Washington Irving's Mediaeval Renaissance: Chaucer’s Influence on Irving’s Foundational Project

Abstract

ABSTRACT Critics have traditionally assumed that Washington Irving did not read far beyond The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, but a study of Irving's works, particularly The Sketch Book, demonstrate a keen awareness of Chaucer's works, and of mediaeval English literature as well. As this article argues, Irving's reading of Chaucer's works, including The Canterbury Tales and The House of Fame, provide an important foundation for his critique of American culture and Anglo-American relations in the early nineteenth century. Narrative strategies used in The Canterbury Tales also recur in The Sketch Book, suggesting that Chaucer's work was likely also a model for Irving's early efforts to create a distinctly American literature that nonetheless acknowledges its connection to British and European antecedents.