An Analysis Of Washington Irving's Tales Of The Alhambra

Egyptian folklore in Washington Irving’s creativity

It would be pertinent to mention that Washington Irving is one of the famous writers who have obviously applied to Egyptian folklore. Irving’s works, with the subject originated from Egyptian folklore, combine the Oriental characters. Such kind works of Irving were covered under his Spanish books. These books were dedicated to Spain and its history. Consider Washington Irving’s political activity as an American Ambassador to Spain, the dedication of main parts of his books to the Spanish history and traditions is quite understandable and natural. Having lots of time for studies of Spain archives, Irving had an access to the valuable information resources. The Spanish books among the collection

Washington Irving, after the publication of “The Alhambra”, reworked it by including a series of short fictions and essays and titled it as “Spanish Sketch Book”. But the author again re-reworked this version and composed “Author’s Revised Edition” under title “Tales of the Alhambra”. The final version of this work includes verbal sketches, stories and essays. Washington Irving wrote the “Tales of the Alhambra” during his journey made in 1829 starting from Seville to Granada with his friend who was the representative of the Russian Embassy appointed to Spain [2, p. 6]. Staying at the Palace of the Alhambra, Irving was accompanied by the guide whose name was Mateo Ximenes. In the “Tales of the Alhambra” Washington Irving called him as a “son of the Alhambra” [2, p. 22]. Mateo being aware of the details about the historical truths, customs and traditions of the Alhambra and its inhabitants encouraged Irving to compose the unexampled work including a series of verbal sketches, stories and essays. The tales with the reflection of real historical truths are centralized in this book. The ruins reflect the traces of the periodical invasions of people with different faiths as well as the traces of natural calamity including

One of these works is “Legend of the Arabian Astrologer” included in “Tales of the Alhambra”. The subject of this legend affected on the works of several writers of other countries. Among them we can point out Alexander Pushkin, the great representative of the Russian literature. John C. Fiske in the book “The Soviet Controversy over Pushkin and Washington Irving” referring to the data, specially for the requested study collected by the student at the Russian Research Center at the Harvard University, stated that Alexander Pushkin wrote his fairy tale “The Golden Cockerel” / “Сказка о Золотом Петушке” under the influence of Irving [3,