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Essay on Washington Irving's Tour of the Prairies
In 1832, Washington Irving made an extended tour through the South and West, which made him acquainted with the frontier of those days, and resulted in a Tour of the Prairies (1835). Realizing that after all his first love was literature, he steadfastly declined to continue as secretary of legation and returned to the United States in 1832. Here his acknowledged pre-eminence in American letters made him determined to justify it. First, he became more fully acquainted through his travels in the South and West, with his own country.
Irving's momentary masquerade as a frontiersman may be dismissed with a casual review. Although literary critics apparently consider A Tour of the Prairies of more consequence than Astoria and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville , the student of Western history cannot but regard it as a bit of opera bouffe . The meretricious elements in this self conscious venture into frontier life are evident if one applies as a touchstone the narratives of bona fide trappers. Irving prepares an elaborate stage setting for his near adventures; he goes through all the gestures of deep emotional excitation; but his artificially induced thrills end in anticlimax. His prairie fire is easily extinguished by a few slaps of the blanket; his lost Count is discovered sleeping as peacefully as though he were safe in bed in his native Switzerland; his Pawnee attack turns out to be nothing more momentous than the approach of two of their own rangers.
Irving finally settled in 1835 at Tarrytown which was to be his home to the last. He had definitely determined on his new field of work. His imagination had been stirred by his visit to the prairies; the romance of the westward expansion was beginning to find expression in the works of Timothy Flint and James Hall; the public interest was ripe and John Jacob Astor was at hand to encourage him..............
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