Frases de Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Data de nascimento: 3. Abril 1783
Data de falecimento: 28. Novembro 1859
Washington Irving foi um escritor, biógrafo, ensaísta, historiador e diplomata dos Estados Unidos, do início do século XIX. Ficou conhecido por seus contos "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" e "Rip Van Winkle", os quais foram publicados no livro The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, de 1819. Suas obras históricas incluem biografias de George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith e Maomé, além de vários acontecimentos do século XV na Espanha que tratam de assuntos tais como Cristóvão Colombo, os mouros, e Alhambra. Irving também serviu como embaixador dos Estados Unidos na Espanha entre 1842 e 1846.
Ele fez sua estreia literária em 1802 com uma série de cartas para o jornal Morning Chronicle, escrito sob o pseudônimo de Jonathan Oldstyle. Após se mudar para a Inglaterra devido a negócios da família em 1815, alcançou fama internacional com a publicação The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent em 1819. Continuou a publicar regularmente — quase sempre com sucesso — ao longo de sua vida, e completou uma biografia em cinco volumes de George Washington apenas oito meses antes de sua morte, aos 76 anos, em Tarrytown no estado de Nova Iorque.
Irving, junto com James Fenimore Cooper, foi um dos primeiros escritores americanos a ganhar atenção na Europa, e encorajou autores americanos, como Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow e Edgar Allan Poe. Irving foi também admirado por alguns escritores europeus, incluindo Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey e Charles Dickens. Irving defendeu a escrita como uma profissão legítima, e argumentou a favor de leis mais fortes para proteger os escritores americanos de violação de direitos autorais.
Obras
Citações Washington Irving
„Os grandes espíritos têm metas. Os outros apenas desejos.“
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.
citado em "Selected Tagalog proverbs and maxims" - Página 50, University Publ. Co., 1948 http://books.google.com.br/books?id=bwrn-Db7MCwC - 182 páginas
„Uma língua afiada é a única ferramenta aguçada que melhora com o uso constante.“
— Washington Irving, livro The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
Fonte: "The Sketch Book, Rip Van Winkle"
„Mentes pequenas são controladas pela desventura e submissas a ela. Grandes mentes crescem acima delas.“
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune ; but great minds rise above it
"The Sketh Book" in "The complete works of Washington Irving in one volume: with a memoir of the author" - Página 321 http://books.google.com.br/books?id=LbELAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA321, Washington Irving - Baudry's European Library, 1843 - 1269 páginas
„Quando os amigos começam a cumprimentar uma pessoa por ter aparência de jovem, pode essa pessoa estar certa de que pensam que ela está ficando velha.“
Fonte: Revista Caras, 13 de Setembro de 2006.
„There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.“
— Washington Irving, livro The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
"The Mutabilities of Literature".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
Contexto: There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream; which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity.
„Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.“
— Washington Irving, livro The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
"The Mutabilities of Literature".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
Contexto: Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation; they were written either on parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the inventions of paper and the press have put an end to all these restraints. They have made everyone a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented into a river — expanded into a sea.
„The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.“
— Washington Irving, livro The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
"Rural Funerals".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
„How convenient it would be to many of our great men and great families of doubtful origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved in obscurity, modestly announced themselves descended from a god.“
Book II, ch. 3.
Knickerbocker's History of New York http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13042 (1809)
„I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, and when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner.“
Letter to William Irving, Jr., about his positive attitude acquired while traveling in Europe.
Fonte: Washington Irving to William Irving Jr., September 20, 1804, Works 23:90.
„His wife "ruled the roost," and in governing the governor, governed the province, which might thus be said to be under petticoat government.“
Book IV, ch. 4.
Knickerbocker's History of New York http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13042 (1809)
„The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.“
The Creole Village published in The Knickerbocker magazine (November 1836). This is origin of the expression almighty dollar. See Edward Bulwer-Lytton for "the pursuit of the almighty dollar". Compare: "Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice,—almighty gold", Ben Jonson, Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.
„Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate.“
— Washington Irving, livro The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
"Westminster Abbey".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
