| Critics primarily regard Washington Irving's The Sketch Book as a collection of nostalgic, amusing tales, often overlooking the darker, negative aspects of the text. Images of isolation, social degeneration and inequity, discontent, decay, and death counter Irving's themes of merriment and celebration; undercurrents of melancholy, paralytic nostalgia, social disorder, and economic decline appear in almost every sketch. Many of the characters and settings reinforce these somber images. The purpose of this dissertation is to review nineteenth- and twentieth-century criticism surrounding The Sketch Book, exploring the text's disturbing images and the reasons these images may have been overlooked by many critics. This close scrutiny of the sketches reveals Irving's skillful art and artifice that veil the dark so effectively, evoking a surface happiness and lightness subtly underscored with fear, sorrow, and melancholy. It is these negative aspects that provide continuity in subject and tone throughout the sketches. To see only the cheery surface is to read only half the story. This dissertation delineates the darker half, locating it in both the man and the writer and reviewing its effects on the portfolio of stories known collectively as The Sketch Book. |
