Lecture 3 james fenimor cooper

1789-1851

James F. Cooper was born in New Jersey into the family of Judge William Cooper. When he was only a year old he was taken to what is now Cooperstown, New York State. Cooper was privately educated by an English tutor on the family estate, and grew up as a young aristocrat. He studied at Yale without much interest or distinction and left the University without taking a degree. In 1808 he entered the US Navy; three years later he married, left the Navy, and settled down in Cooper­stown to assume his inherited role as a cultivated country gentleman.

Cooper's first really noted novel was "The Spy"( 1821), an absorbing tale of the American Revolution. The book met a long-felt desire of the American people to see their own heroic past, and had an immediate success. Its chief figure is the shrewd peddler, Harvey Birch, who played the role of American agent to perfection and "died as he had lived, devoted to his country, and a martyr to her liberties". Harvy Birch is one of the major character creations of early American fiction.

Thereafter Cooper devoted his life entirely to writing, producing thirty three novels in addition to numerous histories and other works.

Cooper moved the setting of his next novel "The Pioneers"(1823) to the life he knew as a boy in Cooperstown. The novel introduced Cooper's second and greatest character, Natty Bumpoo, the noble frontiersman. Such was the hold of the figure of the "white woodsman" on Cooper's imagination that he returned again and again to the character, presenting him successively in "The Last of the Mohicans", "The Prairie", "The Pathfinder”. [62]

Immediately after "The Pioneers'" came "The Pilot" (1824), the first of Cooper's eleven sea novels, and the one which introduced his third major character. Long Tom Coffin, the prototype of tough, wise, salty Yankee sailor.

Within but three years Cooper opened three great literary themes based on native materials - the Revolution, the frontier, and the sea.

During the years 1826-1833 Cooper travelled in Europe, where he met W. Scott and other literary men. In 1828, he published his "Notions of the Americans", vindicating American society. Upon his return, however, he was dissatisfied with American democracy as being in contradiction with his aristocratic notions, and pursued his idea of agrarianism in pamphlet and novel. "Homeward Bound", "Home as Found" and "The American Democrat" were constructive critiques of the American way of life. All that brought Cooper into disfavour, but he persisted in his ideas to the very end of his life.

As well as Irving in short stories, Cooper in his novels began with transplantation of English models, their manner and style, at least. But the American subject, American history and geography he referred to, native habits and customs he described made his works the American product. Cooper was one of the first to prove that the world would read American authors.

Check yourself

1. What family and when was Fenimor Cooper born into?

2. What education did he get?

3. What was his first book? Who was its main character?

4. What novel introduced Cooper's second and greatest character?

5. When di d his first of eleven sea novels come?

6. What great literary themes did Cooper open within but three years?

7. How many novels did he produce?

8. When and where did Cooper meet W. Scott and other literary men?

9. What made Cooper's work American product? 10. What did Cooper prove with his writing? [63]