Compare And Contrast Irving And Longfellow

Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Courtship of Miles Standish both represent the
Romantic era, or Romanticism, an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement, that emphasized emotions such as horror, terror, and awe. Common themes of Romanticism found in art or literature were folklore, emotion, horror, love, nature, individualism, the supernatural, or religion. I am hoping to compare and contrast the courtship strategies of Irving’s characters, Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones, with Longfellow’s characters Miles Standish and John Alden. My point is to explain why I believe one character’s strategy may have been more successful than the other and to compare these courtships to the Romantic era. Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is set in a …show more content…
Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the courtship strategies of characters Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones represent the folklore, emotion, horror, love, and nature themes of the Romantic era. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Courtship of Miles Standish is set in Plymouth during the colonial days. Longfellow’s character, Miles
Standish, the short, strong, broad-shouldered, and muscular Puritan Captain, one day decided he wanted to marry the Puritan maiden, Priscilla. As a result, he sent his best companion, John Alden, to ask for Miles, Priscilla’s hand in marriage. When Priscilla straightforwardly refused to marry Miles,
John left feeling immeasurably guilty, as Longfellow wrote, “Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tumult of passions contending; love triumphant and crowned, and friendship wounded and bleeding, passionate cries of desire, and importunate pleadings of duty! ‘Is it my fault,’ he said, ‘that the maiden has chosen between us? Is it my fault that he failed,--my fault that I am the victor?’ Then within him there thundered a voice, like the voice