![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Irving even claims historical veracity for this tale by creating the fictional character of Diedrich Knickerbocker. Early American New York was, indeed, inhabited by many people of Dutch origin, but the references also served to create an artificial historical heritage. In fact, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is full of references to Dutch names, places, and social groups. Irving’s use of older Dutch and German sources was one way to get around this problem. ![]() They could neither rely on this history as material for fiction nor rely on its aesthetic legacy in fitting their own stories into a larger meaning. A classic example of Irving’s irony and humor with its description of 30 years ago as a “remote period,” this quotation nonetheless underlines a real problem for early American storytellers, who lacked a long, distinguished American history from which to draw. At the beginning of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” we learn from Diedrich Knickerbocker, the fictional historian narrating the tale, that it took place “in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since”-meaning in 1790, thirty years before the story was published in 1820. ![]()
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