James Fenimore Cooper

1783-1859

• • • • •

1. Father of American novel 2. Maker of the American Myth 3. Preacher of the American individualism 4. First sufferer of the American Dilemma

James Fenomore Cooper

Because of Mr. Cooper, we began to understand the American Indians, and the meaning of the frontier and American values.

Forests are to Americans as the Yellow River to the Chinese.

A forest in winter, mysterious and beautiful

This is the place where a solitary soul can rest.

Daniel Day Lewis brings the American past to life.

The American Indians

American Indians and their cultural sign: The eagle

American Indians

The noble savages

The frontiersmen in the west

Actors of the movie Patriot at lunch break

A brief introduction to Cooper

• He wrote America’s first utopian novel, historical romance, frontier novel and sea novel.

• He was the first writer to portrait Indians, frontiersmen and old salts.

• He made the Americans conscious of their past and the Europeans conscious of America.

• He was the first writer to realize that a new literature should be created from the inside, from the feeling to the form.

• He helped to develop American values: individualism, freedom in the wilderness, unsophisticated nobleness.

• He moved American literature a step forward

James Fenimore Cooper

• • • • • •

The paradox of his life and character 1. A man of action and a professional writer 2. An amateur of letters and enjoying worldwide fame 3. An aristocrat by taste and a spokesman of American democracy 4. A writer of frontier stories and a believer of social cast 5. A gentleman farmer and a lover of forests

Cooper’s writing and style

• 1. More imagination than polish, with a slow start • 2. With landscape and narrowing down to a small group and/or a solitary person • 3. Feeling at ease with the lower class • 4. With a fine ear for dialects • 5. Exciting scenes: attack, massacre, torture, fight, capture, rescue and escape • 6. Delighted in gory details ( scalping)

American literary tradition 1 ( Novels)

Civilization

A white man alone

Wilderness Europe America

Mayflower people

American literary tradition 2 (Novels)

• 1.

Natty Bumppo

,

The Leather Stocking Tales

• 2.

Huck

,

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• 3.

Hester

,

The Scarlet Letter

• 4.

Ishmael

,

Moby Dick

• 5.

Old man

,

The Old Man and the Sea

The forest is a place where we feel free and clean.

The prairie

Deer

An American Indian girl

Cooper’s works

•

The Leatherstocking Tales

皮袜子五部曲 • • • • •

1.The Deerslayer, 1841<

猎鹿者

> 2. The Last of the Mohicans, 1826<

最后一个莫希干人

> 3. The Pathfinder, 1840<

探路者

> 4. The Pioneers, 1823<

拓荒者

> 5. The Prairie, 1827<

大草原

>

•

The central figure: Natty Bumppo

The prairie harbors the American soul and spirit.