Compare the Note and the first three paragraphs of the story.

aWhat do they have in common?

bHow does the narrator try to convince the skeptical reader that the story is true?

The Note dispels any doubt concerning the credibility of Rip Van Winkle’s story. The Postscript seems to support what the character Peter Vanderdonk in the story says about the Kaatskill (now Catskill) mountains. Discuss.

Can you see any connection between Rip Can Winkle’s experience and Irving’s life?

Production

Imagine you fall asleep and wake up after 20 years. What changes do you think might have happened to…?

ayour family

byour friends

cyour country

[1] scanty: providing little information.

[2] snugly: comfortably.

[3] black-letter: a heavy-faced type used by early printers, now called Gothic or Old English.

[4] a whit: (arch.) the slightest bit.

[5] grieve the spirit of: annoy, sadden.

[6] "more in sorrow than in anger": Hamlet, Act I, sc.ii, 1. 232.

[7] Waterloo Medal: struck off to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon on June 18, 1815. It was given to all British soldiers engaged in that action and bore the likeness of the Prince Regent (later King George IV).

[8] Farthing: bronze coin worth a quarter of a penny.

[9] Queen Anne's Farthing: a copper coin minted in the latter part of the reign of Anne (1702-1714).

[10] lording it over: dominating.

[11] descried: seen.

[12] Peter Stuyvesant: governor (1647-1666) of New Amsterdam (an earlier name for New York).

[13] shrews: bad-tempered, scolding women.

[14] nibble: small bite of food.

[15] fowling-piece: light gun for shooting birds.

[16] frolics: festive occasions.

[17] dwindled away: become smaller.

[18] urchin: untidy child.

[19] galligaskins: loose, wide trousers, knee breeches / trousers.

[20] dinning in his ears: shouting at him.

[21] volley: attack.

[22] fain: (arch.) accustomed.

[23] hen-pecked: (of a husband) criticized continually by a domineering wife.

[24] scoured: searched.

[25] termagant: shrewish, bullying.

[26] call … all to naught: (arch.) abuse, vilify the memebers.

[27] thy: (arch.) your.

[28] thee: (arch.) you (obj.).

[29] thou: (arch.) you (subj.).

[30] beard, 1819: head. The 1848 text is probably in error

[31] roses, rosettes

[32] withal: (arch.) besides.

[33] smote: (arch.) hit hard (smite, smote, smitten).

[34] quaffed: (arch.) drank deeply.

[35] Hollands, Dutch gin

[36] whence: (arch.) from where.

[37] woebegone: (arch.) woeful, sorrowful, very sad.

[38] roysters, revellers, roisterers

[39] yore: (arch.) long ago.

[40] red night-cap, the "liberty cap," popular in the French Revolution

[41] Babylonish jargon, unintel­ligible speech, apparently an allusion to the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11:1-9

[42] Federal or Democrat? i.e., a Federalist or a supporter of Jefferson

[43] bethought himself: (arch.) thought.

[44] Stony Point, a rocky headland on the west bank of the Hudson a few miles below West Point

[45] yonder: (arch.) over there.

[46] the historian, Adriaen Van der Donck (1620-1655?), author of a description of New Netherland, in Dutch, published at Amsterdam in 1655

[47] great city, Hudson, on the east bank of the river, was a thriving shipping center in Irving's day

[48] der Rothbart, the Redbeard, Frederick I (better known as Frederick Barbarossa), emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, 1152-1190. He sleeps, according to peasant tradition, in a mountain in central Germany

[49] Postscript, added after 1819.

[50] beheld: (arch.) saw (behold, beheld, beheld).

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 827