A Study Guide for Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781535832151

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Rip Van Winkle

Washington Irving

1819

Introduction

Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle is one of the best-known short stories in American literature. That is to say, the character of Rip Van Winkle, the man who sleeps for twenty years and awakens to a greatly changed world and a long beard, is one of the best-known characters in American popular culture, widely recognized through his many appearances and references in books, movies, cartoons, and advertisements. The story was first published in 1819 in a collection called The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The book was issued in installments in the United States and was so successful that Irving arranged for a British edition. This became the first book by an American writer to achieve international success. While many pieces from the collection have been forgotten, Rip Van Winkle has never gone out of print and is widely available in textbooks and anthologies, including the multi-volume set The Complete Works of Washington Irving published by Twayne.

Rip Van Winkle is based on German folk tales that Irving learned about through a lifetime of reading and years of travel in Europe. One of his goals was to give the United States, a new country, some of the same feeling of tradition that older nations had because of their traditional lore. For several of his stories Irving borrowed European plots, but transported them into American settings. In a humorous context, Rip Van Winkle deals with issues of politics, as he shows how the American Revolution changed one small village, and gender issues, as he shows the comical relationship between a lazy husband and a bad-tempered wife.

Author Biography

Washington Irving was born in New York City on April 3, 1783, the year the American Revolution formally ended. Irving’s parents named the youngest of their eleven children Washington after a prominent military figure from the war, General George Washington. Irving’s family was wealthy, his father a successful merchant, so after a relatively lackluster performance as a student and as a law apprentice, Irving was able to devote himself to a youth of reading and writing and wandering without worrying about having to earn a