Eternal Recurrence: A Nietzschean Reading of Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”

Washington Irving is one of the outstanding figures of American literature in the ۱۹th century who has written many remarkable literary works. “Rip Van Winkle” is among those works its name reminds readers of Irving and his great role in literature. Although many authors have studied this story from different viewpoints such as Greek mythology and national perspectives, they have not investigated the story through a Nietzschean philosophy. This investigation intends to present a Nietzschean reading of the story employing one of Nietzsche’s main philosophical concepts ‘eternal recurrence of the same’. This article argues that there are similarities between the life of the protagonist before and after his long sleep in the Catskill Mountains. The study reveals that in a Nietzschean manner, events and occasions become and recur in the life of Rip Van Winkle as the story maintains. The findings further indicate that seeming conversions in the world of the story are also part of the recurrence of the same.

Keywords:

“Washington Irving , ” “Rip Van Winkle , ” “Friedrich Nietzsche , ” “Eternal Recurrence”