As representatives of "an earlier stage of civilization," Native Americans in early nineteenth-century literature were integral in conversations of race relations, cultural development, and anthropological strata. They were a baseline of humanity against which more "civilized" nations of the world marked their progress, determined the value of their own cultural advancements, and proclaimed their superiority (Flint 1). They were an object of continuing fascination for Americans and Britons seeking to reinvent themselves in the aftermath of war and revolution, but their image in these nations was used as a derogatory slur (Fulford and Hutchings 1; Flint 6--7). Suggesting that a nation had a kinship with Native Americans was becoming an unfortunately familiar shortcut to suggest disgraceful backsliding into primitive ways. Rather than view Native Americans as markers of social degeneracy, barbarism, or ignorance, Washington Irving argues in his works that these figures could be revived as a positive connecting force for Americans and Britons. He recalls a more dignified Romantic image of the "noble savage" "intelligent, loyal, and proud" to overcome vengeful memories of war and violence. The Indian characters in A History of New York and The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon are more than idle entertainments or broad caricatures; they are carefully crafted Romantic figures that embody the restorative, unifying ideals for which both Americans and Britons yearned in the aftermath of war. Irving uses Knickerbocker's History to reflect the capriciousness of public memory and the sometimes dangerous power of the biased storyteller. He exposes how the Native American legend became tainted by historians who tried to justify the ill-treatment these people received at the hands of the Europeans. In Crayon's Sketchbook, Irving continues to explore the mutability of history by showing how nations like Britain had been successful in inventing a heritage that drew their people together. Finally, in "Traits of Indian Character" and "Philip of Pokanoket," Irving fulfills the promise of the History by restoring the Romantic Indian to a position of respect and power in the American and British memory. Though Irving's writing doesn't attempt to correct the image of Native Americans enough to get at the real people behind the image society invented, he embraces the malleability of these important cultural figures to make observations on how we create and perceive history and align ourselves to the invented past. By re-examining these works through their romantic and historic intent in a transatlantic relationship, we can come to better understand Irving's position as he supported his American nationhood and sentimental British roots with a figure that resonated on both sides.

Au sortir de la domination ottomane, les voyageurs français se rendent en Grèce dans l’optique de parcourir une terre chargée d’histoire, au passé glorieux mais au présent décevant. Chateaubriand et Quinet sont de ces écrivains-voyageurs qui rendent compte de la situation de crise vécue au tournant de la guerre d’indépendance hellène (1821-1830). Au travers de leur regard d’ « hommes-frontières » – à la fois écrivains et historiens – ces peintres français du paysage grec ont décrit une Hellade plurivoque, au début et à la fin de la guerre de soulèvement national. Cette étude questionne l’intrusion de l’histoire dans leurs récits de voyage fictionnels et rend compte de la fabrique de leur pensée grecque sise au cœur de leurs carrières respectives. L’historiographie romantique en est alors à ses prémisses dans la mesure où l’histoire émerge à peine comme discipline scientifique. C’est pourquoi, par le prisme de la littérature et de l’imagination, le récit de voyage se présente comme un genre idoine à l’écriture de l’histoire, propre à la fragmentation des discours par le travail du palimpseste. Tels des Janus aux yeux tournés vers le passé autant que vers l’avenir, Chateaubriand et Quinet en Grèce s’inscrivent dans l’histoire de leur temps, au tournant des Révolutions européennes, par le biais d’une écriture de l’histoire immédiate tout en peignant des paysages à portée historique. / Early after the fall of the ottoman domination, the French travelers went to Greece in order to wander through a land full of history, with a glorious past but a deceiving present. Chateaubriand and Quinet were writers and travelers who reported the crisis lived at the turning point of the Hellenic war of independence (1821-1830). Through their gaze of “borders-men” – both writers and historians – these French painters of the Greek landscape described a plurivocal Hellade, at the beginning and the end of the war of national uprising. This study question the intrusion of history in their fictional travel narratives and report the making of their Greek thought situated at the heart of their respective career. The romantic historiography was just at its premises because history as a scientific discipline was barely emerging. Thus, through the prism of literature and imagination, travel narrative was a fitting genre for writing history, propitious to the fragmentation of speeches by the work of palimpsest. As Januses with their eyes turned to the past as well as to the future, in Greece, Chateaubriand and Quinet inscribed themselves in the history of their time, at the turning point of the European Revolutions, through a writing of the immediate history while painting landscapes with historical dimension