Washington Irving's Critique of American Culture: Sketching a
Vision of World Citizenship challenges long-standing views of
Washington Irving. He has been portrayed as writing in the 18th
century style of Addison and Goldsmith, without having much
substance of his own. Irving has also been accused of being
insufficiently American and adrift in an identity crisis. The
author argues that Irving addressed the American cultural context
very extensively-he was a writer of substance who articulated an
ethic of world citizenship that was found in the philosophy of
ancient Greek cynics and stoics. This ethic was united with a love
of picturesque travel, which emphasized variety and texture in
experience, resulting in an extraordinary affirmation of the value
of cultural diversity in the new Republic. Irving was, in fact, a
liminal figure straddling Romantic and neoclassical modes of
writing and acting. The author draws attention to Irving's success
as a writer in the pictorial mode. Irving also expressed a critique
of cultural loss and environmental destruction like that
articulated by the artist Thomas Cole. The work embraces an
interdisciplinary approach, where insights from philosophy,
religion, art history, and social history shed light on an
underestimated writer.
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