3. Outline d.H. Lawrence's major criticisms of Franklin.

Many subsequent writers have responded sharply to Franklin's "program," but none so savagely and humorously as D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence's critique is useful for perceiving the questionable aspects of the Franklin legacy.

Despite all criticisms, however, Franklin remains the enduring American icon of the 18th century, matched only by George Washington. He is with us in countless ways, as emblem of prudent business investments, as subject of countless portraits, and as an often-quoted statesman and inventor. He ultimately demonstrates more perspective than we think: he excelled in grasping others' vantage points and ways of thinking, he knew how to camouflage his own ego, and he was one of our first abolitionists in the slavery debate.

Lecture 3 Washington Irving— The First American Storyteller

1. Explain how "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" partakes of America's "Wild West" tradition.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1819) is one of Irving's enduring stories, familiar to many of us in both illustrated book and film forms. This charming story has much to teach us about the new America.

Sleepy Hollow itself is presented as a sort of refuge from the bustling America, a haven where "romance" is still possible.

Ichabod Crane, the famous schoolteacher, functions as artist in Irving's scheme.

Crane is shown in unflattering colors—as a grotesque figure, ravenous in his hunger for material success.

Yet he is also characterized as "our man of letters," as "traveling gazette" for Sleepy Hollow, which unmistakably casts him as a writer, even as an intellectual. Ichabod is also a storyteller, but of the Cotton Mather school; i.e., of the past stories of witches and demons. This marks him as backwards-looking.

In Irving's showdown, the two males "duke it out" by replaying a scene of legend. But Bones is able to best Ichabod by taking charge of the event, by scripting it so perfectly that he becomes the artist, impersonates the Horseman, substitutes a pumpkin for a head, and routs his rival. A new era is at hand, and we see the classic exchange: Ichabod Crane disappears from the scene, but the legend of his encounter with the "ghost" is born.

2. Summarize the religious and cultural sources Irving drew on to describe Rip Van Winkle's trip to the mountaintop.

In Rip's visionary experience on the mountain-top, a classic variant of religious epiphany, or illumination.

Rip, summoned by the strange figures he sees bowling and drinking, experiences a classic initiation: serving the gods, entering their world.

Watching the figures bowl and drink is tantamount to watching the gods at play, and Irving has included references to Barbarossa, Charlemagne, Odin, and Thor. Moreover, the specific "play" itself, Bowling and Thunder, can also be seen as a form of erotic sport.

The mobile setting that Rip encounters upon his return, especially the inn that seems to come and go, appears virtually surrealist in its implications, looking forward all the way to Hitchcock's "Psycho."

3. Explain how Rip Van Winkle's dilemma is particularly American.

The legacy of "Rip Van Winkle" is rich and various, and we are still working our way through it.

America is altered in powerful political ways; even nature is altered, as Irving's language suggests. But Rip remains unchanged.

The rusty fowling piece that he carries with him down the mountain fits in perfectly with his new life, a life without wife or "family duty" of any sort.

Irving's story can be read as a leap into male menopause, whereby all the earlier indices of sexual threat are finally removed.

Hart Crane invokes, in The Bridge, Rip as "the muse of memory."

James Joyce's hero, Leopold Bloom, is memorably figured as Rip Van Winkle: the work of time is seen as the corrosion that besets married life.

Rip Van Winkle is particularly present and accounted for in our upcoming literary performances among the American classics.

Melville's Captain Delano, "Benito Cereno," will display the frightening dimensions of the childlike vision.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, our most famous literary children, make us wonder if avoiding adulthood is an American vocation.

Hemingway's Jake Barnes, of The Sun Also Rises: emasculated male, is a bitter version of Rip's fate—that is, fit only for men.

Faulkner's Quentin Compson, in The Sound and the Fury, expresses Irving's chief theme, albeit in a tragic key: you cannot grow up.