Abstract
THE two American tales in Washington Irving's Sketch Book (New York, 1819), Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, have already received a due measure of critical applause; they have been interpreted along diverse and exciting premises drawn from sociology, psychoanalysis, and comparative mythology. Yet the most obvious approach to these tales is by way of Irving's previous work, particularly Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York (New York, 1809), and it is curious that an approach which rests upon so many external supports has not yet appeared in print. Both tales are set in Knickerbocker country-utopian Dutch hamlets in the Hudson River Valley. Both tales are concerned with the conflict of Dutch and Yankee-one of the plots of the History. They are, finally, both attributed to Diedrich Knickerbocker.
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