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![‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination
1 ‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination
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Chapter
‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination 1
DOI link for ‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination 1
‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination 1 book
‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination 1
DOI link for ‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination 1
‘[F]air, But different’: England and the English in the American Literary Imagination 1 book
ABSTRACT
Post-revolutionary American literature explores the ambiguity in the Anglo-American character and the struggle to appreciate England in a non-politically compromising way. The critical pursuit of a genuine 'American' literature has resulted in an almost obsessive search for a different and recognisably 'new' national voice. Washington Irving was the most significant of the early American authors to combine travel with a fictional narrative, not least because his The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Irving operated from an imagination nurtured by an education in English literature. Irving's imaginative reflective literary technique is well represented in Crayon's trip to Eastcheap. Because the pull of his literary heritage is so strong, Crayon determines to search for Shakespeare's Boar's Head Tavern and seek out the 'legendary traces of Dame Quickly and her guests'. Irving used religious imagery to heighten the spiritual sense of Geoffrey Crayon's journey. Irving superimposes his imaginative sensibility on English geography and on the people.