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Irving’s Columbus: The Problem of Romantic Biography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

William L. Hedges
William L. Hedges*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
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Extract

WASHINGTON IRVING put together The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus too hurriedly for it to be as accurate and original as historians would like it to be. He was even inclined on occasion, perhaps to compensate for the impossibility of doing exhaustive research, to “let his imagination go completely,” reconstructing colorful scenes not only from what existing records clearly indicated had happened, but from what a knowledge of the era of discovery led him to believe might have happened. And he heightened diction, tone, and characterization to the point of inviting criticism. Nevertheless nineteenth-century historians did not laugh Columbus off. And Stanley Williams’s verdict that instances where Irving consciously invents facts or distorts what in his time was considered to be the evidence are “relatively rare” seems sound. In spite of its faults, the book proved, apparently, to be usable until more detailed studies of the subject appeared.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1957 , pp. 127 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1957

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References

1 “How incredible,” remarks Williams, Stanley T. “to imagine this American more than the interpreter, during his twenty-one months in Madrid,” of materials the Spanish historian Navarrete had spent thirty-five years gathering (The Life of Washington Irving [New York, 1935], II, 300).Google Scholar

2 Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Boston, 1942), I, 117.Google Scholar

3 Williams,, . op. cit., I, 322–323.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., II, 310. The critical discussions of Columbus in The Life of Irving (I, 322–324, II, 296–308), though they perhaps dwell somewhat disproportionately on proving what would seem to be fairly clear to alert and careful readers, that Columbus is not the painstaking job of scholarship that Williams thinks Irving misleadingly claims it was, are by far the most thorough and useful of any that have appeared.

5 See The Literature of American History, ed. J. N. Lamed (Boston, 1902), p. 62; Bourne, Edward G.. The Northmen, Columbus, and Cabot, 985–1503 (New York, 1906), pp. 360, 377, 403; Morison, II, 125.Google Scholar

6 23 April, 1828, in Irving, Pierre M.. The Life and Letters of Washington Irving (New York, 1863–1864), II, 312–313 Google Scholar. Actually there was no printed account of Columbus’ career in any language except Spanish that was even half the size of Irving’s.

7 “Washington Irving,” in Literary History of the United States, ed. Robert E. Spiller et al. (New York, 1948), I, 249.

8 See Wendell, Barrett. A Literary History of America (New York, 1901), p. 179 Google Scholar; Putnam, George H. “Irving,” in The Cambridge History of American Literature, ed. William P. Trent et al. (New York, 1917), 1,259 Google Scholar; Canby, Henry Seidel. Classic Americans (New York, 1931), p. 71 Google Scholar; Brooks,, Van Wyck. The World of Washington Irving (New York, 1944), pp. 319.Google Scholar

9 Letter to Storrow, Thomas W. 14 April, 1826, Washington Irving and the Storrows, ed. Stanley T. Williams (Cambridge, Mass., 1933), pp. 79–80.Google Scholar

10 Irving,, . The Works (21 volumes; New York: Putnam, 1860–1864), III, 12–13 Google Scholar. The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus takes up volumes III-V in The Works. Future references to it will take the following form: Columbus, III, 12–13—the III meaning volume III in The Works.

11 Letter to Brevoort, 23 Feb., 1828, The Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort, ed. George S. Hellman (New York, 1915), II, 204.

12 Madrid, 1825–1837.

13 See Manuscripts and Printed Books in Possession of Obadiah Rich, Esq. (“Printed by Order of the House of Representatives,” 27 Dec, 1827).

14 The latest edition of Bartolomé Casas, de Las. Historia de las Indias appeared in 1951 (Mexico, Buenos Aires)Google Scholar; Andrés Bernaldez, Historia de los Reyes Católicos Dn. Fernando y Da. Isabel was published in Seville in 1870.

15 Life of Irving, II, 298.

16 It is not certain what editions Irving used. His references are generally to book, decade, and chapter numbers rather than to page numbers. Modern editions are, Antonio de Herrera, Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierrafirme del Mar Océano (Madrid, 1934–1950); Ferdinand Columbus, Le Historie della vita e dei fatti di Cristoforo Colombo, ed. Rinaldo Caddeo (Milan, 1930).

17 Where he follows Ferdinand Columbus alone for very long, it is usually because he is especially interested in the son’s way of presenting his father’s life or because Ferdinand is quoting or paraphrasing his father. Irving makes this clear; see Columbus, III, 28, 48–52, 61, 67, 257.

18 The two specific instances which Williams gives (Life of Irving, II, 298) to support his charge are scarcely alarming. The first occurs (Irving, Columbus, IV, 311) in a chapter where for about four pages Irving deals with matters also discussed by Herrera (op. cit., II, 387–393), but the order and emphases are quite different, and, at the same time, almost everything here is to be found again either in Las Casas (II, 214) or in three royal orders (Navarrete, II, 273–279), which both Herrera and Irving may have used. Herrera is referred to specifically only in regard to a matter which he alone (of these three sources) mentions. That the tone seems a bit closer to Herrera and Las Casas than usual may be due to the fact that all three are summarizing government orders. In the second example, Irving (HI, 42) cites Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés twice within a paragraph. But the first reference is completely mistaken; Oviedo says nothing on the subject; in Irving’s first American edition (The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus [New York, 1828], I, 27) this footnote is correctly omitted. Irving is nowhere especially close to Oviedo here except for a small matter (referred to in the second note) for which Oviedo (Historia General y Natural de las Indias, ed. José Amador de los Rios [Asuncion, n. d.], I, 43) seems to be the only source. Irving’s paragraph, as a whole, and the preceding one are amalgamations of various sources. If they lean more heavily on one, it is on Ferdinand, who is not even cited. The episode is a standard part of the life of Columbus.

19 A convenient summary of early work in Columbus historiography is contained in the first two chapters of Justin Winsor’s Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery (Boston, 1892).

20 Herrera,, . The General History of America, etc., trans. Stevens, John (London, 1725), Vol. I Google Scholar; “The Life of” Christopher Columbus …” Written by his own Son,” D. Ferdinand Columbus, in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, etc., ed. Awnsham and John Churchill (London, 1704), Vol. II.

21 All of these arrangements are made by Irving. Their incidence in the following accounts is very high: Charlevoix, Pierr-François-Xavier de. Histoire de l’lsle Espagnole ou de S. Domingue (Amsterdam, 1733), Vols. I–II Google Scholar The “American” Traveller, etc. (London, 1741); [ Prévost, François Antoine] Histoire général des voiages, etc. (Paris, 1754), Vol. XII Google Scholar; The World Displayed, etc. (London, 1759), Vol. I; Robertson,, . The History of America (London, 1803), Vol. I; The History of the Voyages of Christopher Columbus, in Order to Discover America and the West-Indies (London, 1777)Google Scholar; Muñoz, Juan B.. Historia del Nuevo-Mundo (Madrid, 1793)Google Scholar, and the English translation, The History of the New World (London, 1797); Jeremy Belknap, American Biography, etc. (Boston, 1794), Vol. I. And brief as are the accounts of Bernaldez, Oviedo, and Peter Martyr (De Nuovo Orbe, or the Historie of the West Indies, trans. R. Eden and M. Lok, [London, 1612]), they nevertheless have many points of similarity to Ferdinand and Las Casas, partly because the former writers had access to some of the same sources (Columbus was personally acquainted with Bernaldez and perhaps Peter Martyr), and partly because the latter probably made use of the published versions of Peter Martyr and Oviedo. Convenient starting points for tracing this development are the introductions to the various voyages in Bourne, Irving’s Appendix, XXVIII-XXXI, XXXIII (Columbus, Vol. V), and Winsor, chs. i, ii.

22 Vita di Cristoforo Colombo, etc. (Milan, 1818), pp. 40–44.

23 Campe, J. H.. Columbus; or the Discovery of America: as Related by a Father to his Children, and Designed for the Instruction of Youth, trans. Helme, Elizabeth (London, 1799), I, 143–147.Google Scholar

24 Bk. II, ch. xiii.

25 Bk. I, chs. c, cii, civ-cv.

26 Historia, pp. 241–244.

27 Vol. I, par. 62.

28 General History of America, I, 312.

29 P. 366.

30 II, 43–44. This was good enough to be used with little change in Prévost, XII, 141.

31 I, 393.

32 On the popularity of Columbus and especially of the one-volume abridgement of it which Irving published in 1829, see Williams,, . Life of Irving, I, 355; II, 304.Google Scholar

33 See especially Columbus, III, 131–133.

34 A good example of how Irving selected material. Where Columbus in his “Journal” seems more often than not preoccupied with recording geographical data, Irving’s summary of the first cruise among the islands serves chiefly to swell Columbus’ hopes that he had actually reached Asia. Cf. Irving, Columbus, bk. IV; Navarrete, I, 19–123.

35 Columbus, III, 252–259, 285–286. It had been traditional to emphasize the craftiness of Columbus in sealing an account of his discovery in a barrel against the possibility of the ship’s going down during the storms which accompanied the first voyage home. But the weather became so severe that lotteries were held, each man promising that if the lot fell to him, he would make a pilgrimage to a certain shrine. More than once Columbus himself drew the bean marked with a cross. Thus in Irving the admiral seems a sinner marked for punishment. For the crusading spirit, Irving relies on a letter from Columbus to the Pope (Navarrete, II, 280–282.).

36 Columbus, IV, 139–147. Sources here are Las Casas (II, 40–61) and a letter from Columbus to the king and queen (Navarette, I, 242–264).

37 Columbus, IV, 256–257, 410–412. Irving is indebted here to two letters in Navarette, I, 265–276, 296–312.

38 Historia, bk. V, pars. 15–16; bk. Ill, pars. 15–25; bk. V, par. 9; bk. VI, the very beginning and the very end.

39 Columbus in fiction up to Irving’s time seems to have been little different from the character implied in previous history. See the unpubl. diss. (Harvard, 1953) by William L. Hedges, “The Fiction of History: Washington Irving against a Romantic Transition,” p. 66, note 1.

40 Columbus, IV, 394–395.

41 Life of Irving, I, 324.

42 Columbus, III, 161. To Columbus himself a swelling of the sea which unexpectedly interrupts a prolonged calm “seemed providentially ordered to allay the rising clamors of his crew; [like] that which so miraculously aided Moses when conducting the children of Israel out of the captivity of Egypt” (III, 150–151).

43 Ibid., III, 153.

44 Ibid., III, 150, 158.

45 Ibid., III, 158–159. His offering (and claiming for himself) the reward (a doublet rather than a doubloon) for the man who first sights land (III, 160–161) also suggests Ahab.

46 Ibid., III, 229 (paraphrasing Las Casas). See also III, 185, 209, 213.

47 Old and New Testament figures are probably the most numerous type of analogue to Columbus in Irving, a fact which points up the reliance on Las Casas and Columbus himself. Some of the passages in their writings which help to transform the voyages of discovery into a religious quest are: Las Casas, I, 27–28, 160; II, 8, 9, 26, 63; Navarette, I, 102–103, 113, 265–266 (see notes by Bourne, p. 371), 275 (Bourne, p. 369), 297. Soon after Irving’s biography, began the long-continued efforts to have Columbus canonized. The connection, if any, between this movement and the interpretation in Irving remains to be investigated.

48 Williams,, “Washington Irving,” I, 249.Google Scholar