Quixotic History and Cultural Memory: Knickerbocker's History of New York

Abstract

This article explores the functions and legacy of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the fictional narrator-historian of Washington Irving's first major work, A History of New York, From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809). I argue that Irving deploys a number of self-conscious strategies to produce a cultural memory of New York in and through Knickerbocker and his text. Perhaps most important, Knickerbocker generates the first serviceable English-language account of New Amsterdam, an account that haunts the space of New York with its Dutch and Indian pasts. Second, by reflecting on the theories and craft of history, Knickerbocker explores the problems and possibilities of American historical representation. Third, through a range of quixotic strategies, Knickerbocker implicates the reader in the construction of his history. And finally, Knickerbocker actively writes himself into the story he is telling, merging his fictional identities with New York's history. By describing the ways in which Knickerbocker insinuates himself and his New York into the actual New York, I aim to trace the complexities of Irving's historiographic thinking and to show how accounts of the past can become part of a living cultural memory.