Approaches To Teaching The Novels Of James Fenimore Cooper

A cosmopolitan author who spent nearly a decade in Europe and was versed in the works of his British and French contemporaries, James Fenimore Cooper was also deeply concerned with the America of his day and its history. His works embrace themes that have dominated American literature since: the frontier; the oppression of Native Americans by Europeans; questions of race, gender, and class; and rugged individualism, as represented by figures like the pirate, the spy, the hunter, and the settler. His most memorable character, Natty Bumppo, has entered into American popular culture. The essays in this volume offer students bridges to Cooper's novels, which grapple with complex moral issues that are still crucial today. Engaging with film adaptations, cross-culturalism, animal studies, media history, environmentalism, and Indigenous American poetics, the essays offer new ways to bring these novels to life in the classroom.

Offers a collection of 19 essays, intended as a companion to a study of Cooper. This volume discusses the author across disciplines from language and literature to American Studies and history. It provides paths to understanding Cooper's literary biography, and reveals the range of his oeuvre.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) invented the key forms of American fiction—the Western, the sea tale, the Revolutionary War romance. Furthermore, Cooper turned novel writing from a polite diversion into a paying career. He influenced Herman Melville, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Francis Parkman, and even Mark Twain—who felt the need to flagellate Cooper for his “literary offenses.” His novels mark the starting point for any history of our environmental conscience. Far from complicit in the cleansings of Native Americans that characterized the era, Cooper’s fictions traced native losses to their economic sources. Perhaps no other American writer stands in greater need of a major reevaluation than Cooper. This is the first treatment of Cooper’s life to be based on full access to his family papers. Cooper’s life, as Franklin relates it, is the story of how, in literature and countless other endeavors, Americans in his period sought to solidify their political and cultural economic independence from Britain and, as the Revolutionary generation died, stipulate what the maturing republic was to become. The first of two volumes, James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years covers Cooper’s life from his boyhood up to 1826, when, at the age of thirty-six, he left with his wife and five children for Europe.

Between 1820 and 1860 a set of established cultural values deemed the "Cult of Domesticity" sought to shape the private and public lives of individuals in a rapidly changing American society. Promoting the ideals of conformity in religious, domestic and personal development, the cult was particularly concerned with maintaining a status quo of piety, purity, obedience and domesticity in 19th century female behavior. While a number a female writers responded through literature to the social standards they were urged to emulate, the prominent male writer James Fenimore Cooper reacted as well, addressing the predominant cultural climate through texts that establish women as an integral part of the plot line. This book provides a comprehensive discussion of James Fenimore Cooper's view of family dynamics and explores his attempts to simultaneously present and critique the forces shaping the social development of the nation. The study places 10 relevant Cooper novels within the context of popular literary works by 19th century writers Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Susan Warner and Maria Cummins to demonstrate how Cooper approaches issues of Victorian domesticity and how his representations compare to those crafted by the contemporary women writers. Opening chapters discuss why Cooper chose the women's fiction genre as his vehicle and present an overview of the "Cult of Domesticity" in fiction and nonfiction, delineating the origins and effects of 19th century domestic life. Remaining chapters address the role of the mother, the father and the central daughter figure in domestic fiction.

The oddly diverse character of James Fenimore Cooper's writings and activities has led many critics to view his career as fragmentary. Stephen Railton takes a psychoanalytic approach to the novelist's most important works and the most significant events in his life. By showing how the aesthetic struggle to create reflected attempts to reconcile conflicting emotional needs, the author is able to provide a much-needed coherent interpretation of Cooper's achievement. Professor Railton's analysis shows that an awareness of the extent to which Cooper's father dominated his life is central to an understanding of his novels and his often contradictory behavior. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Although Robert Louis Stevenson was a late Victorian, his work--especially Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--still circulates energetically and internationally among popular and academic audiences and among young and old. Admired by Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jorge Luis Borges, Stevenson’s fiction crosses the boundaries of genre and challenges narrow definitions of the modern and the postmodern. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," provides an introduction to the writer's life, a survey of the criticism of his work, and a variety of resources for the instructor. In part 2, "Approaches," thirty essays address such topics as Stevenson's dialogue with James about literature; his verse for children; his Scottish heritage; his wanderlust; his work as gothic fiction, as science fiction, as detective fiction; his critique of imperialism in the South Seas; his usefulness in the creative writing classroom; and how he encourages expansive thinking across texts, times, places, and lives.

This carefully crafted ebook: "The Collected Novels of James Fenimore Cooper: 30 Western Classics, Adventure Novels & Sea Tales (Illustrated)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Leatherstocking Tales: The Deerslayer The Last of the Mohicans The Pathfinder The Pioneers The Prairie The Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe The Chainbearer The Redskins The Adventures of Miles Wallingford: Afloat and Ashore Miles Wallingford Other Novels: Precaution The Spy The Pilot The Red Rover The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish The Water-Witch The Bravo The Headsman The Monikins Homeward Bound Home as Found Mercedes of Castile The Two Admirals The Wing-and-Wing Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief Wyandotté The Crater Jack Tier The Oak Openings The Sea Lions James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. Before embarking on his career as a writer, Cooper served in the U.S. Navy as a Midshipman, which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. The novel that launched his career was The Spy, a tale about counterespionage set during the Revolutionary War. He also wrote numerous sea stories, and his best-known works are five historical novels of the frontier period known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.