a range of mountains on the right hand, and a sandy, but somewhat fertile plain, on the left" (208). Inasmuch as noun use results in stativeness and the effect of stability ml because adjectives accompany nouns, thus tending to enhance the effect of stability, the use of adjectival prepositional phrases further enhances the effect. One further notices in the passages just quoted—even among the prepositional phrases not used adjectivally—a number of prepositional phrases which Indicate position, or in Quirk's words, "static locatlon."^^ Examples are "on the borders." "at the bottom,"

"on the right hand." and "on the left." This particular type of prepositional phrase which gives definite location thus seems to help Irving emphasize the "state" of the West. 53

The preceding discussion has attempted to establish a link between certain aspects of Irving's characteristically extensive noun usage and

Irving's expressed concern about a part of America that soon would be gone. Without necessarily asserting that Irving consciously and exclusively chose noun forms, one can demonstrate that Irving's ^a^ of expressing content was consistent with overall design: not just regard for style but interest in a type of preservation. Although Irving could not control the passage of time and the fading of a way of life, he would invest his literary account with immutable qualities through the essentially stative character of the Western books. Whether informing his audience about terminology, or succinctly characterizing with epithets, or giving vivid description of people and scenes. Irving maintained command of a purposeful style. 54

Notes

^See. for example. IQUL "Chapter 111." p. 14 (An Indian Agency- Riflemen—Osages. Creeks, trappers, dogs, horses, half breeds—Beatte the huntsman): Astoria. "Chapter XII." p. 80 (Gloom at Astoria—An ingenious stratagem—The small pox chief—Launching of the Dolly—An arrival—A Canadian trapper—A Freeman of the forest—An Iroquois hunter—Winter on the Columbia—Festivities of New Year); Bonneville. "Chapter XX." p. 111 (Gathering of Green River valley—Visitings and feastings of leaders- Rough wassailing among the trappers—Wild blades of the mountains- Indian belles—Potency of bright beads and red blankets—Arrival of supplies—Revelry and extravagance—Mad wolves—The lost Indian).

^Donald A. RInge. The Pictorial Mode (Lexington. KY: The University Press of Kentucky. 1971). p. 27.

^Randolph Quirk. Sidney Greenbaum. Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman. 1986). p. 74.

"^Wells. p. 302.

^Wells. p. 303.

^Marie Borroff, LaDgU2fl£ ml iM Eoel (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1979). p. 96.

^Borroff. p. 97.

^James Perrin Warren. "The 'Real Grammar': Deverbal Style in 'Song of Myself.'" American Literature 56 (March 1984). 12.

%orroff. p. 97. 55

^Kime, "Washington Irving and Frontier Speech." 7.

^ ^Borroff. p. 97.

^^Seep. 2 of Chapter I.

^ ^Warren. 12.

'"^Borroff explains that disproportionately high noun use produces stasis whereas disproportionately high verb use tends toward the dynamic. Borroff's studies show that the average finite verb element (f.v.e.) is 16.4 percent (in a sentence). She arrives at this figure by analyzing multiple examples of various types of discourse (pp. 92-96). The example quoted from Astoria is 13 percent: the subsequent example from Bonneville is .5 percent.

^^These very fundamental definitions are given simply to remind the reader of the connection between epithet and noun usage: "epithet"-" . . . strictly an adjective or adjective phrase used to point out a characteristic of a person or thing ... but sometimes applied to a noun or noun phrase used for a similar purpose." (A Handbook to Literature, p. 181) "epithet"-"a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing" (Webster's New Collegiate).

^^See discussion on pp. 31-32 above.

I'^Wells. p. 300.

^^Quirk. pp. 74. 434.

^ ^Irving seems to be extending and emphasizing his description through numerous pairs and even larger groups of adjectives. The Missouri River section in Astoria has seven pairs of adjectives—"high, cold": "wide, open": "slow, tedious"; "jagged, pointed": "cold, alert"; "chanted, responded"; 56

"assiduous, persevering"—one group of three adjectives—"motionless, spellbound, opposite"—and one group of four adjectives—"patient, disheartened, fertile, versed" (pp. 94-95) Frequently, in these groups of adjectives, one notices that an added adjective provides not new description but only a slightly different emphasis or focus. There are shades or nuances—sometimes almost synonymous terms—as in "slow, tedious." "jagged, pointed." and "assiduous, persevering." Similar patterns are observable in the "Nebraska" section in Bonneville: "rugged and broken"; "wild, inaccessible"; "swift, strong" and "wild, solitary" (p. 21) In these and in many other passages. Irving's adjective usage is pervasive.

^^Ringe explains. "The immensity of space as opposed to the smallness of man had been a primary condition of American life for two hundred years, and even at the beginning of the nineteenth century a spacious continent waited to be filled. It was only natural, then, that Americans should have been deeply moved by the perception of almost limitless space, and that writers from Bryant to Frank Norris and painters from Cole to Albert Bierstadt should have deliberately sought to express in their writings and paintings the spaciousness they perceived in the external landscape. . . . One need only turn to the travel literature written and published from the closing years of the eighteenth century on, to perceive that the art of Bryant, Irving, and Cooper was based upon an aesthetic and philosophic attitude toward nature that had thoroughly permeated American life. . . . Indeed, wherever one turns in the travel literature of the times, he is likely to find one or more set descriptions of a vast landscape . . ." (18-19)

^Mrving notes. "The least sign of mystic and sinister portent is sufficient to turn a hunter or warrior from his course, or to fill his mind with apprehensions of impending evil" (Tour, p. 93).

22Quirk. p. 675.

^ CHAPTER 111

IRVING'S SENTENCES

Irving reveals his style in the Western books not only in noun usage. but also In a larger unit of language, the sentence. Early in the first of the three books, one observes a feature typical of all three works: long, often intricate, sentences.^ Midway through the opening paragraph of Tour, for example, Irving describes the nomadic life of several Indian tribes:

Their hunters and "braves" repair thither In numerous bodies during the season of game, throw up their transient hunting camps, consisting of light bowers, covered with bark and skins, commit sad havoc among the Innumerable herds that graze the prairies, and having loaded themselves with venison and Buffalo meat, warily retire from the dangerous neighborhood. (9-10)

Two paragraphs later Irving gives the background of the commissioner appointed to oversee the Indian settlement:

The greater part of his days had been passed in the bosom of his family and the society of deacons, elders and select men, on the peaceful banks of the Connecticut: when suddenly he had been called to mount his steed, shoulder his rifle and mingle among stark hunters, back woodsmen and naked savages, on the trackless wilds of the Far West. (10)

57 58

Finally, Irving concludes the opening chapter of Tour with a sentence

covering nine lines.^ Similarly, in the opening chapter of Astoria, the

second sentence of the first paragraph reads:

While the fiery and magnificent Spaniard, inflamed with the mania for gold, has extended his discoveries and conquests over those brilliant countries scorched by the ardent sun of the tropics, the adroit and buoyant Frenchman and the cool and calculating Briton have pursued the less splendid, but no less lucrative, traffic in furs amidst the hyperborean regions of the Canadas, until they have advanced even within the Arctic Circle. (5)

The second sentence in the second paragraph is almost as long.^ The last

of the three books, Bonneville, begins with a paragragh in which the first

three sentences occupy six lines each. Then, the following sentence.

certainly a tour de force, appears in the first paragraph of Chapter Xll in

Bonneville-

The hunting parties of white men and red men. continually sallying forth and returning: the groups at the various en­ campments, some cooking, some working, some amusing themselves at different games; the neighing of horses, the braying of asses, the resounding strokes of the axe. the sharp report of the rifle, the whoop, the halloo, and the frequent burst of laughter, all in the midst of a region suddenly roused from perfect silence and loneliness by this transient hunters' sojourn, realized, he says, the idea of a "populous solitude." (69)

hN 59

The intricacy or structural complexity which these sentences generally exhibit, in addition to their great length. Is not necessarily a complexity in the grammatical sense of dependent-independent clause but rather a complexity in the sense of Sheridan Baker's comment that complex sentences are "at their best really simple sentences gloriously delayed and elaborated.""^ For example, in the passages quoted above, the sentences are replete with accumulated phrases and clauses. Sentence length and complexity—or intricacy—are apparent enough: however, benefits of lengthy, complex sentences may be less obvious.

To discover such a benefit, it is crucial to recall that in Tour. Astoria, and Bonneville. Irving was dealing with a massive amount of material about an area unfamiliar to most of his readers.^ One should also recall two additional significant facts: first, although Irving himself had been on the

"tour." more than two years elapsed between his journey and his completing

Tour for publication:^ second, in both Astoria and Bonneville. Irving was re-forming material gathered by other writers.^ Consequently, the wealth of material in all three books would gain from added immediacy or spontaneity as Irving wrote of people, places, and events remote and/or 60 indirectly obtained. Certain stylistic devices related to sentence length or structure efficiently gave that spontaneity and vitality to the material.

These stylistic devices include absolute-participle construction, broken symmetry, and chain-1 ike structure.

An absolute construction can take many forms. For example, Pence's and Emery's A Grammar Qi Present-Day English defines an absolute as "any expression (word, phrase, or clause) used independently—that is, so used that it has little or no grammatical function in the statement in which it appears."® However, it is the "connection"—actually the lack thereof—of the absolute to the rest of its sentence that Is most relevant to the present study. Quirk describes an absolute as an element bound neither

"explicitly" nor "syntactically" to the main clause.^ The following examples of absolute construction in the Western books, intentionally chosen for their brevity, illustrate the type of absolute Irving frequently used: "The Captain being absent it was no longer possible to restrain the ardour of the young hunters" (Tour. 72). "The canoe proving too small another horse was killed, and the skin of it joined to that of the first"

(^Sisn^2}9). "The salmon being now completely cooked, they all joined 61 heartily in supper" (Bonneville. 241) (emphasis added to illustrate the absolute elements). The apparent freedom of the absolute construction in its role in the sentence provides a useful dimension, spontaneity, explained more fully in the following paragraphs.

Although absolutes, as Quirk explains, "may be -Ing. -ed. or verbless clauses."^^ Irving typically uses the iog absolute, as in the following passage describing Astor's application to the President of the United

States for protection of the settlement of Astoria:

The application, approved and recommended by Mr. Galatin, one of the most enlightened statesmen of our country, was favorably received, but no step was taken In consequence, the President not being disposed, in all probability, to commit himself by any direct countenance or overt act. (Astoria. 354)

This sentence, characteristic of Irving's use of what Quirk terms the -ing absolute clause, is much more elaborate than the illustrations previously cited. However, it follows the same basic pattern: an absolute element—

"the President not being disposed . . ."—not bound syntactically to the main clause—"The application ... was favorably received " The value this sentence pattern produces in the Western books is the effect of sponta­ neity, a phenomenon of "loose style" described below. 62

Irving's use of the absolute-participle construction quite naturally produces spontaneity In the Western books. Explaining this "production" as an aspect of loose style. Croll contends that "the absolute construction is the one that commits itself least and lends itself best to the solution of difficulties that arise in the course of spontaneous and unpremeditated progress."^ ^ The rationale is that the more apparent the connection between two elements in a sentence, the greater the effect of conscious effort; the less apparent the connection, the greater the effect of spontaneity. An absolute element will, of course, have "a logical relation

to its sentence." ^^ Often Irving uses an absolute participle, as in the

following excerpt from Astoria:

Unluckily the war which broke out in 1812 between Great Britain and the United States suspended the association; and. after the war. it was entirely dissolved: Congre?? having p^c;c^<:>(1 a l^w prohibiting British fur traders from prosecuting fhpjr f^nterpri7es within the territories of the United States. (17) (emphasis added to indicate the absolute element)

Irving has indicated a causal relationship without the usual and conspicu­

ous subordinate conjunctions, such as "since" or "because." Thus, there 63 seems to be the effect of unimpeded movement and the suggestion of spontaneity, as a result of the absolute construction.

This kind of spontaneity is particularly effective as an Illustration of the merging of form and content In the following instance in Astoria, in which Irving describes the difficulty that the trading ship Tonquin and its crew encountered at one point on the Columbia River: He [Mr. Aiken, the ship's commander] was then within pistol shot, but so furious was the current, and tumultuous the breakers that the boat became unmanageable, and was hurried away, the crew crying out piteously for assistance" (53)

(emphasis added). In this passage, the spontaneity and immediacy requisite for the content—the event being described—are aided by the form—the use of the absolute element, "the crew crying out piteously for assistance."

The grammatical structure (the absolute participle) parallels the

"spontaneous and unpremeditated" in the narrated event: the ship's crew becomes separated and almost lost when a party is sent ahead to take soundings.

According to Pence and Emery, the absolute construction can be "an effective device for the unobstrusive insertion of descriptive and narrative 64

detalls."^^ When one recalls that Irving was working with a great mass of

material, it seems that any element of style enabling him to convey the

material efficiently would have been advantageous. The following excerpt

from Bonneville illustrates the kind of efficiency possible with an absolute

element:

Fitzpatrlck. an experienced trader and trapper, knew the evils of competition In the same hunting grounds, and had proposed that the two companies should divide the country, so as to hunt in different directions: this proposition being rejected, he had exerted himself to get first into the field. (52)

The absolute element, "this proposition being rejected," more efficiently

expresses the content than a variation such as "because this proposition

had been rejected." It eliminates the subordinating conjunction and the

finite verb. Thus Irving conveys the detail—in this case, the description

of Fitzpatrlck and his proposal—but reduces the method of conveying.

In a similar example two pages later. Irving describes a group of

Indians responding to Captain Bonneville's invitation to join his encampment:

They halted for a short time to make their toilette, an operation as important with an Indian warrior as with a fashionable beauty. This done, they arranged themselves in martial style. 65

the chiefs leading the van. the braves following in a long line, painted and decorated, and topped off with fluttering plumes. (54-5)

Irving uses three absolute elements in this passage. "This done." an even more abbreviated absolute form than usual, is a variation on "this being done." Irving's more typical absolute forms, "the chiefs leading the van" and "the braves following in a long line." efficiently add "descriptive and narrative details." As is usually the case with the absolute, the actual number of words left out—in the "efficient" handling—is not large. The point, however, is that the absolute element creates the appearance or effect of greater movement, thus energizing the style and adding spontaneity.

The spontaneity Irving achieves comes not only from the obvious absolute-participle construction, but also from participial constructions which Croll. in his discussion of loose style, characterizes as "... the kind scornfully called 'dangling' by the grammarians."^^ This usage occurs in the following excerpt from IQUL as Irving is about to cross the Arkansas

River in a boat made of dried buffalo skin: "Our men having recrossed with their cockleshell bark, it was drawn on shore, half filled with saddles. 66 saddle bags and other luggage amounting to at least a hundred weight and being again placed In the water I was invited to take my seat" (40). The first element, "Our men having recrossed with their cockleshell bark," illustrates the kind of absolute-participle construction already mentioned above. However, the final part of the sentence, "being again placed in the water I was invited to take my seat," clearly contains a dangling parti­ ciple. As Croll is quick to point out, this kind of usage indicates not a poor grammarian—as Irving certainly was not—but rather one whose writing suggests a certain spontaneity and vitalIty.^^

A similar example occurs later In Tour in the description of the

Captain's having been watched by two men he suspected were Indian spies:

"Knowing that the. Indians are apt to have their spies and centinels [sic] thus posted on the summit of naked hills, commanding extensive prospects, his doubts were increased by the suspicious movements of these men" (76).

With reference to style, the effect in this and analogous instances^^ is the apparent absence of premeditation—an absence which lends immediacy to the treatment of the material. 67

Another sentence feature which creates the effect of spontaneity is broken symmetry. Before examining Irving's broken symmetry, one should first observe that Irving does indeed use symmetrical construction,^^ such

as the simple symmetry illustrated in the following passages from Astoria

and Tour, respectively: "The old French houses engaged in the Indian trade

had gathered round them a train of dependents, mongrel Indians and mongrel

Frenchmen, who had Intermarried with Indians" (92). "1 sprang off of my

horse in an instant, cast him loose to make his way to the corn crib, and

entered this palace of plenty" (121) (emphasis added). The repeated

adjective "mongrel." along with the proper nouns, in the first sentence and

the series of three past tense verb phrases in the second demonstrate a

rather basic symmetry or parallelism. Sometimes, however, the paral­

lelism is more Involved or complex, as in the following excerpt from

Astoria: "... now and then the samioaot a t\(^(l\e, a strain Ot an ancient

French song, or the sound of billiard balls . . ." (93) (emphasis added). The

symmetry exists in the series of alliterative nouns, each followed by a

prepositional phrase beginning with "of." Both kinds of symmetry, simple

and involved, indicate some degree of deliberate or conscious artistry on 68 the part of the author. Of course, if one maintains that symmetry or parallelism is automatic with a stylist such as Irving, the symmetry may simply give the illusion or effect of deliberation. In either case, broken symmetry—disrupted parallelism—can produce an effect opposite of deliberateness, spontaneity.^®

An Instance of broken symmetry producing the effect of spontaneity occurs in the following lengthy sentence in Astoria, wherein Irving describes a typical French merchant in the early days of Canada:

He had his clerks, canoemen and retainers of all kinds, who lived with him on terms of perfect sociability, always calling him by his christian name: he had his harem of Indian beauties, and his troop of half breed children, nor was there ever wanting a lout ing train of Indians, hanging about the establishment, eating and drinking at his expense in the intervals of their hunting expeditions. (8)

In the first two independent clauses. Irving creates symmetry in the active voice "he had." Then he changes the pattern, thus breaking the symmetry. by using passive voice in the third Independent clause: "... nor was there ever wanting a louting train of Indians...." Moreover, the use of broken symmetry follows the logic of the passage in that the people described in the earlier, symmetrical part of the sentence (clerks, canoemen. retainers. 69 harem, children) may be thought of as assets to the merchant whereas those described in the later, asymmetrical part (the hangers-on) are a liability, and they are engaged in "passive" activities.

In a similar example from Chapter XIX of Tour. Irving describes the both frightening and comical fording of a deep stream: "Fortunately I escaped without injury, regained my steed, crossed the stream without further difficulty, and was enabled to join in the merriment occasioned by the ludicrous disasters of the fording" (64). The symmetry of active voice in the verbs "escaped." "regained." and "crossed" is broken with the passive voice "was enabled." In fact. Irving's use of "enabled" rather than just

"able" even seems to exaggerate the passive voice, thus drawing attention to the variation from the symmetrical pattern and reinforcing the effect of spontaneity.

In the examples cited above, broken symmetry occurs strictly in terms of active and passive voice. However, as the definitions indicate (see note

17). broken symmetry can involve disruption in any pattern of corre­ spondence or congruity. For instance, in the following passage from pr^nn^^'^^Q- ^^^^^ 's disruption in a pattern of sound as Irving distinguishes 70

Mountaineers from traders and trappers: "A man [mountaineer] who bestrides a horse, must be essentially different from a man who cowers in

a canoe [a trapper or trader]" (11). Irving continues, "We find them [the

mountaineers], accordingly, hardy, lithe, vigorous and active: extravagant in

word, and thought, and deed; heedless of hardship, daring of danger, prodi­

gal of the present, and thoughtless of the future" (11). In this instance.

Irving establishes symmetry in the alliterative pairs: "heedless."

"hardship"; "daring." "danger": "prodigal." "present." He then disrupts or

breaks the symmetry in the fourth phrase: "thoughtless of the future."

There is a definite effect of spontaneity in such a change or disruption.

Furthermore, there is an added dimension to the method and its result when

the reader recalls that two sentences earlier Irving noted that the

mountaineers are "a more lively and mercurial race than the fur traders and

trappers ..." (11). Irving's broken symmetry subtly echoes the changea­

ble, erratic nature of the mountaineers.

The following passage from Tour also involves sound, along with

grammatical structure, in the broken symmetry. Irving describes the

"preparations for departure" from camp: 71

Horses driven in from the purlieus of the camp; rangers riding about among rocks and bushes in quest of others that had strayed to a distance: the bustle of packing up camp equipage and the clamour after kettles and frying pans borrowed by one mess from another, mixed up with oaths and exclamations at restive horses, or others that had wandered away to graze after being packed: among which the voice of our little Frenchman Tonish was particularly to be distinguished. (45-46)

The first two phrases (beginning "Horses driven" and "rangers riding"), each composed of a noun followed Immedlatley by a verb form, establish a pattern of sound in that all four two-syllable words have a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Then the third phrase ("the bustle of packing . . .") begins with the unstressed "the" and is composed of an article and a noun, followed by a prepositional phrase. Thus, the pattern, both of sound and grammatical structure, has been borken. The sentence then begins almost to acquire a "life" of its own. emphasizing the spontaneity associated with broken symmetry, as it (the sentence) becomes convoluted and cumbersome. In a real sense, form merges with content as the disrupted symmetry underscores the disorder and disarray when camp is "broken." 72

In the example above, one aspect of broken symmetry is the Imbalance due to the sheer length of the third element In proportion to the first two elements of the sentence. As Croll explains. "In a prose style asymmetry may be produced by varying the length of the members within a period

[sentence]."^^ For Instance. Irving's broken symmetry in the following description from Astoria Involves length as well as grammatical structure:

For a long summer day they [Stuart and his fellow travelers] continued onward without halting: a burning sky above their heads, a parched desert beneath their feet, with just wind enough to raise the light sand from the knolls, and envelope them in stifling clouds. (262)

The phrases "a burning sky above their heads" and "a parched desert beneath

their feet" are identical—symmetrical—in length and structure. After

establishing symmetry, Irving disrupts it with the final phrase (beginning

"with just") that is considerably longer and different In structure from the preceding two phrases. A comparable passage describes a storm which the

Tonouin encounters: "The wind whistled, the sea roared, the gloom was only broken by the ghastly glare of the foaming breakers ..." (Astoria.

53). In this sentence, as in the one cited earlier, two identically symmetrical elements are followed by an element that disrupts the pattern 73 in length and structure (a change from active voice to passive). The variation in pattern in these instances further contributes to the effect of spontaneity.

The point of citing examples of broken symmetry is not that Irving uses the device extensively. Naturally, for it to be used effectively, it must be used sparingly—certainly less often than (unbroken) symmetry.

Nevertheless, broken symmetry adds the valuable ingredient of spontaneity.

Irving achieves spontaneity or vitality in the three books not only through the absolute construction and broken symmetry, but also through the chain-like structure of his typically long sentences. "Chain-like" In this context refers to the joining of ideas almost like the links of a chain: one joined to the end of the other, and so on.^^ This principle is illus­ trated in the following description of Captain Bonneville's opportunistic but futile attempt to out-maneuver a Hudson's Bay businessman in trading with the Indians:

The Hudson's Bay trader was a perfect master of his business; thoroughly acquainted with the Indians he had to deal with, and held such control over them, that none dared to act openly in opposition to his wishes: nay. more—he came nigh turning the 74 tables upon the captain, and shaking the allegiance of some of his free trappers, by distributing liquors among them. (Bonneville. 103)

The above passage is chain-like in that in most cases each separate idea or

"member" proceeds from—as does the link of a chain—or depends on the preceding "member" or idea. Beginning with the first clause, the individual ideas are separated from each other by punctuation: the semicolon, the first two commas, the colon, the comma following "captain" and the comma following "trappers." respectively. In describing the general character­ istics of chain-like structure. Croll explains that this type of sentence or period "begins . . . without premeditation, stating its idea in the first form that occurs" (for example. "The Hudson's Bay trader was a perfect master of his business"): Croll continues, "the second member is determined by the situation in which the mind finds itself after the first has been spoken"

(for example, "thoroughly acquainted with the Indians he had to deal with"): then Croll concludes, "and so on throughout the period, each member being an emergency of the situation."^^

More notable, however, than the spontaneity suggested by the basic chain-like structure ("each member being an emergency") is the effect of 75

spontaneity created with the use of "nay, more—he came nigh turning the

tables...." Here Irving has given the impression of extemporizing. The

impression that the sentence is not "made" but rather "becomes" is

functional. In other words, the sentence seems to express "the order in

which an Idea presents itself when It is first experienced."^^

In a similar passage in Tour, the chain-like structure suggests

spontaneity. The following description comes from the chapter on prairie

dogs:

Some say that they [the owls] only inhabit cells which the prairie dogs have deserted and suffer to go to ruin, in conse­ quence of the death In them of some relative. IQL they would make out this little animal to be endowed with keen sensibili­ ties, that will not permit it to remain in the dwelling where it has witnessed the death of a friend. (109) (emphasis added to indicate the chain-like structure or the effect of accumula­ tion)

In the excerpt above, the numerous phrases and clauses, or "links," give the

effect of accumulation. This effect is particularly evident in the adjective

clauses because each one modifies or proceeds from the word immediately

before it (specifically the clauses above introduced by "which," "that." and

"where"). Barish explains that the result of this kind of sentence is "to

^ 76 reduce to its minimum the interdependence of the successive members, to give the period, at any moment, a thrust forward into new areas."^^ The adjective clauses thus contribute to the effect of spontaneity in that each is linked to the end of an idea—rather than proceeding from an entire idea or rather than modifying a word earlier than the one immediately prior, as in an adverbial clause—and thereby makes the sentence seem to be In the process of developing: this process Is what was meant by "the period becomes."^^

The following excerpt from Tour, though somewhat shorter than the previous example with regard to accumulation of Ideas, has the same chain-like structure illustrative of the effect of spontaneity:

They [the Pawnees] had their scouts and sentinels on the summit of the mounds which command a view over the prairies, where they lay crouched In the tall grass only now and then raising their heads to watch the movements of any war or hunting party IMI might be passing in lengthened line below. (54) (emphasis added to indicate "links" In the structure)

The action described in this passage is minimal, yet the description contains a kind of vitality or energy different from that ordinarily associated with action: There is a sense of forward movement in the 77

clauses signaled by "which." "where." and "that" because they proceed

directly from the words they modify with, to use Barish's words, a

"minimum" of "interdependence" to impede them.

In the same way that the relative pronouns in the example above

facilitate forward movement, coordinating conjunctions in certain

instances also create forward movement. In the following excerpt from

Tour. Irving describes the severity with which an old squatter wishes to

punish an Indian whom he suspects of stealing a horse:

Such [punishment], however, is too often the administration of law on the frontier. "Lynch's law." as it is technically termed, in which the plaintiff is apt to be witness, jury, judge, ml executioner, ml the defendant to be convicted. acKLpunished on mere presumption: ^n^ jn this way I am convinced, are occa­ sioned many of those heart burnings ml resentments among the Indians which lead to retaliation, ml end in Indian wars. (20) (emphasis added)

In his discussion of the loose period. Croll maintains that coordinating

conjunctions "allow the mind to move straight on from the point it has

reached."^^ Consequently, the style or manner of expression In a passage

such as the one above creates its own type of energy or vitality.

iN 78

The following excerpt from Astoria comparably uses coordinating conjunctions. Irving is describing the Indian tribes along the Missouri

River:

They were in continual war with each other; and their wars were of the most harassing kind, consisting, not merely of main conflicts and expeditions of moment, involving the sacking, burnings and massacres of towns and villages, but of individual acts of treachery, murder and cold blooded cruelty: or of vaunting and fool hardy exploits of single warriors, either to avenge some personal wrong, or gain the vain glorious trophy of a scalp. (Ill)

The extensive use of conjunctions in this description emphasizes CroU's point that these "are the loose conjunctions, and disjoin the members they join as widely as posslble."^^ Thus, the freedom or latitude which the conjunctions give the passage above harmonizes with the effect of spontaneity emphasized in the preceding discussion.

Since this discussion began with an observation about Irving's lengthy sentences in the Western books, the question arises whether the aspects of sentence structure discussed directly bear on sentence length. Concerning a correlation between sentence length and the absolute construction, one can see from the examples cited above that the absolute does not require a 79

lengthy sentence for Its use. However, there is an important relationship between the two characteristics. In the three books. Irving's sentences

tend to be packed with detail and information. By using an absolute

construction in a sentence already carrying great "weight," Irving could

more expeditiously handle the material. Similarly, broken symmetry and

sentence length appear related, in that a pattern must be established

before it can be disrupted, and establishing a pattern requires length. Yet.

there are sentences which contain broken symmetry but which are not

unusually long. They are. however, in the minority compared to the longer

sentences using broken symmetry. In the case of chain-like structure,

there does seem a more direct connection between sentence length and the

device. Obviously, the accumulation of elements—whether phrases,

clauses, "links," or "members"—necessarily results in greater sentence

length. One can conclude that although in some cases there is nothing

inherent that creates length in the various devices, Irving's use of them

often accounts for length in the sentences. Furthermore, the devices are

features of loose style, which—as Croll describes it—tends to result in r

80

longer sentences.^^ There should be little doubt, though, that Irving's use

of these stylistic features which generally add length also adds sponta­

neity and enlivens the treatment of the material.

a 81

Note?

^William Hedges in Perry Miller's edition of Major Writers of America notes that Irving's mature style "... relies heavily on medium to longish sentences . .." (p. 68).

^Irving describes one of his fellow travelers, a young Swiss count: It was amusing to hear his youthful anticipations of all that he was to see. and do. and enjoy, when mingling among the Indians and participating in their hardy adventures: and it was still more amusing to listen to the gasconadings of little Tonish. who volunteered to be his faithful squire in all his perilous undertakings: to teach him how to catch the wild horse, bring down the buffalo, and win the smiles of Indian princesses: "And if we can only get sight of a prairie on fire!" said the young Count—"By gar—I'll set one on fire myself!" cried the little Frenchman. (Tour, p. 12)

^Irving refers to the pursuits of metals and pelts as "the pioneers and precursors of civilization": Without pausing on the borders, they [the two pursuits] have penetrated at once, in defiance of difficulties and dangers, to the heart of savage continents: laying open the hidden secrets of the wilderness; leading the way to remote regions of beauty and fertility that might have remained unexplored for ages, and beckoning after them the slow and pausing steps of agriculture and colonization. (Astoria, p. 5)

^Sheridan Baker, IM Complete Stylist (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966). p. 100.

^Astoria, p. xxxi.

^see pp. 4-5. Chapter I.

^see pp. 5-6. Chapter 1. See also Bonneville, p. xxiii. 82

®R. W. Pence and D. W. Emery. A Grammar of Present-Day FnglL^h (London: The Macm 11 Ian Company. 1971), pp. 138-139.

^Quirk. p. 1120.

^^Quirk, p. 1120.

^^Croll, p. 221.

^^Pence and Emery, p. 139.

^^Pence and Emery, p. 62.

^"^Croll. p. 223.

^^Croll. p. 221.

^^See also: IQUL p. 72. Bonneville, p. 30.

^^In this study, "symmetry" means, in general, "congruence" or "corre­ spondence." See Barish. p. 73. Specifically, it exists, as Bawer explains, when the words or phrases under consideration "bear an identical grammatical relationship to the rest of the sentence." Bruce Bawer. The Contemporary Stylist (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Publishers. 1987). pp. 225-26. More concisely. Watkins and Dillingham write that symmetry or parallelism exists when there are "similar structural forms." Floyd C. Watkins and William B. Dillingham. Practical English Handbook (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1986). p. 256. Croll defines it to include a number of features, such as length of the elements said to be symmetrical, pp. 213-14.

^^Croll. p. 213.

^^Croll. p. 224. 83

^^Croll. p. 224.

22croll. p. 224.

^^Barish. p. 64.

^'^Croll. p. 224.

25croll, p. 221.

2^Croll, p. 221.

2^Croll, p. 219. CHAPTER IV

FOREGROUNDING

The two preceding chapters have examined Irving's style in the Western books with regard to characteristic noun usage and with regard to sentence length and structure. A final feature for consideration is Irving's tendency to emphasize certain passages by increased use of stylistic devices such as alliteration, figurative language, and heightened imagery. M. A. K.

Halliday defines this feature, commonly known as "foregrounding." as

"prominence that is motivated."' "The word foregrounding." as Raymond

Chapman explains, "is used to describe the kind of deviation which has the function of bringing some item into artistic emphasis so that it stands out from its surroundings."^ A number of others who use the term define it similarly; the definitions usually have in common a reference to "contrast" or "deviation" and a reference to "stylistic devices" or "use of language."^

Although there are foregrounded passages in the Western books in which one stylistic element predominates, many foregrounded passages

84 85 contain several elements that help create the "artistic emphasis" that defines foregrounding. In the following discussion, examples both of fore­ grounding with one preeminent stylistic element and of foregrounding with a combination of elements demonstrate how Irving's style effectively and appropriately emphasizes or draws attention to some topic in the text.

Many examples also demonstrate how adept Irving was at merging form and content, thereby underscoring his stylistic accomplishment.

One of the most immediately recognizable stylistic elements which can focus attention, or foreground, is alliteration. Even a limited alertness to language sensitizes a listener to repeated sound; this truism can be observed in a wide range of instances, from nursery rhymes to advertising slogans, sermons, and other speeches. As a device in writing, alliteration is both noticeable and effective when Irving uses it in the Western books.

Many times alliteration consists of only one or two coordinated al­ literative pairs as in the description from Bonneville of a fight which broke out among the men in one of the camps of the American Fur Company,

"They fell to work and belabored each other with might and main; ticks and cuffs ..." (49); or in a later description of two hunters attempting to 86 escape from a grizzly bear that has taken hold of the gunwale of their canoe. "They now ailed their i^addles. with might and main ..." (229).

Technically, these are examples of foregrounding, however brief, because as alliterative phrases they stand out from their surroundings. However, even a brief use of alliteration can reveal Irving's skillful merging of form and meaning. In the following sentence from the opening chapter of

Astoria. Irving describes the importance of mining ventures and fur trade in early America. "These two pursuits have thus in a manner been the pioneers and precursors of civilization" (5). Here the alliteration—form— is more than just repeated sound. It emphasizes meaning in that the three alliterative words are tied together logically in the context: "pursuits"=

"pioneers and precursors."

Frequently, though. Jrving foregrounds with much more extensive alliteration. In the following excerpt from Tour. Tonish has just shot at and missed a doe:

The doe. however, kept on its way rejoicing: a laugh broke out along the line, the little Frenchman [Tonish] slipt quietly into his saddle. Mgan to Mlabour and Maspheme the wandering pack horses, as if they had tieen to blame, and for some time 87

we were relieved from his yaunting and yapouring. (47) (emphasis added)

Since the paragraphs immediately preceding and following the passage quoted above^ are bare of alliteration, its use is rather prominent here.

Irving draws attention to the antics of the conceited Tonish by crowding the sentence with alliteration. A few chapters later in Tour. Irving describes an area known as the "Cross Timber" and focuses particularly on the party's forcing Its way through a cane brake: "It was a bard struggle, our Horses were often to the saddle girths in mire and water, and both

Horse and Horseman Harassed and torn by tush and briar" (71). Through the alliteration in the last ten words in the sentence. Irving draws attention to the group's difficulty in making its way. In a comparable example in

Chapter XIV of Astoria. Irving concentrates alliteration within the space of four lines, foregrounding his description of the varied population at one of the trading posts on the Missouri River. First, he characterizes the population as.".. . more motley iHan IHat at Mackinaw" (93). The next sentence describes the "bragging boatman." the "gay. grimacing . . . good- humoured Canadia voyageurs." and "vagrant Indians of yarious tribes ..." 88

(93). The three to four lines preceding and following the foregrounded description of the Inhabitants are comparatively bare of alliteration.

In instances such as the three quoted above, alliteration primarily underlines the importance of the topic. On the other hand, the correlation

between form—alliteration—and meaning is somewhat more complex in the

following description of a free trapper's horse in Bonneville. Irving uses

an alliterative series and alliterative pairs:

His horse, the noble minister to the bf'de. bleasure and bfof it of the mountaineer, is selected for his sbeed and sb'rit. and bLancing gait, and holds a blace In his estimation second only to himself. He shares largely of his bounty, and of his Qr\6e and bomp of trapping ... the proud animal is b££treaked and bespotted with vermilion. . .. (48) (emphasis added)

The sentences forming the context for the above description of the

trapper's horse, although vivid, contain comparatively little alliteration.

There is, for instance, a phrase "breparations either for beace or war" (48).

However, this repetition of the letter "p" does not compare with the closely joined alliterative phrases ("pride, pleasure, and profit"; "speed and spirit"; "pride and pomp"; "bestreaked and bespotted") of the foregrounded passage. The proximity of the alliterative words intensifies the focus. As 89 far as the link between form and content or meaning is concerned, the non- foregrounded context describes the trappers themselves, their clothing, and their weapons. Then there is a clear shift in emphasis, in the content of the passage, to the all-important horse. He is a "noble minister" and

"proud," in "estimation second only to [the trapper] himself" (48). Thus.

Irving foregrounds only the section describing the horse; style makes the passage stand out from its surroundings. Considering the content of the passage—the emphasis on the significance of the horse to the trapper- foregrounding is both appropriate and logically functional.

As the examples thus far indicate. Irving generously uses alliteration

in the Western books.^ Numerous additional instances involve alliteration along with some other device, such as imagery or grammatical parallelism, to foreground a passage. Several of these will be discussed later.

Besides foregrounding with alliteration. Irving often foregrounds with

imagery. Although Imagery pervades Irving's description of the picturesque

West, passages which abound in imagery—especially varied imagery—stand out and thus focus the reader's attention on Irving's point. Irving's appeal to the reader's senses, in the use of imagery, sometimes contains an appeal 90 to the reader's "sense." as well. Therefore, foregrounding through imagery can also link form and content.

In the following sentences from Tour. Irving bombards the reader's senses with images of color and sound, thus foregrounding the description of a fall night:

It was a splendid autumnal evening. The horizon, after sunset, was of a clear apple green, rising into a delicate lake, which gradually lost itself in a deep purple blue. One narrow streak of cloud of a mahogany colour edged with amber and gold, floated in the west, and just beneath it was the evening star, shining with the pure brilliancy of a diamond. In unison with this scene there was an evening concert of insects of various kinds, all blended and harmonized into one sober and somewhat melancholy note, which I have always found to have a soothing effect upon the mind, disposing it to quiet musings. (114)

To some degree. Irving appeals to the senses in the paragraphs preceding

and following the one above; however, the noticeably vivid imagery in the

paragraph cited creates a stylistic flourish that makes it stand out from

surrounding passages. Furthermore, the passage preceding the paragraph

above notes that Beatte. a rather prosaic character, "had killed a fat doe"

(114). Then the passage following the one foregrounded states that Beatte. acting as sentinel, "came and took a seat near me [Irving]: he was weary 91 and sleepy and Impatient to be relieved. I found he had been gazing at the heavens also, but with different feelings" (115). Beatte's only concern has been that his night shift end. Thus, the foregrounded section in which

Irving in his revery describes the vivid colors and sounds of nature is in bold contrast to the section in which Beatte has in a way acted against nature—however necessary that act may have been—and the section in which he has apparently taken no notice of the beauty of the evening.

Irving also merges form and content in the following foregrounded passage from Astoria containing an image-filled description of the abundant result of a two-day deer hunt:

After all that they had suffered from hunger, cold, fatigue and watchfulness: after all their perils from treacherous and savage men. they exulted in the snugness and security of their isolated cabin, hidden as they thought even from the prying eyes of Indian scouts, and stored with creature comforts: and they looked forward to a winter of peace and quietness: of roasting and boiling, and broiling, and feasting upon venison, and mountain mutton, and bear's meat, and marrow bones and buffalo humps and other hunters' dainties, and of dosing and reposing around their fire, and gossipping over past dangers and adventures, and telling long hunting stories, until spring should return: when they would make canoes of buffalo skins, and float themselves down the river. (297) 92

The sentence is packed with images of plenitude, not only in game but also

in the hunters' luxuriating after the successful hunt. Irving further

emphasizes the surfeit with overly obvious use of "and": jt occurs twenty

times in this one sentence.^ The abundant production of the hunt is also

emphasized in form by a sentence of only six words preceding the

foregrounded sentence quoted above (these two sentences comprise the

entire paragraph) and the paragraphs before and after of just four and six

lines each, respectively.

Imagery, as does alliteration, often exists in combination with some

other aspect of style, such as grammatical form, to emphasize a passage.

Examples of this kind of foregrounding follow later in the discussion.

Figurative language is the third major aspect of style which Irving

uses to foreground. Figurative language automatically suggests fore­

grounding because it (figurative language) involves contrast: non-literal as

opposed to literal. Chapman observes the inherent correlation.". . . this

[understanding of the non-literal against the backdrop of the literal] is not

far from the idea of foregrounding through deviation.. . ."^ The following

examples Illustrate, first. Irving's use of figurative language as the means 93

Of foregrounding, then, figurative language along with other features of language to produce foregrounding.

In Tour. Irving emphatically illustrates just how bad a cook Tonish was. The excerpt below follows an unforegrounded passage in which there had been a report of an impending attack by three hundred Pawnees, a report that proved false:

There being no longer any prospect of fighting, every one now thought of eating: and here the stomachs throughout the camp were in unison. Tonish served up to us his promised regale of Buffalo soup and Buffalo beef. The soup was peppered most horribly, and the roast beef proved the Bull to have been one of the patriarchs of the prairies: never did I have to deal with a tougher morsel. However. It was our first repast on buffalo meat, so we ate it with a lively faith, nor would our little Frenchman allow us any rest until he had extorted from us an acknowledgment of the excellence of his cookery: though the pepper gave us the lie in our throats. (77)

The comic relief supplied by this description appropriately contrasts with the aura of fear and foreboding caused by the reports of the Indian attack in the nonforegrounded passage. The irony and overstatement used to fore­ ground—in such phrases as "stomachs ... in unison." "promised regale,"

"patriarchs of the prairies." "lively faith." and "extorted ... an 94 acknowledgment of the excellence of his cookery"—provide the change in tone from seriousness and credulity in the previous passage to humor and exaggeration, thus bringing the passage into "prominence."

Another instance of foregrounding with figurative language occurs at the end of Chapter V of Tour when Irving waxes philosophic about "the

glorious independence of man in a savage state" (21). He turns from the

literal description of the young Osage in previous sentences and fore­

grounds his philosophic point with metaphor and hyperbole:

This youth with his rifle, his blanket and his horse was ready at a moments [sic] warning to rove the world; he carried all his worldy effects with him: and in the absence of artificial wants, possessed the great secret of personal freedom. We of society are slaves not so much to others, as to ourselves; our superfluities are the chains that bind us, impeding every move­ ment of our bodies and thwarting every impulse of our souls. (21)

Following the foregrounded section in which Irving has emphasized his

"philosophy." he resumes the more literal style:

Such at least were my speculations at the time though I am not sure but that they took their tone from the enthusiasm of the young Count, who seemed more enchanted than ever with the wild chivalry of the prairies, and talked of putting on the Indian dress and adopting the Indian habits during the time he hoped to pass with the Osages. (21) 95

The content of the nonforegrounded passage indicates Irving's doubt of the validity of his own ideas, as they were expressed in the foregrounded section. His speculative musings, which he intensified metaphorically, have yielded to rationality, which he depicts literally.

The discussion thus far has introduced and illustrated major features of language used individually by Irving to make certain comments stand out from their surroundings. Irving also frequently combines two or more of these features and sometimes adds others, such as parallelism or other grammatical structures, to give artistic emphasis. The following discussion examines those combinations.

Since, by definition, foregrounding makes an item in the text more prominent, use of multiple stylistic devices within a short space increases prominence. Describing the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the following sentence from Bonneville combines vowel alliteration and grammatical parallelism: "in the meantime, the success of this company, attracted IM attention and excited the emulation of the American Fur Company, and brought them once more into the field of their ancient enterprise" (9)

(emphasis added). The six words encompassing parallel alliterative verb 96 phrases make prominent the comment about the rivalry between the two companies—Irving's point in this passage. In an analogous example from

Astoria. Irving combines alliteration and parallelism in a series of phrases describing the Gallic atmosphere at the French-Canadian dwellings at one of the trading posts: ". .. now and then the scraping of a fiddle, a strain of an ancient French song, or the sound of billiard balls . .." (93)

(emphasis added). In this excerpt Irving has also compacted his devices of foregrounding. The efficiency or "economy" with which he manages the foregrounding attests to Irving's ability to communicate his point with effective style.

Irving also combines methods of foregrounding in a discussion in

Bonneville about salmon and buffalo. In the initial, nonforegrounded section. Irving draws a literal parallel: -The salmon on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, are. like the buffalo on the eastern plains, vast migratory supplies for the wants of man. that come and go with the seasons" (50). Then he foregrounds the point, or brings it into prominence, using an epic simile, alliteration, and grammatical parallelism: 97

^ the buffalo in countless throngs find their certain way in the transient pasturage on the prairies, along the fresh banks of the rivers, and up every valley and green defile of the mountains. SQ the salmon at their allotted seasons, regulated by a sublime and all-seeing Providence, swarm in myriads up the great rivers, and find their way up their main branches, and into the minutest tributary streams: so as to pervade the great arid plains, and to penetrate even among barren mountains. (50) (emphasis added to indicate use of epic simile)

The epic simile—"As the buffalo ... so the salmon ... "—is certainly the most prominent device in this passage. However, the parallel, also alliterative, infinitive phrases—"to pervade ... plains, and to penetrate

. . ."—and the other alliteration—"pasturage ... prairies ... so ... salmon . . . seasons . .. sublime ... all-seeing ... swarm ..." help spotlight Irving's comment about the basic similarity. The comment following the foregrounding is literal and non-alliterative.^

Imagery, as well as parallel grammatical structure, helps foreground the following excerpt from Tour as Irving describes an item that appears to be both luxury and necessity:

Indeed our coffee, which, as long as it held out, had been served up with every meal, according to the custom of the West, was by no means a beverage to boast of. It was roasted in a frying pan. without much care, pounded in a leathern bag. with a round stone, and. boiled in our prime 98

and almost only kitchen utensil, the camp kettle, in "branch" or brook water, which, on the prairies, is deeply coloured by the soil, of which It always holds abundant particles in a state of solution and suspension. (112)

Before he begins the vivid description of coffee on the prairie. Irving simply lists the other provisions, making no attempt to appeal to the senses or to focus attention on any one item, until he gets to the coffee.

Yet. as intense as the images are. the manner of communicating those images has its own kind of stylistic intensity: the second sentence in the foregrounded passage is carefully balanced with three past tense verbs—

"roasted." "pounded." "boiled"—each followed by a prepositional phrase and each verb phrase concluded with another prepositional phrase. The paral­ lelism or balance brings into prominence the entire sentence, including the sensory appeal.

Other vivid imagery, combined with figurative language, in the opening paragraph from Chapter VI1 of Astoria demonstrates how foregrounding essentially emphasizes contrast and how style can reinforce content:

It was on the 28th of February that the Tonquin set sail from the Sandwich islands. For two days the wind was contrary, and the vessel was detained in their neighborhood; at length a favorable breeze sprang up and in a little while the rich groves. 99

green hills and snowy peaks of those happy islands, one after another sank from sight, or melted into the blue distance, and the Tonquin ploughed her course toward the sterner regions of the Pacific. (50)

After the introductory sentence, the paragraph contains a number of vivid images ("favorable breeze." "green hills." "snowy peaks." "blue distance") and figures of speech (the metaphorical references to the islands as a neighborhood and the ship "ploughing." the personification of the ship), and even what might be classified as pathetic fallacies ("happy islands" and

"sterner regions"). Then, in contrast, there is the following paragraph:

The misunderstandings between the Captain [Thorn] and his passengers still continued: or rather, encreased [sic] in gravity. By his altercations and his moody humours, he had cut himself off from all community of thought, or freedom of conversation with them: he disdained to ask any questions as to their proce­ edings, and could only guess at the meaning of their movements, and in so doing indulged in conjectures and suspicions, which produced the most whimsical self torment. (5)

Although the paragraph above has some observable stylistic devices (such as alliteration in "meaning of their movements" and parallel structure in

"community of thought, or freedom of conversation"), it is comparatively literal and non-sensory in relation to the foregrounded passage which precedes it. In addition to the contrast basic to foregrounding, this 100 passage shows style complementing meaning. The arid severity of the

Captain Is aptly conveyed in the stark style of the paragraph—stark, that is. in contrast to the more vivid, imaginative foregrounded passage.

Irving's skill in merging form and content again surfaces in a passage in Bonneville when he combines imagery and allusion to foreground the description of a band of Crow Indians encountered by Nathaniel J. Wyeth, the leader of a salmon-fishing expedition:

Wyeth would fain have slipped by this cavalcade unnoticed; but the river, at this place, was not more than ninety yards across; he was perceived, therefore, and hailed by the vagabond warriors, and, we presume, in no very choice language: for, among their other accomplishments, the Crows are famed for possessing a Billingsgate vocabulary of unrivalled opulence, and for being by no means sparing of it whenever an occasion offers. Indeed, though Indians generally are very lofty, rhetorical, and figurative in their language at all great talks, and high ceremonials, yet. if trappers may be believed, they are the most unsavory vagabonds in their ordinary colloquies: they make no hesitation to call a spade a spade: and when they once undertake to call hard names, the famous pot and kettle, of vituperating memory, are not to be compared with them for scurrility of epithet. (223)

Clearly Irving makes a point about the Crow Indians' characteristic speech. and he does it—at least in part—by intensifying his own language in the discussion. The imagery (in words such as "cavalcade." "hailed by the 101 vagabond warriors." and "unrivalled opulence") and allusion ("Billingsgate."

"call a spade a spade." "pot and kettle") produce some of the stylistic

intensity. However, phrases such as "ordinary colloquies." "vituperating

memory." and "scurrility of epithet" illustrate just how "lofty" and

"rhetorical"—to use Irving's own assessment of the Crow in the passage-

Irving himself could be in bringing a passage Into stylistic "prominence." in

order to foreground it. Thus. Irving uses style to help communicate

meaning.

One of the concepts of foregrounding which provides a basis for the

preceding discussion indicates that foregrounding is "motivated."^ While it

would be presumptuous to attempt determination of motive in individual

instances of foregrounding, this study does reveal Irving accomplishing

artistic emphasis. Furthermore. Irving repeatedly accomplishes the

melding of manner and matter—form and content—generally regarded as a

hallmark of genuine style. These accomplishments at least contribute to

the lasting style Irving hoped for. 102

Note?

^M. A. K. Halliday in Chapman, p. 48.

^Chapman, p. 48.

^Geoffrey Leech defines foregrounding as "motivated deviation from linguistic . . . norms." A Review of English Literature. 6, No. 2 (1965). 68 Louis T. Milic defines it as "the process of suddenly giving prominence to a stylistic device by abruptly detaching it from Its context." Style and Stylistics (New York: The Free Press. 1967). p. 9. Floyd Ogburn. Jr.. in a study of William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation explains. "... an item becomes foregrounded as it deviates from the norms (that is. the major stylistic characteristics) of the context. .. within which it appears." Style as Structure and Meaning (Washington. DC: univ. Press of America, Inc.. 1981). p. 3. Ogburn considers "major stylistic features" to be such features as alliteration and grammatical structure.

The concept of foregrounding originates with the Prague School; the term itself is a translation by P. L. Garvin of the Czech word aktualisace. See Garvin's translation of Bohuslav Havranek's The Functional Differentia- liQD fit jiia SiaDdanil Languagfe in A EnagiiE S^^ Literary Structure, and Style (Washington. DC: Georgetown Univ. Press. 1964). Garvin's translation of the Havranek work defines foregrounding as "the use of the devices of language in such a way that this use itself attracts attention and is perceived as uncommon... ." (pp. 9-10)

"^In the interest of space. I have not included the surrounding passages of most of the examples of foregrounding cited in the study. 1 cite these paragraphs simply as representative:

Two or three times in the course of the day we were inter­ rupted by hurry scurry scenes of the kind. The young men of the troop were full of excitement on entering an unexplored country abounding in game, and they were too little accustomed to discipline 103

or restraint to be kept in order. No one, however, was more unmanageable than Tonish. Having an intense conceit of his skill as a hunter and an irrepressible passion for display he was continually sallying forth, like an ill broken hound, when­ ever any game was started, and had as often to be whipped back.

In one part of our march we came to the remains of an old Indian encampment, on the banks of a fine stream, with the moss grown sculls [sic] of deer lying here and there, about it. As we were in the Pawnee country it was supposed, of course, to have been a camp of those formidable rovers; the Doctor, however, after considering the shape and disposition of the lodges pronounced it the camp of some bold Delawares, who had probably made a brief and dashing excursion into these dangerous hunting grounds. (47)

^See Tour, p. 85-"clang and clatter" p. 93-"solitary and savage" Astoria, p. 9-"brutality and brawl" p. 10-"wide and wandering" p. 11-"profits and their plantations" Bonneville, p. 14-"region of romance" p. 24-"flaunting and fantastic" p. 103-"gay and glorious"

^This sentence could also be cited as an example of Irving's lengthy sentences and his use of coordinating conjunctions, in reference to "loose style" discussed in Chapter 111.

^Chapman, p. 73. p

104

^"Thus wandering tribes are fed in the desert places of the wilderness, where there Is no herbage for the animals of the chase, and where, but for these periodical supplies, it would be impossible for man to subsist." (Bonneville. SQl

^Halliday in Chapman, p. 48. CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Huntington Brown, in the opening chapter of Prose Styles, writes. "The critic's problem is to relate effect to cause: to make sure that he actually sees-or hears—a style as well as vaguely senses that it is there."^ Al­ though Brown is stressing the necessity of at least a vague sensing of style, this study of Washington Irving's Western books was prompted, in part, by what appeared to be overly vague sensations about Irving's style.

As the introduction to the study Indicated, there has been no shortage of laudatory pronouncements about Washington Irving's literary style, however general those pronouncements might be. This examination has attempted to make the general specific, and. as Hayes says, "to account for.. . subjective impressions"^—impressions such as "graceful," "distinctive."

"classic." and "elegant." mentioned at the beginning of the study.

Focusing on specific examples of specific features that recur in all three books, this study establishes correlation between stylistic devices

105 106

and Irving's thematic concerns or his general aims for literary style. For

Instance. Irving, ever the romantic, had definite views about preserving the

West. Concerning American Indians, he once wrote of his desire "to embody

some of their fast fading characteristics and traditions in our popular

literature."^ Irving's desire to create a lasting style, something not

"evanescent." has been similarly documented."^

Nominality—prevalent noun usage—enables Irving to perform a

somewhat Adamic function of naming as he treats new vocabulary and

vocabulary usage unfamiliar to his audience: it enables him to function as

literateur as he exploits a literary tradition:^ and it enables him in his

role as perennial verbal artist to make his descriptions picturesque.^ The dominant tool in all these functions is noun usage, which has been shown to effect stasis. In fulfilling these functions, Irving was responding to a concern for what he felt was the ephemeral West.

Irving's sentences, typically long, often contain characteristics that enable him to handle efficiently the massive amount of material he was working with and simultaneously to add a dimension of immediacy or spontaneity. These characteristics are absolute constructions, broken 107 symmetry, and chain-like structure—all of which suggest uninhibited movement within the sentence. Considering the way each of the three books came into being (see "The Western Works" in Chapter I), the added spontaneity is particularly beneficial.

Foregrounding—making a passage stand out from the rest of the text through the use of some dominant stylistic device or a combination of such devices—has a two-fold result in the Western books: It allows Irving to bring into high relief various aspects of life on the frontier, such as the behavior of trappers and the beauty of the Western landscape. At the same time, foregrounding enables Irving to showcase his own ability as a prose stylist in harmonizing form and content. To accomplish this two-fold result. Irving uses a number of features, such as alliteration, figurative

language, and imagery.

The editors of the recent M. L. A. authoritative editions of the Western works, as well as the editors of editions immediately preceding the M. L.

A. texts, have attempted to judge these books as contributions, generally, to American literature and. particularly, to the Irving corpus.^ However. 108 there are also specific ways in which the style of the Western writings makes them consistent with other Irving works.

For example, the Western writings, although far removed in setting from Irving's better-known earlier works, continue Irving's lifelong use of the theme of mutability and his manipulation of the element of time.^

Irving's depiction of what Young calls "the flight—and more: the ravages—of time"^ in "Rip Van Winkle" reappears in a related form in the

Western works in that Irving attempts to stop time. This study has shown that Irving's style of nominality contributes to that manipulation of time.

Another of the stylistic elements discussed In this study—fore­ grounding—is consistent with Irving's longstanding effort to, in

Wagenknecht's words, "create an American literature, and . . . to incorpo­ rate Western Americana into the legendry of the world."^^ Specifically,

Irving uses foregrounding to emphasize numerous features of the West.

The result is aptly assessed in Todd's comment: "irving's . . . books on the

West . . . awaken an interest in the West as a literary resource and .. . stimulate a gradually emerging frontier literature. . . ."^ ^ 109

This study presents a balance in illustrations from the three works to

demonstrate that the areas of focus—nominality, sentence structure, and

foregounding—are extensive enough in Tour. Astoria, and Bonneville to

contribute significantly to defining a style. These devices do not dominate

every page of each work; but they indeed are typical, and they show Irving

to be an author whose writing is. as Henry James said of James Russell

Lowell's, "a tribute to the dominion of style."^^

k\ no

Note?

^ Brown, p. 3.

2 Curtis W. Hayes. "A Study in Prose Styles: Edward Gibbon and Ernest Hemingway." in Freeman, p. 280.

^See Sandy's discussion of Irving's letter to Henry R. Schoolcraft, xxiv.

"^Pierre M. Irving, Volume II, p. 2. See also, general discussion of Irving's style in Chapter I above.

^See discussion of Irving's use of literary allusions and his writing of "a literary narrative" In Terrell. The Crayon Miscellany, pp. xxvi-xxvii.

^See discussion of Irving and the "picturesque" in Sandy, p. xxxii.

^John Francis McDermott. in the Introduction to his 1956 edition of Tour, notes that since the initial publication of Tour, it has "passed through more than thirty editions in English and twenty in translation" and concludes that the book is "well established as a minor American classic." (p xxxii) Similarly. Dahlia Terrell contends In the Introduction to the 1979 M. L. A. edition that "the status of A Tour on the Prairies as a minor classic seems assured as attested by its continued classroom use and by intermittent critical attention." ( p. xxxii) Edgeley Todd states in the Foreword to a 1964 edition of Astoria. "The value of Astoria as an engaging narrative of great charm and interest has never been In doubt." (p. vii) Todd further maintains that although some twentieth-century critics have denigrated the work as "produced after the author's creative energy had waned, the fact remains that Irving wrote it with enthusiastic interest and concentration." (p. vii) In a recent letter to the author of this study. Richard Dilworth Rust, editor of the 1976 M. L. A. edition of Astoria. writes of his increased admiration for Irving after having studied the Astoria text and also echoes Todd's consternation at twentieth-century Ill critics "who could judge Astoria without ever reading it." (letter. 17 November 1987) Rust concludes his Introduction to Astoria. "Both the early reception and recent reappraisal of Astoria suggest that Astoria deserves a higher place in the Irving canon than it has previously held." (p. xxxiv) In his 1961 edition of Bonneville. Todd remarks on the careful study and knowledge evident in Irving's writing Bonneville (p. xlvl) and maintains that the work "has enriched our literature. . . ." (p. xlvlii) Similarly, Robert A. Rees. co-editor of the 1977 M. L. A. Bonneville, in a telephone interview with the author of this study, emphasized how he approached the editorial task with some misgivings but came away impressed by the careful writing observable in Irving's Bonneville, (interview. 10 December 1987)

^Ringe, pp. 123.125.

^Young, p. 571.

lOWagenknecht. p. 104.

1 ITodd. p. xlii.

^2w. C. Brownell. IM Genius QL Style (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1924). p. 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bawer, Bruce. The Contemporary Stylist. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1987.

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Boynton, Henry Walcott. "Irving." American Writers on American Literature. Ed. John Macy. New York: Tudor Publishing Company. 1934. 58-71.

Brodwin. Stanley, ed. The Old and New World Romanticism of Washington Irving. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

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Brooks. Van Wyck. IM World of Washington Irving New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, inc.. 1944.

Brown. Huntington. Prose Stul£s. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. 1966.

Brownell. W. C. The Genius of 3ty|e New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1924.

Bryant, William Cullen. "Discourse on the Life. Character, and Genius of Washington Irving." Washington Irving. New York. 1860. Rpt. as "From'A Discourse.'" A Century of Commentary on the Works of Washington Irving. Ed. Andrew B. Myers. Tarrytown. NY: sleepy Hollow Restorations. 1976.

Cairns. William B. A History of American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. 1930.

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Clark. Dan E. The West in American History. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1937.

Clark, William Bedford. "How the West Won: Irving's Comic Inversion of the Westering Myth In AIQUL m M Prairies." American Literature 50 (1978): 335-347.

Clendenning, John. "Irving and the Gothic Tradition." Bucknell Review 12 (1964): 90-98. 114

Cluysenaar, Anne. Aspects of Literary Stylistics. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975.

Cracroft, Richard. Washington Irving: The Western Works. Boise, ID: Idaho State University. 1974.

Croll. Morris. Style. Rhetoric, and Rhythm. Ed. J. Max Patrick, et al. Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press. 1966.

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Dula. Martha. "Audience Response to A Tour QQ IM Prairies in 1835." Western American Literature 8 (1973): 67-74.

Franklin. Wayne. "The Misadventures of Irving's Bonneville: Trapping and Being Trapped in the Rocky Mountains." IM Westering Experience in American Literature: Bicentennial Essays. Ed. Merrill Lewis and L. L Lee. Bellingham. Washington: Bureau for Faculty Research at Western Washington University. 1977.

Freeman. Donald C. ed. Linguistics and Literary Style. New York: Holt. Rinehart and Winston. Inc.. 1970.

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Garvin. Paul L.. trans. "The Functional Differentiation of the Standard Language." By Bohuslav Havranek. A Prague School Reader on Esthetics. Literary Structure, and Style. Washington. DC Georgetown University Press. 1964. 115

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Hayes, Curtis W. "A Study in Prose Styles: Edward Gibbon and Ernest Hemingway." Freeman 279-296.

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—. "Washington Irving." Miller 61-70.

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Irving, Pierre M. The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. 4 vols. New York, 1886.

Irving, Washington. Astoria; QL, Anecdotes Qi ao Enterprize Beyond IM Rocky Mountains. Ed. Richard D. Rust. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976.

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•¥-f»w^^rv 120

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Young. Philip. "Fallen from Time: The Mythic Rip Van Winkle." Kenyon Review 22 (I960): 547-73. I

APPENDIX

121 122

APPENDIX

The following is a Saturday. October 13. 1832. entry from Irving's

journal on which Tour is based, in part:

Bee hunt—led by a young fellow in a straw hat not unlike a beehive—one without a hat following him with rifle on shoulder— Capt. Bean. Dr. Holt. Mr. Latrobe. Mr. Brailey with rifles & guns- come to see first a honeycomb on bush—watch which way the bees who are at it fly—pursue the track—come to high, dry oak tree—see the bees about a hole high up—men go to work at foot with axes—by and by down comes the tree with great crash and breaks to shivers—one man runs up with whisp of lighted hay to

smoke off the bees.^

The following Is the corresponding passage from Tour, based on the journal

entry: The party was headed by a veteran bee hunter, a tall lank fellow, in homespun garb that hung loosely about his limbs, and a straw hat shaped not unlike a bee hive; a comrade, equally uncouth in garb, and without a hat. straddled along at his heels, with a long rifle on his shoulder. To these succeeded half a dozen others, some with axes and some with rifles, for no one stirs far from the camp without fire arms, so as to be ready either for wild deer or wild Indian. After proceeding some distance we came to an open glade on the skirts of the forest. Here our leader halted, and then advanced quietly to a low bush on the top of which I perceived a piece of 123

honey comb. This I found was the bait or lure for the wild bees. Several were humming about it. and diving into its cells. When they had laden themselves with honey they would rise into the air. and dart off in a straight line, almost with the velocity of a bullet. The hunters watched attentively the course they took, and then set off in the same direction, stumbling along over twisted roots and fallen trees, with their eyes turned up to the sky. In this way they traced the honey laden bees to their hive, in the hollow trunk of a blasted oak. where after buzzing about for a moment they entered a hole about sixty feet from the ground. Two of the Bee hunters now plied their axes vigorously at the foot of the tree to level it with the ground. The mere spectators and amateurs, in the mean time, drew off to a cautious distance, to be out of the way of the falling of the tree and the vengeance of its inmates. The jarring blows of the axe seemed to have no effect in alarming or disturbing this most industrious community. They continued to ply at their usual occupations, some arriving full freighted into port, others sallying forth on new expeditions, like so many merchantment in a money making metropolis, little suspicious of impending bankruptcy and downfall. Even a loud crack which announced the disrupture of the trunk failed to divert their attention from the intense pursuit of gain; at length down came the tree with a tremendous crash, bursting open from end to end. and displaying all the hoarded treasures of the commonwealth. One of the hunters immediately ran up with a whisp of lighted hay as a defense against the bees. (30-31)

The following is a Saturday. October 13. 1832. entry from the journal:

"—take out flakes in a pail—every one with spoon ^ knife helps himself to 124 the rich honey."^ The following is the corresponding passage from Tour. based on the journal entry:

Every one of the party now fell to. with spoon and hunting knife, to scoop out the flakes of honey comb with which the hollow trunk was stored. . . . Every stark bee hunter was to be seen with a rich morsel in his hand, dripping about his fingers, and disap­ pearing as rapidly as a cream tart before the holyday appetite of a schoolboy. (31)

The following is a Saturday. October 13, 1832, entry from the journal:

"Bees returning to their hive from abroad find the tree levelled and collect on the point of a withered branch of a neighboring tree, contemplating the ruin & buzzing about the downfall of their republic."^ The following is the corresponding passage from Tour:

At first they wheeled about in the air, in the place where the fallen tree had once reared its head, astonished at finding it all a vacuum. At length, as if comprehending their disaster, they settled down in clusters on a dry branch of a neighboring tree, whence they seemed to contemplate the prostrate ruin and to buzz forth doleful lamentations over the downfall of their republic. It was a scene on which the "Melancholy Jacques" might have moralized by the hour. (31-32) 125

One hundred years after the publication of Astoria. Henry Walcott

Boynton described the book as a "potboiler.. . mainly the work of his

[Irving's] nephew Pierre.. . ."'^ However. Rust's edition of Astoria (1976) from the M. L. A. project gives an extended explanation of the collaboration between the two Irvings. Irving employed Pierre, a young lawyer, as a research assistant "to look over the various papers, letters, and journals In the possession of Mr. Astor" and to "arrange into some kind of form a great body of facts."^ As Rust puts it. "Pierre was to prepare for his uncle a kind of lawyer's brief."^ The following "probable example . . . written in what appears to be Pierre M. Irving's hand"^ (xxiv) is cited by Rust:

On leaving the village of Charette, about 50 miles above St Charles, saw Daniel Boone—see Bradbury, p 16. Boone died in 1818—The next day saw Colter. See Lewis & Clark Vol 11. p. 407. & Bradbury, p 17. A very interesting note in relation to him.— See also Bradbury—p 23-24. 25. 26—April 8th—arrived at Fort Osage—Bradbury—p 35-36. Had proceeded but a short distance from Fort Osage when Dorlon beat his squaw. Bradbury—p 43. & also p 44. drowned buffaloes. April 17 arrived at Nodawa. (xxiv)

The parallel text from Irving's AStQCia covers approximately six pages. with the following correspondences: 126

On the afternoon of the third day. March 17th, the boats touched at Charette, one of the old villages founded by the original French colonists. Here they met with Daniel Boon [sic], the renowned patriarch of Kentucky, who had kept in advance of civilization, and on the borders of the wilderness, still leading a hunter's life, though now in his eighty fifth year. He had but recently returned from a hunting and trapping expedition and had brought nearly sixty beaver skins as trophies of his skill. The old man was still erect in form, strong in limb and unflinching in spirit, and as he stood on the river bank, watching the departure of an expedition destined to traverse the wilderness to the very shores of the Pacific, very probably felt a throb of his old pioneer spirit, impelling him to shoulder his rifle and join the adventurous band. Boon [sic] flourished several years after this meeting, in a vigorous old age. the nestor of hunters and backwoodsmen, and died full of sylvan honour and renown in 1818 in his ninety second year. The next morning early, as the party were yet encamped at the mouth of a small stream, they were visited by another of these heroes of the wilderness, one John Colter, who had accompanied Lewis and Clarke in their memorable expedition. . . . They had not proceeded far, however, when there was a great outcry from one of the boats; it was occasioned by a little domestic discipline in the Dorlon family. The squaw of the worthy interpreter, it appeared, had been so delighted with the scalp dance and other festivities of the Osage village that she had taken a strong inclination to remain there. This had been strongly opposed by her liege lord, who had compelled her to embark. The good dame had remained sulky ever since, whereupon Pierre [Dorlon]. seeing no other mode of exor­ cising the evil spirit out of her, and being perhaps a little inspired by whiskey, had resorted to the Indian remedy of the cudgel, and. before his neighbors could interfere had belaboured her so soundly 127

that there is no record of her having shown any refractory symptoms throughout the remainder of the expedition. . . . For a week they continued their voyage, exposed to almost incessant rains. The bodies of drowned buffaloes floated past them in vast numbers; many had drifted upon the shore, or against the upper ends of the rafts and islands. These had attracted great flights of turkey buzzards; some were banqueting on the carcasses, others were soaring far aloft in the sky. and others were perched on the trees, with their backs to the sun, and their wings stretched out to dry. like so many vessels in harbour, spreading their sails after a shower. (100-1; 105-6)

In the "Author's Introduction" to Astoria. Irving thanks his nephew and also credits a number of sources of the type referred to in Pierre Irving's note above.®

Sandy's "Introduction" to Bonneville states. "Because neither Irving's manuscript nor Bonneville's two or possibly three manuscripts have been located, the story of the growth of Irving's third extended work about the

West remains relatively Incomplete.. . ."^ However. Sandy cites a dis­ patch from Bonneville to Major General Macomb. Commander of the U. S.

Army, from whom Bonneville obtained leave to explore "to the Rocky Moun­ tains and beyond" (276) and to whom Bonneville was to report: "I marched 128 upon an elevated plain, then struck it a little west and in one day fell on the Platte, the 2d June, here I found the River 3/4 mile wide, the banks 2 to 3 feet high, river about 4 feet deep, but full of quicksands. . . ."^^ The following is the corresponding passage from Irving's Bonneville:

On the 2d of June, they arrived on the main stream of the Nebraska or Platte River; twenty-five miles below the head of the Great Island. The low banks of this river give it an appearance of great width. Captain Bonneville measured it in one place, and found it twenty-two hundred yards from bank to bank. Its depth was from three to six feet, the bottom full of quicksands. (20)

As a final example, there is a parallel account for Chapter XLI of

Bonneville. Massachusetts ice-exporter Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, whose business ventures to the Far West coincided with some of Captain

Bonneville's, kept notes from August 12. 1833. to September 27. 1833. His entry for August 16 states:

Have seen on the banks of the river this forenoon 3 grisly bears and some Bulls in the river and on the banks they stare and wonder much the direction of this march was as near as I can judge N. by E. we went from 5 to 11 as 1 think about 6 miles per hour the indirection I suppose to be not more than 1/4. All feel badly today from a severe bout of drinking last night. (Sandy's "Introduction" to Bonneville, xxxiv) 129

Irving is known to have used Wyeth's journal although the extent of the use is uncertain.^ ^ However, the following excerpt from Irving's Bonneville corresponding to Wyeth's note above offers comparison:

The most formidable foes that they saw. however, were three grizzly bears, quietly promenading along the bank, who seemed to gaze at them with surprise as they glided by. Herds of buffalo, also, were moving about, or lying on the ground, like cattle in the pasture: excepting such inhabitants as these, a perfect solitude reigned over the land. (222) 130

Notes

'Washington Irving. The Western Journals, ed. John Francis McDermott (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1944). 119.

^Irving. Western Journals. 120.

^Irving. Western Journals. 120.

"^Henry Walcott Boynton. "Irving." American Writers QD American Literature, ed. John Macy (New York: Tudor Publishing Company. 1934). 67.

^Pierre M. Irving. Volume 111. 63.

^Rust. "Introduction." Astoria, xxiv.

^Rust. "Introduction." /^toria. xxiv.

^Irving. Astoria, ed. Rust. 4.

%andy. "Introduction." Bonneville, xix.

^^Sandy. "Introduction." Bonneville, xxxiii.

^ ^andy. "Introduction." Bonneville, xxxiv.