James Fenimore-Cooper
Pathfinder
St. John's wort
Last of the Mohicans
Pioneers
Spy
Pilot
sea sorceress
Prairie
Lionel Lincoln or the Siege of Boston
Littlepage family
Miles Wallingford
Glades in oak forests
Executioner
Vish-Ton-Vish Valley
At sea and on land
Crater
Wyandotte or House on the Hill
Two admirals
Bravo
Mercedes from Castile
Red Corsair
sea lions
Monikins
Books and articles by year
1820
- composes for daughters a traditional novel of manners "Precaution" (Precaution).
1821
The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground is a historical novel based on local lore. The novel poeticizes the era of the American Revolution and its ordinary heroes. "Spy" receives international recognition. Cooper moved with his family to New York, where he soon became a prominent literary figure and leader of writers who stood up for the national identity of American literature.
1823
- the first novel is published, later the fourth part of the Pentalogy about the Leather Stocking - The Pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna.
short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
novel "The Pilot" (The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea), the first of Cooper's many works about adventures at sea.
1825
- the novel "Lionel Lincoln, or the Siege of Boston" (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).
1826
- the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo, the most popular novel by Cooper, whose title has become a household name - "The Last of the Mohicans" (The Last of the Mohicans).
1827
- the fifth part of the pentalogy novel "Steppes", otherwise "The Prairie" (The Prairie).
1828
- marine novel "The Red Corsair" (The Red Rover).
Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829
- the novel "Valley of Wish-ton-Wish" (The wept of Wish-ton-Wish), dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.
1830
- a fantastic story of the eponymous brigantine "Sea Witch" (The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas).
Letter to General Lafayette politics
1831
- the first part of a trilogy from the history of European feudalism "Bravo, Or In Venice" (The bravo) - a novel from the distant past of Venice.
1832
- the second part of the trilogy "Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines" (The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine) - a historical novel from the time of the early Reformation in Germany.
short stories (No Steamboats)
1833
- the third part of the trilogy "The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons" - a legend of the XVIII century. about the hereditary executioners of the Swiss canton of Bern.
1834
— (A Letter to His Countrymen)
1835 - criticism of American reality in the political allegory "The Monikins" (The Monikins), written in the tradition of educational allegorism and satire by J. Swift.
1836
— memoir (The Eclipse)
Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland (Sketches of Switzerland)
Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine
A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland
1837
— Gleanings in Europe: France travel
Gleanings in Europe: England travel
1838
- pamphlet "The American Democrat" (The American Democrat: or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America).
Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel
The Chronicles of Cooperstown
Hommeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound
1839
- "The History of the Navy of the United States of America", testifying to the excellent command of the material and love for navigation.
old ironsides
1840
- "The Pathfinder, or the Lake-Sea" or "The Pathfinder, or The inland sea" - the third part of the pentalogy about Natti Bumpo
novel about the discovery of America by Columbus "Mercedes of Castile" (Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay).
1841
- Deerslayer: or The First Warpath - the first part of the pentalogy.
1842
- the novel "The two admirals" (The two admirals), telling an episode from the history of the British fleet, waging war with France in 1745
a novel about French privateering Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet.
1843
- the novel Wyandotte: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale about the American Revolution in the backcountry of America.
Richard Dale
biography (Ned Myers: or Life before the Mast)
(Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief or Le Mouchoir: An Autobiographical Romance or The French Governess: or The Embroidered Handkerchief or Die franzosischer Erzieheren: oder das gestickte Taschentuch)
1844
- Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale novel
and its sequel "Miles Wallingford" (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the protagonist has autobiographical features.
Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c.
1845
- two parts of the "trilogy in defense of land rent": "Satanstow" (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony) and "The Surveyor" (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).
1846
- the third part of the trilogy - the novel "The Redskins" (The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts). In this trilogy, Cooper portrays three generations of landowners (from the mid-18th century to the struggle against land rent in the 1840s). Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography
1847
- the pessimism of the late Cooper is expressed in the utopia "The Crater" (The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific), which is an allegorical history of the United States.
1848
- the novel The Oak Grove or The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter - from the history of the Anglo-American War of 1812
Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
1849
- Cooper's latest marine novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, about a shipwreck that befell seal hunters in the ice of Antarctica.
1850
Cooper's latest book, The Ways of the Hour, is a social novel about American judiciary.
play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), a satirization of socialism
1851
- short story (The Lake Gun)
(New York: or The Towns of Manhattan) is an unfinished work on the history of the city of New York.
Strokan M.
Language is not always able to express what the eye sees.
- James Fenimore Cooper
The epigraph to this essay was not chosen by chance. During his fruitful and eventful life, the eyes of J.F. Cooper really managed to see a lot, however, his literary language managed to convey and convey to the reader the thoughts of the author as skillfully as no other American writer could do before him. As a matter of fact, Cooper stood at the very origins of the emerging American literature. To this day, many Americans revere him as the founding father of American prose and American classical literature in general. What was the path of this great man, who became a writer of world significance, whose works, even during the life of the author, were read both in his homeland and in many other parts of the world?
James Fenimore Cooper's father was William Cooper (1754-1809), born to a Quaker family in Somerton (now the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) area. December 12, 1774 in Burlington (New Jersey), William Cooper married the daughter of a Quaker Richard Fenimore Elizabeth Fenimore. During the years of the American Revolution, William Cooper managed to get seriously rich and acquired a fairly large piece of land, including Otsego Lake, which in turn is the source of the Susquehanna River (now Glimmerglass State Park is located there). On the shore of the lake in 1786 he founded the settlement of Otsego, which after his death became known as Cooperstown, New York. In 1791, William Cooper became a local judge, and a little later he was elected to Congress twice. All of the above facts directly affected the future writer and his works. For example, the most detailed description of the surroundings of the lake can be found in the works “Pioneers, or At the Sources of the Susquehanna”, “St. Moreover, it was from his father that J.F. Cooper wrote off the image of one of the main characters in the novel The Pioneers - Judge Marmaduke Temple. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of these places and the people who inhabit them, both on the author's style and on the very plot of Cooper's historical novels, because most of everything written by the author is not just a figment of his imagination, but more or less real stories from the lives of people with whom he happened to know.
James Fenimore Cooper himself was born on September 15, 1789 in the city of Burlington, and became the twelfth child in the family. After he was barely a year old, his entire family moved in with his father in the newly founded village of Otsego (Cooperstown). There, young James received his primary education at a local school, and, no less important, got acquainted with the customs and customs of the local Indians. Like a sponge, the boy absorbed the stories of immigrants from different countries, listened to numerous harsh, later legendary stories, memories of the participants in the French-Indian War and the War of Independence. His childhood and youth were spent where at the end of the 18th century the "frontier" passed - the concept in the New World is more socio-psychological than geographical - the boundary between the already relatively developed territories and the pristine lands of the American Indians. The heroes of his future books: pioneers, farmers, hunters, Indians, he knew firsthand.
When J. Cooper was 13 years old, he entered the prestigious Yale College and studied there for two years (1803-1805), but never received the coveted diploma, because. was expelled for "bad behavior". The future writer's list of "pranks" includes the blown door of one of the college students, and student Cooper tried to train a donkey so that he could sit on the professor's chair. After an unsuccessful attempt to graduate, Cooper, who had long been delirious about the sea, signed up for the Navy. For several years he sailed the oceans on merchant ships, and as soon as he was 18 years old, he enlisted in the US Navy. While serving in the Navy, he helped build a warship on Lake Ontario, and it is to this circumstance that we owe the magnificent descriptions of the lake itself and its environs in the novel Pathfinder, or on the Shores of Ontario.
In 1811, J. F. Cooper left the Navy with the rank of midshipman and soon married. His choice fell on the young French beauty Susan Delaney, who came from a family that sympathized with England during the years of the American Revolution, because. her ancestors came from the family of the first rulers of the New York colony. It is her influence that explains the relatively mild opinion of the author about the British and their government in the writer’s early novels, which cannot be called an expression of the mood of the general mass of Americans towards the British in that era, because very little time has passed since the events of the American Revolution, and even less after Anglo-American War (1812-1815). James and Susan had seven children, one of whom became the grandfather of another American writer, Paul Fenimore Cooper (1899-1970).
However, his wife influenced the life and work of the writer not only by instilling tolerance for the British, but also directly pushed Cooper onto the writer's path. One day, after finishing reading another English novel, Cooper exclaimed: “I could write a better story than that myself!”. It was Susan who managed to take him at his word, and in order not to seem like a braggart, J. F. Cooper wrote his first novel Precaution (Precaution; 1820) in a few weeks, but he was torn to pieces by English critics. Cooper's second novel, already from American life, was "The Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground" ("The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground"; 1821), and it was this story that brought Cooper fame both in his homeland and in Old World. The global reading community has greeted with a bang the burning story of a simple man who, putting his life in danger every day, completely and selflessly devoted himself to serving the Motherland. It was the first novel dedicated to the history of the War of Independence. Inspired by such success, Cooper moved to New York to turn his hobby into a career as a writer.
Two years later, in 1823, he published the first novel from his world-famous pentalogy about a hunter, scout, and simply the purest soul of a man - an American citizen Nathanael Bampo, nicknamed Hawkeye. Inspired by the success of the book, Cooper released the next novel in the series, which became the crowning achievement of his writing skills, The Last of the Mohicans. The protagonist of all five parts of the adventure novel, Natty Bumpo, came from the stories that the writer heard from the settlers. Having processed local folklore, Cooper showed that the life story of a simple hunter can be no less interesting than the story of the deeds of a great commander.
Cooper was the first to create an epic from the life of the American people and their ancestors who previously lived on this earth. His novels The Deerslayer, or The First Warpath (1841), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840), Pioneers "(The Pioneers"; 1823) and "The Prairie" ("The Prairie"; 1827) cover a period of approximately sixty-two years (exactly the author himself lived), from about June 1744 (actions of the novel "St. John's Wort") to 1805 ( action of the novel "Prairie") years. Describing this period, the author tried to show how gradually 
the main character, the reality surrounding him, changes. Relations between people become more cruel, a person moves away from understanding nature and becomes more pragmatic, one might even say, becomes callous in soul. The images of the Indians created by Cooper were a discovery for European readers. His characters did not at all look like traditional savages or unusual, exotic inhabitants dressed in gold and feathers. They were completely ordinary people, endowed with human passions, leading their own way of life. Their behavior was distinguished by nobility and openness, and the inner world was often richer than the world of aliens.
The success of this series of novels was so great that even English critics had to recognize Cooper's talent and called him the American Walter Scott. The other side of Cooper's work was novels dedicated to the maritime theme, these include such significant works as: "Two Admirals", "Wandering Light", "On Land and Sea", "Sea Lions", "Red Corsair", "Sea Sorceress ". In them, Cooper talks about the discovery of America, about the war between England and France, and, of course, about pirates. The heroes of the writer perform incredible feats, looking for treasures, saving beauties. The authenticity of the description of all stories, the unique description of nature captivates the reader, and all this is explained by the colossal life experience of J. F. Cooper.
In Russia, they got acquainted with the work of Cooper in 1825, when the novel The Spy was published in Moscow. Cooper's books quickly won the love and popularity of the Russian reader. They were highly valued by M. Yu. Lermontov, V. G. Belinsky, V. K. Kuchelbeker, A.S. Pushkin and other prominent progressive cultural figures.
The last years of his life, Cooper, already being the head of his family clan (after the death of his father and older brothers), continued to work as a history writer. He created works, including those on the history of the US Navy and the history of the city of New York. James Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851, just one day before the age of sixty-two.
Cooper became the founder of a peculiar literary genre - the western novel. Several generations of American writers - B. Garth, M. Reid, R. Haggard - considered him their teacher. Filled with ideas of feat and struggle, Cooper's books continue to teach honor, courage, and loyalty.
Rating 0.00 (0 Votes)Fenimore Cooper is an outstanding American writer and essayist. He has a huge number of historical adventure novels about the life of society during the American War for Independence and Progress. His literary assets include such well-known novels as: "The Last of the Mohicans", "St. John's Wort", "Leather Stocking Pentalogy" and much more. All America read to him and was grateful for such sincerity and love with which he described the virgin nature of America. People really liked his talent as a storyteller. Especially for children. Although, it would seem, his novels are full of bloody scenes and scenes of violence. Revenge, betrayal and love. Themes are not for children. However, this was not what attracted them. Children love adventure, love memorable, strong characters. And Fenimore Cooper gave it to them. He created characters who brought light to society with them, who spoke of freedom, soulfulness, love and compassion.
Fenimore Cooper wrote 33 novels in his life and is rightfully inscribed in history as the first American writer whose works were recognized throughout the Old World, even in Russia. All great writers, such as Balzac, Thackeray, bowed before the talent of Cooper. Although he himself began his literary career when he was already over 30 years old, and purely by accident. It is said that he wrote his first novel, Precaution, because he had an argument with his wife.
He is the son of a wealthy landowner who went on to become a congressman, and has witnessed America's greedy and brutal way since childhood. This drama stuck into the mind of the young American and became his guide to adulthood. This feeling, these memories did not leave him, and very soon it became clear that they needed to be thrown out.
At the age of 14, Cooper became a student at Yale University. However, he was destined to study for a short time. He was expelled for some offense and he wasted no time enlisting in the Navy. There he served and gained knowledge for 7 years. In the period from 1826 to 1833 he traveled all over Europe. He lived in such countries as: England, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands. The way to Russia was never opened for the writer. 10 years after the tour, Cooper's novels began to appear one after another, which created a new life around him. The trilogy about "Land rent", with which he began his journey, told about businessmen and landed aristocrats who did not run a pure business. This trilogy brought the author worldwide fame and recognition. Many American families, those who were built by the land system, were glad to hear their long-silenced voice in Cooper's works.
Further on, maritime novels and satires appear. Two journalistic novels "Home" and "At Home" appear. After the release of these novels, critics pouted against him, and began to accuse him of being anti-patriotic, which in fact was not true. Cooper was well aware that these accusations had no proper basis. He loved his country. He loved so much that he did not want to put up with the deceit and injustice that existed on the territory of the country. Some of Cooper's novels have been compared to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. However, Cooper lacks the degree of wit that Swift had.
Cooper fought for his rights, and sometimes defended his honor and his word in court. In the struggle for his ideals, he won more than one process. The strength of his spirit and truth had no due rivals, and, in the end, celebrated the triumph of truth over lies. Cooper's reputation in world literature is firmly based on the heroes he created, who carried with them the truth, national motives. The pentalogy about Natti Bumpo was written over a long 17 years, then becoming the greatest classic of world literature. Even Gorky wrote of Cooper as one of the greatest heroes that old America has ever seen.
Fenimore Cooper and his legacy
Fenimore Cooper is the great author of old America. His novels, The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), Deerslayer (1941) and The Pathfinder (1940) are by far the best works of the wild west. The American Indian tribes in Fenimore Cooper's novels live like wild ghosts, elusive, with powerful traditions. The events in the first novel flow inconsistently. In The Pioneers, old hunter Natty Bumpo is living his last moments. He does not understand and does not want to understand those mores and laws that have replaced the old traditions of the world that has already passed away. In the next novel, The Last of the Mohicans, the action takes place 40 years earlier. There is a war going on between the British and the Americans. The Indians join the soldiers in order to also join the war for the freedom of their lands.
In Enlightenment and Literature in America (1828), Fenimore Cooper, in the form of a letter, complained to the Abbe Giromacci, in which he said that in the historical context the printer appeared first. The writer himself appeared much later. The writer is a free romantic whose life sometimes belongs exclusively to his annals and feelings. Cooper himself was like that. He was subject to strong, powerful emotions. And even Pushkin in his article "John Tenner" noticed that the Indians created on the pages of Cooper's novels are covered with a romantic veil that deprives them of their pronounced individual properties. However, it is worth stepping back a little and saying that Cooper never aspired to depict accurate portraits. He preferred the invention of the poet to the veracity of fact.
However, no matter how poet he was in his soul, he felt an obligation to history, he felt it as a rigorous fact that needs to be appreciated and honored. History is a sacred duty. The writer felt a sharp conflict, spewing out on the pages of his works. This conflict between reality and dreams, nature, which contained the highest truth, and progress, which slowly reduces nature to nothing, kills the soul of the world. This conflict is vividly expressed in the plot of "Leatherstocking", which tells the story of the Seven Years' War between the French and the British for the right to be called the masters of Canada. There is a lot of travel and detective secrets in the novel, there is intrigue and love. All this perfectly played its role and the novel became a masterpiece of children's literature, although in fact, this is not children's literature at all. In this novel, one of the main characters is the famous Indian Chingachgook, whose image the author turned out to be slightly blurry. This suggests that in the first place for the writer were general concepts - clan, tribe, history, way of life, tradition and more. And it is with the death of Uncas, the son of Chingachgook, that the loss is felt with even greater force. As if the thread of times breaks when the new replaces the old.
Cooper was very ill with a love of nature. And the echoes of this illness lay down on the pages of The Last of the Mohicans, where the theme sounds short and conveys the whole point. Nature judges man. Man will never rise above nature, even if he has the entire world progress in his arsenal. Nature will always be beyond his reach. Rereading the novel by Fenimore Cooper, you catch yourself thinking that the author was incredibly painful to realize that the old America was forced to leave, because the new way of life requires it. Society is changing and the country is changing with it. However, this new America is already dead at birth. The writer wrote in the future that he broke off relations with his country, broke up, as couples who have been married for decades disperse. And therefore, even such a gap does not kill the former love, former interest and compassion. For Cooper, America was still as mysterious and wild as it had been many years ago. And he continued to love her.
Please note that the biography of Cooper Fenimore presents the most basic moments from life. Some minor life events may be omitted from this biography.
COOPER James Fenimore(1789-1851), American writer. Combined elements of enlightenment and romanticism. Historical and adventure novels about the War of Independence in the North. America, the era of the frontier, sea voyages ("Spy", 1821; pentalogy about the Leather Stocking, including "The Last of the Mohicans", 1826, "Deerslayer", 1841; "Pilot", 1823). Socio-political satire (the novel The Monikins, 1835) and journalism (the pamphlet treatise The American Democrat, 1838).
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COOPER (Cooper) James Fenimore (September 15, 1789, Burlington, New Jersey - September 14, 1851, Cooperstown, New York), American writer.
First steps in literature
The author of 33 novels, Fenimore Cooper became the first American writer who was unconditionally and widely recognized by the cultural environment of the Old World, including Russia. Balzac, reading his novels, by his own admission, growled with pleasure. Thackeray put Cooper above Walter Scott, repeating in this case the reviews of Lermontov and Belinsky, who generally likened him to Cervantes and even Homer. Pushkin noted Cooper's rich poetic imagination.
He took up professional literary activity relatively late, already at the age of 30, and in general, as if by accident. If you believe the legends that inevitably surround the life of a major personality, he wrote his first novel (Precaution, 1820) in a dispute with his wife. And before that, the biography developed quite routinely. The son of a landowner who became rich during the years of the struggle for independence, who managed to become a judge, and then a congressman, James Fenimore Cooper grew up on the shores of Lake Otsego, a hundred miles northwest of New York, where at that time the "frontier" - the concept in The New World is not only geographical, but to a large extent socio-psychological - between the already developed territories and the wild, pristine lands of the natives. Thus, from an early age, he became a living witness to the dramatic, if not bloody, growth of American civilization, cutting its way further and further west. The heroes of his future books - pioneer squatters, Indians, farmers who suddenly became large planters, he knew firsthand. In 1803, at the age of 14, Cooper entered Yale University, from where, however, he was expelled for some disciplinary offenses. This was followed by a seven-year service in the navy - first merchant, then military. Cooper and further, having already made a big name for himself as a writer, did not leave practical activity. In the years 1826-1833 he served as the American consul in Lyon, however, rather nominally. In any case, during these years he traveled a considerable part of Europe, settling for a long time, in addition to France, in England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In the summer of 1828 he was going to Russia, but this plan was never to be realized. All this colorful life experience, one way or another, was reflected in his work, however, with a different measure of artistic persuasiveness.
Natty Bumpo
Cooper owes his worldwide fame not to the so-called land rent trilogy (The Devil's Finger, 1845, The Land Surveyor, 1845, The Redskins, 1846), where the old barons, landed aristocrats, are opposed to greedy businessmen who are not shackled by any moral prohibitions, and not another trilogy inspired by the legends and reality of the European Middle Ages (Bravo, 1831, Heidenmauer, 1832, The Executioner, 1833), and not numerous marine novels (The Red Corsair, 1828, The Sea Sorceress, 1830 , etc.), and even more so not satires, like "Monicons" (1835), as well as two journalistic novels adjoining them in terms of problems, "Home" (1838) and "House" (1838). This is generally a topical debate on domestic American topics, the writer's response to critics who accused him of a lack of patriotism, which really should have hurt him painfully - after all, The Spy (1821) was left behind - a clearly patriotic novel from the time of the American Revolution. "Monikins" are even compared with "Gulliver's Travels", but Cooper clearly lacks neither Swift's imagination, nor Swift's wit, a tendency that kills all artistry is too clearly visible here. In general, oddly enough, Cooper more successfully resisted his enemies not as a writer, but simply as a citizen who, on occasion, could apply to the courts. Indeed, he won more than one process, defending his honor and dignity in court against illegible newspaper pamphleteers and even fellow countrymen, who decided at a meeting to withdraw his books from the library of his native Cooperstown. The reputation of Cooper, a classic of national and world literature, is firmly based on the pentalogy of Natty Bumpo - Leather Stocking (it is called, however, in different ways - St. John's Wort, Hawkeye, Pathfinder, Long Carbine). With all the cursiveness of the author, the work on this work stretched out, although with long breaks, for seventeen years. Against a rich historical background, it traces the fate of a man who paves the paths and highways of American civilization and at the same time tragically experiences the great moral costs of this path. As Gorky astutely noted in his time, Cooper's hero "unconsciously served a great cause ... the spread of material culture in the country of wild people and - turned out to be unable to live in the conditions of this culture ...".
Pentalogy
The sequence of events in this first epic on American soil is broken. In the novel The Pioneers (1823), which opens it, the action takes place in 1793, and Natti Bumpo appears as a hunter already declining in his life, who does not understand the language and customs of modern times. In the next novel in the cycle, The Last of the Mohicans (1826), the action is moved back forty years. Behind him - "Prairie" (1827), chronologically directly adjacent to the "Pioneers". On the pages of this novel, the hero dies, but continues to live in the creative imagination of the author, and after many years he returns to the years of his youth. The novels Pathfinder (1840) and Deerslayer (1841) present pure pastoral, pure poetry, which the author discovers in human types, and mainly in the very appearance of virgin nature, still almost untouched by the colonist's axe. As Belinsky wrote, "Cooper cannot be surpassed when he introduces you to the beauties of American nature."
In the critical essay Enlightenment and Literature in America (1828), in the form of a letter to the fictitious abbot Giromachi, Cooper complained that the printer in America appeared before the writer, while the romantic writer was deprived of chronicles and dark traditions. He himself made up for this deficiency. Under his pen, the characters and manners of the frontier acquire an inexpressible poetic charm. Of course, Pushkin was right when he noted in the article "John Tanner" that Cooper's Indians are fanned with a romantic veil that deprives them of pronounced individual properties. But the novelist, it seems, did not strive for the accuracy of the portrait, preferring poetic fiction to the truth of the fact, which, by the way, Mark Twain later wrote ironically in the famous pamphlet The Literary Sins of Fenimore Cooper.
Nevertheless, he felt obligations to historical reality, which he himself spoke about in the preface to The Pioneers. The acute internal conflict between a lofty dream and reality, between nature, embodying the highest truth, and progress is a conflict of a characteristically romantic nature and constitutes the main dramatic interest of the pentalogy.
With piercing sharpness, this conflict reveals itself in the pages of "Leather Stocking", clearly the most powerful thing in the pentalogy, and in the entire legacy of Cooper. Having placed one of the episodes of the so-called Seven Years' War (1757-1763) between the British and French over possessions in Canada at the center of the narrative, the author leads it swiftly, saturates it with a mass of adventures, partly of a detective nature, which made the novel a favorite children's reading for many generations. But this is not children's literature.
Chingachgook
Perhaps that is why the images of the Indians, in this case Chingachgook, one of the two main characters of the novel, turned out to be lyrically blurry for Cooper, because the common concepts were more important for him - tribe, clan, history with its mythology, way of life, language. It is this powerful layer of human culture, which is based on kinship to nature, that is leaving, as evidenced by the death of Chingachgook's son Uncas, the last of the Mohicans. This loss is catastrophic. But it is not hopeless, which is generally not characteristic of American romanticism. Cooper translates tragedy into a mythological plane, and myth, in fact, does not know a clear boundary between life and death, it is not for nothing that Leather Stocking, also not just a person, but the hero of a myth - a myth of early American history, solemnly and confidently says that the young man Uncas leaves only for time.
Writer's Pain
Man before the court of nature is the inner theme of The Last of the Moquigans. It is not given to a person to reach out to her greatness, albeit sometimes unkind, but he is constantly forced to solve this unsolvable task. Everything else - the fights of the Indians with the pale-faced, the battles of the British with the French, colorful clothes, ritual dances, ambushes, caves, etc. - this is just the entourage.
It was painful for Cooper to see how the root America, which is embodied by his beloved hero, is leaving before our eyes, being replaced by a completely different America, where speculators and rogues rule the ball. That is probably why the writer once dropped with bitterness: "I parted ways with my country." But over time, it became clear that contemporaries-compatriots who reproached the writer for anti-patriotic moods did not notice, the discrepancy is a form of moral self-esteem, and longing for the departed is a secret faith in a continuation that has no end.
Did you know that the "father" of the American adventure novel, the first North American writer to achieve worldwide fame, wrote his first book ... on a bet? And today is his birthday, by the way!
James Fenimore Cooper was born in 1789 in Burlington, New Jersey, but soon the Cooper family moved to the state of New York, where he founded the village of Cooperstown. Tam James Fenimore receives a school education, after which he goes to study at Yale University, but, without completing the course, he enters the maritime service, which takes place on Lake Ontario, where US military ships were created in those days.
In 1811 Fenimore Cooper marries Frenchwoman Susan Augusta Delancey. Once, while reading to his wife some boring novel, Fenimore threw it away in his hearts and declared that it was not at all difficult to write something better. His wife took him at his word, there was nowhere to retreat. So in 1820 the first novel was published. Cooper"Precaution". The author published it anonymously, knowing the prejudice of the English literary society towards American writers. And he did the right thing. Critics were ruthless, but not because of the origin of the author, but because the novel showed complete ignorance of the author of the real England, where the novel takes place.
But cooper does not lose courage, criticism probably only encourages him. And in 1821, his second novel, The Spy, or The Tale of No Man's Land, was published. What provided this novel with success, and its author with worldwide recognition? They were provided with a good choice of characters. They were the brave and proud people of the "frontier" - the border zone of the development of the colonialists of the Wild West. They do not live by the laws of a prim society of immigrants, but they honor and respect the traditions of the Indians.
Film "- Big Serpent" (1967) - film adaptation of the novel Fenimore Cooper "St. John's wort, or the First Warpath" (GDR)
Such a find was the reader's favorite image of Nathaniel (Natty) Bumpo, who first "revived" in the novel "Pioneers" (1823) and continued his journey in the novels "The Last of the Mohicans" (1926), "The Prairie" (1827), "Pathfinder" ( 1840), "St. John's wort, or the First Warpath" (1841). The features of this original character, created by Cooper, can be judged by his nicknames on the pages of the novel - Hawkeye, St. John's Wort, Pathfinder, Long Carbine, Leather Stocking.
A series of five "red-skinned" novels Cooper- this is a kind of adventure epic against the background of the history of wars between two colonial powers, where on the one hand - the British colonies, on the other - the French who own Canada and their Indian allies. Natty Bumpo clearly does not support the "civilizing" predation of his fellow tribesmen and their unwillingness to reckon with the rights of the Indians. But the author's skill in describing the virgin nature of America, the relief of vivid characters, the indisputable success with the reader forces critics to recognize James Fenimore Cooper as the American Walter Scott.
K / f "Pathfinder" (1987) - Soviet adaptation of the novel Fenimore Cooper Pathfinder with Andrei Mironov as Marquis Sanglie
Even after the release of the novel "The Spy" in 1821, the spouses coopers move to New York, where the writer immediately becomes a prominent figure in the circles of writers fighting for the national authenticity of American literature. Success Fenimore Cooper in 1826 he even brought him to the post of American consul, and for 7 whole years he was a writer in Europe.
This life stage was reflected in the trilogy about the times of the European Middle Ages - the novels "Bravo, or In Venice", "Heidenmeier" and "The Executioner" (1831-1833), as well as in five volumes of travel notes.
In addition to European themes and the epic about the conquest of the Wild West, there were Fenimore Cooper another direction, to which he treated with special love and awe, is the "marine" novels. Weakness in front of the sea and ships originated in the writer during his service on Lake Ontario. This is how novels were born. Cooper"The Pilot" (1823), "The Siege of Boston" (1825), "The Red Corsair" (1828), "Sorceress of the Sea" (1830) and, finally, the fundamental work "History of the American Navy" (1839).
Movie "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992) - American adaptation of the novel of the same name Fenimore Cooper
The last 30 years of life, the most fruitful, Fenimore Cooper spent at the parental home in Cooperstown. Died in 1851.
Artworks Fenimore Cooper filmed more than 30 times, boys and girls read his books for the third century in a row. And we'll go read!
