The reflection of the authorial “ego” in Washington Irving's short prose.

Abstract

1. In this paper, Washington Irving's authorial ''ego'', the founder of American romanticism, is studied. The article presents how the writer's personality and his works complement each other, parallelling and revealing their direct inter­connection, as well as considers some structural and content features of the writer's works, particularly short prose. The reserved, balanced and insightful type of the writer is clearly reflected especially in his short stories and novellas. There are no extremes either in his life or in his literary works. Irving's stories are characterized by calmness, lightness, delicacy, harmony, humor and deep meaning at the same time. The short prose of the author is dominated by descriptive passages, which are complemented by various details and illustrative scenes. However, there is almost always a lack of action here. The writer, being self-absorbed, also avoided writing long and boring texts, instead preferring brief but at the same time meaningful, smooth and beautiful speech. An impression is created that everything is real, and the reader is a direct witness of those scenes and images.