New Yorker in Englamd:In Search of Antiquity in The Sketch-Book

In The Sketch-Book, Washington Irving represents England as the country founded on its great traditions in spite of the social and cultural changes that overtook the conventional social order in the early 19th century. As demonstrated in his essays on Indian tribes, Irving feels a deep reverence for them, and laments the disappearance of their culture. The consciousness that his own country has lost the link with the past strengthens his yearning for old English customs. Although William Hazlitt regards Irving\u27s applause for the preservation of English antiquity as his wily strategy for acquiring the conservative British readership, it seems that Irving\u27s sense of rootlessness as an American reflects the fundamental attitude of this book