Hawthorne and Irving - Book Report/Review Example

Hawthorne principally worked under the fold of romanticism. He was rather capable of writing stories that affected the reader deeply. His literary framework was based on simple American language of the mid 19th century. He avoided ornamental and pompous usage of the language. It appears so that he was respectful towards the expectations of the general American reader. He did not have an exclusive sort of target audience. Probably, he knew that he had the responsibility of enriching American literature.

However, he did not follow an elitist approach for the purpose. Irving also had a similar approach and attitude, which readily puts him in par with Hawthorne. However, his language skill was not restricted to usage, grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. His unfathomable creativity puts his writings rather beyond the coverage of a formalistic critical approach. His works cannot be completely analyzed in terms of language structure. He chose the names like Hans Van Ripper, Old Baltus Van Tassel, and Brom Bones for the characters he created.

This testifies his robust sense of humor, controlled application of European sounds (particularly taken from the Germanic languages), and most importantly, creativity. A comparative discussion on the literary devices utilized by Hawthorne and Irving reveal that although both of the writers lived in an almost identical American urban environment, they had interesting differences. In the word of Michael Dunne (129), “Hawthorne deliberately appropriated and transformed the elements of history – in which he had a considerable interest – to create problematic fictional narratives available to repeated reevaluation and interpretation.

” Regarding literary devices, Hawthorne utilized the literary structures based on the mid 19th century; semiotics and ideology too depended on the same. “Hawthorne practiced many of the same narrative strategies in the sketches as in the tales of symbolism and irony.” (Dunne, 20). However, Irving employed figurative language that involved creativity.