Comparing Washington Irving's Contribution To American Literature

Washington Irving was an invaluable example for the other American writers. Among them Jack London differs from others with his special attitude towards the literary activity of Washington Irving. In his autobiographical novel “John Barleycorn” which was published by Macmillan in 1913 Jack London mentioned about Washington Irving and his work “Alhambra”. Jack London wrote that when he was under nine years old, he read “Alhambra”. But he could not realize how the people were unaware of such kind work. He was disappointed with the living in the country full of illiterates. But it was hard for him to think that people living in cities also could be uneducated as in ranches. But one day catching chance to check the truth Jack addressed questions concerning “Alhambra” to the

Although he was considered as the Father of American short story. But this is a little bit disputed matter since Edgar Alan Poe was also considered as the Father of American short story, but sometimes this saying was corrected as Poe is a Father of modern American short story. If consider Poe and Irving lived and wrote at the same period, the correction made by adding the word “modern” doesn’t make any sense. Concerning the identification of the real Father of American short story raised several disputes. Comparison studies started to compare the similarities and differences of writing styles of both Washington Irving and Edgar Alan Poe. Both authors created very valuable short stories with psychological effects possessing the power of controlling the reader’s thoughts and feelings. Edgar Alan Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is always compared with the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” written by Washington Irving” [15, 10/10/2015]. Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is also compared with