Transcript The Leather-stocking Tales during 1823-1841

James Fenimore Cooper and his
Leather-stocking tales
James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)
James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)
A brief biography of J.F.Cooper
Leather-stocking tales
A brief biography of J.F.Cooper
Born in a rich family
Attended Yale but expelled because of
Life story
misconduct at 13
Joined the United States Navy at 18
Lived in New York and participated in
intellectual life and politics at the
beginning of the 1820s
Lived in Europe from 1826 - 1833, and
during this time he defended American
democracy in his writings
Inherited fortune and lived a
comfortable life
A brief biography of J.F.Cooper
Major works
Precaution in 1820 (His first novel was
written on a dare from his wife. )
A historical novel---The Spy in 1821 (a
great success)
A sea adventure tale---The Pilot in
1824 (the best of his many sea romances)
The frontier saga--- The Leatherstocking Tales during 1823-1841 (one of
the most widely read American novels )
The first official history of the U.S.
Navy in 1839
A brief biography of J.F.Cooper
He wrote America’s first historical
romance, frontier saga and sea
adventure tale.
Contributions
He created a myth about the
formative period of the American
nation
He made the American conscious
of his past and the Europeans
conscious of America.
A brief biography of J.F.Cooper
He was the first writer to portrait
American Indians and frontiersmen .
He was the first writer to Find "the
Contributions
West" and "the frontier life" as
materials for literary works and
introduced Western tradition into
American literature.
He made us understand the value of
Americans– individualism and
freedom
American Indians
Frontiersmen
Frontiersmen
Leather-stocking Tales(1823-1841)
• 1.The Deerslayer(杀鹿者) in 1841
• 2. The Last of the Mohicans(最后的莫希
干人) in 1826
• 3. The Pathfinder(探路者) in 1840
• 4. The Pioneers(拓荒者) in 1823
• 5. The Prairie(大草原) in 1827
Pioneers
Prairie
Leather-stocking Tales(1823-1841)
• The Leather-Stocking Tales account for
five of these novels about pioneer life,
and yet in popularity they have
outweighed all of Cooper's other
works. The Tales contain a five volume
biography of their protagonist Natty
Bumppo.
Leather-stocking Tales(1823-1841)
• Natty Bumppo:
• several names for the same character: Hawk-eye, the
Pathfinder, the Deerslayer, Leather-stocking;
• a typical frontier man: honest, simple, innocent,
generous;
• represents brotherhood of man, nature and freedom;
• an ideal American, a perfect example and a father
image of the frontier man
Leather-stocking Tales(1823-1841)
• Theme: modern civilization advancing on the
wilderness and the conflicts between them
• Features:
1) Good at inventing plots (Cooper had never
been to the frontier area personally.)
2) Style: powerful, yet clumsy and dreadful
3) Wooden Characters
4) Use of dialect, but not authentic (criticized by
Mark Twain)
The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans
• The Last of the Mohicans is an epic novel
by James Fenimore Cooper. This novel was
first published in January 1826. It is the
most famous of the Leather-stocking Tales.
It was one of the most popular Englishlanguage novels of its time, and it helped
establish Cooper as one of the first worldfamous American writers.
The Last of the Mohicans
• The story is set in the British province of New
York during the French and Indian War, and
concerns a massacre of a colonial garrison and
a fictional kidnapping of two sisters, who were
the daughters of the commander of Fort
William Henry. Parts of the story may have
been derived from the capture and death of
Jane McCrea, in July 1777 near Fort Edward,
New York, by members of an Algonquian tribe.
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09301020