American Literature: Romanticism research assignment Student Research Submissions 2013 research post 2

Sarah McCall DeLaRosa

A brief study of early Dutch American literature and culture

            My second research post is on Dutch American literature and culture because I became interested in what exactly the characteristics and background of Dutch American literature might be when we read stories by Washington Irving in class. We studied Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which are both part of the Dutch American literary tradition from the early 1800s in New York. The comments that Irving’s narrator makes about the Dutch colonists, and the styles of the stories that we characterized as Dutch American are what piqued my interest and inspired this research post. I did not want to research “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” themselves, I wanted to focus my work more on the greater literary traditions they came from. However, as it will be explained, it was hard-fought research and not too pleasingly fruitful.

            One article I found, entitled “‘Prodigious Poop’: Comic Context and Psychological Subtext in Irving’s ‘Knickerbocker History’” (Jonathan A. Cook, 1995), discusses another of Irving’s work, the “Knickerbocker History,” in which he uses the same narrator as he does for “RVW” and “LSH.” Cook calls Irving’s “KH” “a high-spirited burlesque of antiquarian learning and local history that both celebrates and spoofs the legendary half-century of Dutch colonization in the new world” (483). Cook applauds “KH” for it’s many artistic achievements, especially it’s humor and childlike qualities. It is this aspect of childishness that Cook focuses on throughout his paper, and where his paper begins to diverge from my topic of interest. However his argument and research is interesting, and now and then with his child-development theory Cook does touch on “the movement of the ‘History’ from the beginning to the end of Dutch hegemony” (486), illustrating the historic trajectory of the Dutch colonists in America—their settlement, their prominence, and their eventual absorption into the larger British culture.

            I was also interested in Richard J. Zlogar’s article, “‘Accessories That Covertly Explain’: Irving’s Use of Dutch Genre Painting in ‘RipVan Winkle’” (1982). In it Zlogar discusses the universally accepted “comparison of what appears in Irving's highly visual prose to what Dutch artists put on canvas” (45), and takes this a step further to examine Irving’s deeper accomplishments in using narration reminiscent of Dutch genre painting in his work. The scene in “RVW” where Rip happens upon the strange men on the mountain is discussed in great detail, and its connections to actual Dutch paintings explored along with clues that Irving may have left in his prose to indicate such an interpretation. Zlogar also spends much of his article discussing fellow academics that have given only limited credit to Irving’s extremely visual narrative style.

            In continuing to follow the line of Dutch American literature, I came across an article about a character popular in Dutch folktales, Till Eulenspiegel. “‘A Famous and Most Miraculous Prophecy’: An Annotated Translation of a Middle Dutch Trickster Poem,” by Bas Jongenelen and Ben Parsons (2008), briefly details the centuries-long history of this common Dutch folktale trickster, Till, and then translates a certain poem about some of his exploits. This article was not so much helpful for understanding Dutch American literature, but the pervasiveness of Till in Dutch folktales throughout generations could have had influence on the Dutch colonists in America.

            Reaching the necessity to broaden my search at this point, to include Dutch American culture more generally rather than simply Dutch American literature, I happened upon an article by Joyce D. Goodfriend entitled “Writing/Righting Dutch Colonial History” (1999). This article details the history of Dutch colonization in America, and the relative prominence they enjoyed for half a century before the British colonists absorbed them into their society and culture. Goodfriend argues that Dutch colonial history in America has been effaced because history is written by the cultural victor, and in this case the British colonists and their cultural descendants did not have much to say about the Dutch Americans. Goodfriend tries to redeem the Dutch Americans to history by writing their story herself.

            My research into the topic of Dutch American literature, and then into Dutch American culture, did not prove as meaningful as I had hoped. I did not find any nice list of the conventions and characteristics of Dutch American literature, or any mention of the major Dutch American writers (besides Washington Irving). It seems that there is not a lot of scholarly work done on the topic of Dutch American literature. However, I did enjoy learning a little bit about the Dutch colonial effort and their brief period of independence and success in the American colonies; and Till Eulenspiegel is a humorous character to have come across and I did do a bit more reading on him besides what I have mentioned here.

Works Cited

Cook, Jonathan A. “‘Prodigious Poop’: Comic Context and Psychological Subtext in Irving’s ‘Knickerbocker History’.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 49, No. 4, March 1995. University of California Press. 483-512.

Goodfriend, Joyce D. “Writing/Righting Dutch Colonial History.” New York History, Vol. 80, No. 1, January 1999. New York State Historical Association. 4-28.

Jongenelen, Bas and Ben Parsons. “‘A Famous and Most Miraculous Prophecy’: An Annotated Translation of a Middle Dutch Trickster Poem.” Journal of American Folklore. Fall 2008. 473-84.

Zlogar, Richard J. “‘Accessories That Covertly Explain’ : Irving’s Use of Dutch Genre Painting in ‘Rip Van Winkle’.” American Literature, Volume 54, Number I, March 1982. Duke University Press. 44-62.