A Critical Discourse on Exploring Washington Irving’s Motive in the Representation of Arabesque Tradition

Abstract

Washington Irving was the first American to gain international recognition for his remarkable creation, Rip Van Winkle, and is the best known and best loved of American folklore characters. Washington Ring was not only a brilliant historian, but he was also a superb biographer. During his first three and a half years in Spain, he spent a lot of time reading extensively. The majority of his time was spent at the library, and the subjects of his research notes were Arabs and Arab culture. In this study, we will investigate the personal and cultural factors that led Washington Irving to write about the Arab world. While travelling, Irving "thought of producing a collection of tales of various places made of legends," as he wrote in his journal. A closer examination reveals deeper connections between the two endeavours (gathering legends and developing a pan-history) than it at first appears. A list of Irving's Arabesque works should show how important they are in relation to the rest of his work and how much reading and research went into them. This research will utilise Irving's extensive readings to provide a historical context for the major traditions that will be examined, while also providing an overview of the current condition of orientalism in relation to Arab culture. To illustrate Arab culture, I will analyse every facet of Orientalism in Irving's works (settings, satire, history, fiction, etc.) and see how they relate to the study of Arabic literature. This work will encourage future researchers to conduct a thorough examination of Irving's background research that compelled him to write his other works.