Un andaluz responde a Washington Irving: las Tradiciones granadinas (1849) de José Soler de la Fuente

José Soler de la Fuente publicó en 1849 una compilación de cuentos titulada Tradiciones granadinas. La obra tenía por objeto recrear numerosas leyendas y tradiciones asociadas a la ciudad de Granada. Por el tema, la colección bien podría relacionarse con los Cuentos de la Alhambra (1832) de Washington Irving, si bien con una salvedad, y es que Soler de la Fuente se propone, en esta ocasión, llevar a cabo una respuesta a la obra de Washington Irving, que presentaba España como una nación oriental, influenciada por los musulmanes. La Granada que vemos en las Tradiciones granadinas, en cambio, será por completo cristiana, y las tropas islámicas aparecen únicamente retratadas como enemigos que vencer, cuya derrota llena de honor y gloria a las huestes cristianas, y supone un orgullo para la imaginada nación.

How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap! Part II—Handheld Ray Guns

The earliest “ray guns” in fiction were large, unwieldy devices that might more appropriately be called “ray cannons.” The devices used in stories by Washington Irving, H.G. Wells, and early 20th century science fiction writers were large devices that required their own mounts. This reflected the reality of real experimental ray devices and the various experimental “death rays” that inventors were trying to develop and sell to armies all over the world. The idea of the small, handheld ray gun changed the nature of the device in fiction and its place in pop culture forever. Now the ray gun could be a futuristic sidearm and both symbolize the future and provide a shorthand way to signal the fantastic nature of the stories.How and why did this development take place? What were the results of the change, in both Pop Culture and Real Life?

Walter Scott and Washington Irving: On the History of Personal and Professional Relationship

Walter Scott and Washington Irving are prominent representatives of the Romantic era who were bound by both professional and friendly relations. Their friendship is a remarkable episode in the history of transatlantic literary contacts. In 1817, in Abbotsford, their personal meeting took place, which positively influenced Irving's career. Scott introduced his colleague to his friend John Murray, who was one of the most influential Scottish publishers of his day. Through this meeting, Irving became the first American writer to gain recognition in the UK. An idea of the relationship between Scott and Irving is given by their personal correspondence. Despite the fact that some letters have been lost or are currently in the hands of private collectors, there is enough published material to outline the main topics and interests that united these two writers. In an addendum to the article there are four letters in Russian translation, written in October–December 1819. They are especially noteworthy because they touch on a number of important aspects for Irving's career. In 1819, the American writer took the first steps towards publication in Great Britain and turned to Scott for help. From the master he received a professional assessment of his American editions of The Sketch Book. Scott gave advice on what books are best to publish for an English reader, as well as offered to take the editor post of an anti-Jacobin magazine. In addition, in these letters Scott introduced his American colleague to the intricacies of 19thcentury Scotland book-making and offered the most beneficial ways to communicate with publishers, which is also of interest from the point of view of the history of publishing in the 19th century Great Britain.

The Character of Rip van Winkle: Representation of Disappearing Cultural Identity

─ The purpose of this research is to explore how an ethnicity is represented in a story that has a historical setting and how this ethnic group was placed in American history. The short story of Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle", published in 1819, was very popular in America. This story was recycled in the form of stories for children, made into plays, etc. What Americans always remember about Rip Van Winkle character is his laziness. The story of "Rip Van Winkle" is traced through Stuart Hall's Representation theory. This theory states that representation can give meaning to an identity, and the New Historicism method is used to uncover that fictional stories are tied to the world that produced them. The result shows that Rip's character is a representation of Dutch ethnicity who felt losing their cultural identity. Rip's character in the story is a representation of Dutch New York ethnicity, and he was the main character in the story who was narrated as a lazy man. Thus, what always presents in America's memory is the lazy Dutch because of the representation of the character of Rip, but the other characters who were narrated less in the story are not remembered, even though they played a role in establishing America.