TheNaughtyCats

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is hard to label in the pop-high-folk culture model; evidence exists that could place it in two conflicting categories. Washington Irving actually took a lot of his influence from traditional German ghost stories, which definitely fall under the purview of folk culture. The story itself was more identifiably pop culture at the time of publication – a great number of people read it and shared it with others, both in and out of America.

However, after almost two decades of existence the story has become a benchmark of American culture. It is obviously something basic and recognizable to people from America at the least, but has also spent a large amount of time in public consciousness. This decay in relevance logically leads to followers of the model defining it as folk. Due to such strong evidence for both sides, the most obvious solution is to define it conditionally; one could argue that over time it has changed from a pop culture relic to a folk one. While folk elements are generally attributed to small groups or regions, here one can count New England, the East coast, or even all of America as the ‘group’ in question, simply because so many people in the country recognize the legend.

Despite this mass awareness, Sleepy Hollow isn’t something that many would immediately think of or talk about today when discussing their favorite books. All of these points lend credence to the theory that the story’s placement in the pop-high-folk model has changed since its creation.