SOURCE: “From Nation of Virtue to Virtual Nation: Washington Irving and American Nationalism” in Narratives of Nostalgia, Gender and Nationalism, edited by Jean Pickering and Suzanne Kehde, Macmillan Press, 1997, pp. 52-73.

In the following essay, Sondey demonstrates how Irving's use of nostalgia in Salmagundi and The Sketch Book promoted his views on conservatism and the national identity.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) began his literary career in the midst of the national identity crisis prompted by the transition from Federalist republicanism to Jeffersonian democracy. During the first decade of the nineteenth century Americans found themselves at odds over conflicting elitist and populist, public and private conceptions of the masculine persona representative of American nationality. On the one hand conservatives advocated an elitist conception of American character exemplified by the publicly virtuous legislator typical of classical republicanism. Democrats on the other hand advocated a popular conception of national character exemplified by...