Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. are the first literary work of the American writer Washington Irving (1783-1859). The nine humorous essays , ostensibly letters to the editor of a "Jonathan Oldstyle", appeared between November 15, 1802 and April 23, 1803 in the New York daily newspaper Morning Chronicle , which was published by Irving's brother Peter Irving . Irving targeted the fashions of his time and especially the New York theater scene. "Jonathan Oldstyle" is the first of many pseudonyms under which Irving was to publish in the course of his career and, as a descriptive name, refers to the type embodied by his narrator character, who is embodied in character: an aging Hagestolz who observes with amazement the newfangled tendencies of youth .

The only German translation to date was published in Berlin in 1824 under the title Jonathan Oldstyle's Briefe .

content

The nine “letters” can be grouped thematically into two categories: the first two and the last deal in general with the manners and fashions of the time, the rest specifically target the contemporary New York theater scene.

In the first letter, Oldstyle scoffs at women's fashion and the ridiculous efforts that New Yorkers are making these days to impress the belles ; so he observes how a young man clears the way for his beloved while taking a walk with a tassel so that she does not run into any obstacles with her imposing hoop skirt . In the second, he complains about the casualness with which marriages are carried out nowadays, especially in comparison to the elaborate etiquette at the wedding of his blessed aunt Barbara back then, which he remembers wistfully. In general, wives are no longer what they used to be: Nowadays they insist on being independent, even having their own opinions, accounts and secrets that they do not share with their husbands. “Who,” says Oldstyle, “can read this and not complain with me about how depraved the present is - won't every husband mourn the happy days when women yielded to their yoke?” Button in the ninth and last letter Oldstyle finally imagined the bad habit of dueling , which was recently banned in New York, but is still practiced . He suggests that instead of shooting at each other, the duelists should draw lots to determine which of the two should stand under a window from which a heavy brick would be thrown. So that the public can participate in such amusements, he proposes that an authority be created in which such "duels" can be registered and announced.

The other letters deal with the theater. So Oldstyle describes the chaotic course of a performance of The Battle of Hexham , of which he hardly understands anything. Most of the time, the audience in the cheap stands entertains throwing nuts and apples at the audience on the floor, and the ladies in the boxes with their binoculars seem to be more interested in the crowd than in the play itself Letters VI-VIII Irving got directly involved in the current feuds of the New York theater industry when he introduced a new character (Oldstyle's cousin "Andrew Quoz") and made him make barely claused derogatory remarks about well-known theater critics, especially William Coleman , the Reviewers for the New York Evening Post , and James Cheetham of American Citizen . Irving thus heated up their quarrel about the evaluation of the play The Wheel of Truth , which had already been followed with interest by the public ; In the eighth letter, Oldstyle ironically pleaded ignorance and was astonished at the hustle and bustle that had broken out since his last letter; but the events had aroused in him faint doubts about the sincerity of the critics' guild.

classification

The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle are in the tradition of the essay series of the English neoclassicists of the early 18th century such as Goldsmith , Addison and Steele . From the figure drawing to the subject, Irving followed the conventions of this literary form, which was already quite old-fashioned during his lifetime, so slavishly that even some contemporary commentators could hardly find originality in his punchlines.

The few literary studies that have dealt with the letters in recent times also emphasize the all too epigonal literary-historical position of the work. Irving's biographer Stanley T. Williams described the letters as half-baked and bland, they were "worthless as literature" and at best as evidence of early American theater culture of antiquarian interest. Martin Roth (1977) argues that Irving barely knew how to exploit the comic potential of his subject because, unlike the essays in the Spectator , for example , he shied away from discussing slippery subjects such as prostitution (or sexuality in general). Instead, Irving introduced elements of burlesque, especially in the later Letters, and thus a comic register that was actually foreign to the genre, which derives its humor not from the wit of the narrator, but from crude situation comedy . In this half-baked mixture Roth sees the failure of Irving's early works (in addition to the letters, especially the essays in Salmagundi , 1807-08), but at the same time the success of his later, openly burlesque works (such as Diedrich Knickerbocker's humorous story of the city of New York , 1809 ) mapped out.

Edition history

The manuscripts of the letters have not survived. The "Letters" first appeared between November 15, 1802 and April 23, 1803 in the Morning Chronicle . While the first letters appeared almost every week, there are almost two months between the last and the penultimate. Letters II-IX were also reprinted a few days after their publication in the Chronicle Express , a bi-weekly digest of the Morning Chronicle . The essays were also read beyond the borders of New York; as reported by Irving's nephew and biographer Pierre M. Irving , Charles Brockden Brown is said to have traveled to New York specifically to win the young author for his Literary Magazine and American Register .

After Irving had made his breakthrough as a writer with his sketchbook on both sides of the Atlantic after 1820 , the New York printer William H. Clayton published a reprint in pamphlet format at the beginning of 1824, in which, however, the first letter was missing. Irving was annoyed about this unauthorized reprint, at least because he, as Pierre M. Irving writes, now assessed his youthful work as "crude and childish". In April of the same year a pirated print of Clayton's edition was published by the London printer Effingham Wilson. John Murray , who published Irving's works in England, suggested that Irving create his own revised edition, but Irving turned down the offer. During his lifetime he refused to republish, so the letters are missing in the final edition (the New Author's Revised Edition , Putnam, New York 1860), on which the numerous other work editions of the 19th century are based. After Irving's death, Pierre M. Irving published Letters IV in the second volume of the Spanish Papers and Other Miscellanies (1866); he omitted letters VI-IX because Irving had expressly marked them as Not to be reprinted . It was not until 1941 that Stanley T. Williams collected all nine letters (a facsimile of the Clayton edition from 1824, supplemented by the first letter from the Morning Chronicle ) in one volume:

  • Washington Irving: Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle . Edited and with an introduction by Stanley T. Williams. Columbia University Press, New York 1941. ( Digitized from the Hathi Trust Library)

The relevant edition today, provided by Bruce I. Granger and Martha Hartzog, is:

  • Washington Irving: Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent./Salmagundi . Edited by Bruce I. Granger and Martha Hartzog. Twayne, Boston 1977, ISBN 0-8057-8509-4 (= Volume 6 by Henry A. Pochmann et al. (Ed.): The Complete Works of Washington Irving. 30 volumes. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison / Twayne, Boston 1969– 1986).

The text of the Library of America edition is also based on this edition :

  • Washington Irving: History, Tales and Sketches . Library of America, New York 1983. ISBN 0940450143 .

The first and so far only German translation, provided by Samuel Heinrich Spiker , appeared in 1824:

  • Washington Irving: Jonathan Oldstyle's Letters . Translated from the English of Washington Irving by HH Spiker. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1824 ( full-text digitized version from Wikisource ).

The seventh letter also appeared as an extract in September 1824 in the supplement to the 140th sheet of the journal Der Gesellschafter. The first and last letters were printed in the same month in Eos, the Bavarian journal .

Secondary literature

  • Bruce Granger: American Essay Serials from Franklin to Irving. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville 1978. ISBN 0870492217
  • Simone Hagenmeyer: Washington Irving and the periodical essay of the 18th century: The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Salmagundi and The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon as deviating answers to British writing habits. Cuvillier, Göttingen 2000. ISBN 3-89712-997-3
  • Martin Roth: Irving and the Old Style . In: Early American Literature 12: 3, 1977. pp. 256-270.
  • Stanley T. Williams: The Life of Washington Irving . Volume I. Oxford University Press, New York 1935.

Web links

Wikisource: Jonathan Oldstyle's Letters  - Sources and Full Texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ For historical references to New York theater, see Brian Jay Jones: Washington Irving: An American Original . Arcade, New York 2008. pp. 21-22.
  2. ↑ Stanley T. Williams: The Life of Washington Irving , pp. 36-37.
  3. ^ Martin Roth: Irving and the Old Style , p. 257.
  4. ^ Martin Roth: Irving and the Old Style , pp. 266-68.
  5. ↑ On the history of the edition see Textual Commentary in Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent./Salmagundi . Twayne, Boston 1977. pp. 50 ff.
  6. ↑ Pierre M. Irving: The Life and Letters of Washington Irving . Volume 1. GP Putnam, New York 1862. p. 47.
  7. ↑ Pierre M. Irving: The Life and Letters of Washington Irving . Vol. IGP Putnam, New York 1862. p. 48.
  8. ↑ Reviews including in: Allgemeine Literaturzeitung , Volume 3, No. 280, Sp. 573-576 ( digitized version ); Journal of Luxury and Fashions , “Literarisches Beiblatt”, volume 39.
  9. ↑ Newspaper of Events and Views. Supplement to the 140th sheet of the partner in 1824 ;
  10. ^ Walter A. Reichart: The Early Reception of Washington Irving in Germany . In: Anglia - Journal for English Philology 74, 1956. pp. 345–363