James Fenimore Cooper: Biography

Writer who brought new themes to American literature while using old forms. He was as much at home in Europe as in America. He experimented with every form of prose and produced the American pioneer novel. He was born into a family of the American gentry
He was born in New Jersey, in childhood very smart, as 13 years old he attended Yale, but he left it without taking a degree. Then he joined the navy and for three years roamed the seas of the world. Having returned home he married into a distinguished family and lived as a country squire. By marriage and by birth he was a member of American low gentry, he condemned hereditary aristocracy. He put emphasize on a property, good birth, upper bringing.
1826- 1833- he spent 7 years in Europe where he wrote remarkable novels and stories, often called American Walter Scott because there is a parallel, Scott wrote about romantic stories of highlanders driven out of their lands, Cooper wrote about Indians driven out of their lands. He was, of course, inspired by other romantic authors

His work
PRECAUTION was an attempt to improve upon an English novel of manners, when his wife suggested that he could write a better book than that he was reading to her. But it was a failure. His second book was an immediate success in America and in England
THE SPY describe events of American Revolution, war for independence
THE PILOT – sea novel
LEADER´S STOCKING TALES is a prose epic It contains 5 stories:
1.PIONEERS (1823)- themes of American wildness, made him famous, lot of dynamic elements- white men driving out Indians from their lands, clash between culture of the Whites and Indian culture
2.THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1826)
3.THE PRAIRIE (1825)
4.THE PATHFINDER
5.THE DEERSLAYER

He describes the events as they were happening in the novels, the central character of the novels is white man Natty Bumpo. In some stories he is young, in other he died... He connects the novels, he represents the mixture of Indian culture and culture of Whites, he leaves Whites to live in forests as the Indians.

Trilogy: THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS- describe the history of the family of Little pages from colonial times to its present day
Many critics loved and praised him, but the strongest critic was Mark Twain: FENIMORE COOPER´S LITERALLY OFFENSES. Several reasons why he criticized him:
-historical inaccuracies
-heroes come from upper class society
-language difficult to penetrate
-artificial tension in his books