COOPER James Fenimore(1789-1851), American writer. He combined elements of enlightenment and romanticism. Historical and adventure novels about the War of Independence in the North. America, the frontier era, sea voyages (“Spy,” 1821; pentalogy about Leatherstocking, including “The Last of the Mohicans,” 1826, “St. John’s Wort,” 1841; “Pilot,” 1823). Social and political satire (the novel “The Monikins”, 1835) and journalism (the pamphlet treatise “The American Democrat”, 1838).
* * *
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 to be unconditionally and widely accepted cultural environment Old World, including Russia. Balzac, reading his novels, by his own admission, roared with pleasure. Thackeray ranked Cooper higher than 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.
Professional literary activity he started working relatively late, already at the age of 30, and generally 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) as a bet with his wife. And before that, the biography developed quite routinely. The son of a landowner who became rich during 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, about a hundred miles northwest of New York, where at that time the “frontier” was held - a concept in The New World is not only geographical, but also to a large extent socio-psychological - between already developed territories and wild, pristine lands of the aborigines. Thus, from an early age he became a living witness to the dramatic, if not bloody, growth of American civilization, which was cutting further and further west. He knew the heroes of his future books - pioneer squatters, Indians, farmers who overnight became large planters - firsthand. In 1803, at the age of 14, Cooper entered Yale University, from where he was, however, expelled for some disciplinary offenses. This was followed by seven years of service in the navy - first in the merchant fleet, then in the military. Cooper, having already made a great name for himself as a writer, did not leave practical activities. In 1826-1833 he served as American consul in Lyon, although rather nominally. In any case, during these years he traveled through 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 preparing to go to Russia, but this plan was never destined to come true. All this varied life experience, one way or another, was reflected in his work, albeit with varying degrees of artistic persuasiveness.
Natty Bumppo
Cooper owes his worldwide fame not to the so-called trilogy about land rent (Devil's Finger, 1845, Land Surveyor, 1845, Redskins, 1846), where the old barons, land aristocrats, are opposed to greedy businessmen, not constrained by any moral prohibitions, and not another trilogy inspired by the legends and reality of the European Middle Ages (Bravo, 1831, Heidenmauer, 1832, Executioner, 1833), and not numerous sea novels (The Red Corsair, 1828, The Sea Sorceress, 1830 , etc.), and especially not satires like “Monicons” (1835), as well as the two journalistic novels “Home” (1838) and “Home” (1838) that are related to them in terms of issues. This is generally a topical polemic on internal 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) - a clearly patriotic novel from the times of the American Revolution - was left behind. "Monicin" is even compared to "Gulliver's Travels", but Cooper clearly lacks either Swift's imagination or Swift's wit; a tendency that kills all artistry appears too clearly here. In general, oddly enough, Cooper more successfully confronted his enemies not as a writer, but simply as a citizen who, on occasion, could turn to the courts. Indeed, he won more than one case, defending his honor and dignity in court from indiscriminate newspaper pamphleteers and even fellow countrymen who decided at a meeting to remove his books from the library of his native Cooperstown. Cooper's reputation, a classic of national and world literature, rests firmly on the pentalogy of Natty Bumppo - Leather Stocking (he is called, however, differently - St. John's Wort, Hawkeye, Pathfinder, Long Carbine). Despite all the author's cursive writing, work on this work lasted, although with long interruptions, for seventeen years. Against a rich historical background, it traces the fate of a man who paved the paths and highways of American civilization and at the same time tragically experienced the major moral costs of this path. As Gorky astutely noted in his time, Cooper’s hero “unconsciously served the great cause ... of spreading material culture in the country wild people and - turned out to be unable to live in the conditions of this culture...”
Pentalogy
The sequence of events in this epic, the first on American soil, is confused. In the opening novel, “The Pioneers” (1823), the action takes place in 1793, and Natty Bumppo appears as a hunter already approaching the end of his life, who does not understand the language and customs of new times. In the next novel in the series, “The Last of the Mohicans” (1826), the action moves forward forty years ago. Behind it is “Prairie” (1827), chronologically directly adjacent to “Pioneers”. On the pages of this novel, the hero dies, but in the author’s creative imagination he continues to live, and after many years he returns to the years of his youth. The novels “The Pathfinder” (1840) and “St. John’s Wort” (1841) present pure pastoral, unalloyed poetry, which the author discovers in human types, and mainly in the very appearance of virgin nature, still almost untouched by the colonist’s ax. 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), couched in the form of a letter to the fictional Abbot Jiromachi, Cooper complained that the printer appeared in America before the writer, while the romantic writer was deprived of chronicles and dark legends. He himself compensated for this deficiency. Under his pen, the characters and customs of the frontier acquire an inexpressible poetic charm. Of course, Pushkin was right when he noted in the article “John Tenner” that Cooper’s Indians are covered in a romantic flair, depriving them of pronounced individual properties. But the novelist, it seems, did not strive for an accurate portrait, preferring poetic fiction to the truth of fact, which, by the way, Mark Twain later ironically wrote about in the famous pamphlet “The Literary Sins of Fenimore Cooper.”
Nevertheless, he felt an obligation to historical reality, as he himself spoke about in the preface to “Pioneers.” Spicy internal conflict between a lofty dream and reality, between nature, which embodies the highest truth, and progress - a conflict of a characteristically romantic nature constitutes the main dramatic interest of the pentalogy.
With piercing sharpness, this conflict reveals itself on the pages of Leatherstocking, clearly the most powerful thing both in the pentalogy and in Cooper’s entire legacy. Having placed at the center of the story one of the episodes of the so-called Seven Years' War (1757-1763) between the British and the French for possessions in Canada, the author conducts it rapidly, saturates it with a lot of adventures, partly of a detective nature, which has made the novel a favorite children's reading for many generations. But this is not children's literature.
Chingachgook
Perhaps this is also why Cooper’s images of the Indians, in this case Chingachgook, one of the two main characters of the novel, turned out to be lyrically blurry, because more important than faces for him were general concepts - tribe, clan, history with its own mythology, way of life, language. It is this powerful layer of human culture, which is based on a family closeness to nature, that is disappearing, 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 not typical of American romanticism at all. Cooper translates the tragedy into a mythological plane, and myth, in fact, does not know a clear boundary between life and death, not without reason Leather Stocking, also not just a person, but a hero of a myth - a myth of early American history, solemnly and confidently says that the young man Uncas is leaving only for a while.
Writer's Pain
Man before the court of nature - this is the internal theme of “The Last of the Mokigans.” It is not given to man to reach its greatness, even if it is sometimes unkind, but he is constantly forced to solve this unsolvable problem. Everything else - fights between Indians and pale-faced people, battles between the British and the French, colorful clothes, ritual dances, ambushes, caves, etc. - is just an entourage.
It was painful for Cooper to see how root America, embodied by his beloved hero, was leaving before his eyes, being replaced by a completely different America, where speculators and crooks ruled the roost. That is probably why the writer once said with bitterness: “I have parted ways with my country.” But over time, it became clear what his contemporaries and compatriots did not notice, reproaching the writer for his anti-patriotic sentiments: divergence is a form of moral self-esteem, and longing for the past is a secret belief in a continuation that has no end.

Biography

Shortly after Fenimore's birth, his father, Judge William Cooper (English)Russian, a fairly wealthy Quaker landowner, moved to New York State and founded the village of Cooperstown there (English)Russian, turned into a town. Having received his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but without completing the course, he entered the naval service (1806-1811) and was assigned to the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario.

To this circumstance we owe the remarkable descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel “The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario.” In 1811, Cooper married a Frenchwoman, Susan Augusta Delancey, who came from a family that sympathized with England during the Revolutionary War; its influence explains those relatively mild reviews of the English and the English government that are found in Cooper's early novels. Chance made him a writer. Once reading a novel aloud to his wife, Cooper noticed that it was not difficult to write better. His wife took him at his word, and in order not to seem like a braggart, he wrote his first novel, Precaution, in a few weeks. Precaution; ).

Novels

Assuming that, in view of the already begun competition between English and American authors, English criticism would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name for the first novel "Precaution"() and transferred the action of this novel to England. The latter circumstance could only harm the book, which revealed the author’s poor acquaintance with English life and which caused very unfavorable reviews from English critics. Cooper's second novel, already from American life, became the famous "The Spy, or a Tale of No Man's Land"(“The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground,”), which was a huge success not only in America, but also in Europe.

Cooper then wrote a series of novels about American life ( "Pioneers, or At the Sources of the Susquehanna", ; "The Last of the Mohicans", ; "Steppes", otherwise "Prairie", ; "Trace Opener", aka. "Pathfinder", ; "Doe Hunter", otherwise « » , ), where he depicted the wars of the European aliens among themselves, in which they involved the American Indians, forcing the tribes to fight against each other. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natty (Nathaniel) Bumppo, who appears under various names (St. John's Wort, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leather Stocking, Long Carbine), energetic and handsome, and soon became a favorite of the European public. Idealized, although with subtle humor and satire, usually accessible only to an adult reader, Cooper’s works are not only this representative European civilization, but also some of the Indians (Chingachgook, Uncas).

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. In the city, Cooper went to Europe, where he spent seven years. The fruit of this journey was several novels - "Bravo, or in Venice", “The Headsman”, “Mercedes of Castile, or Journey to Cathay” (Mercedes of Castile), - which takes place in Europe.

The mastery of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the vividness of the descriptions of nature, which emanate the primeval freshness of the virgin forests of America, the relief in the depiction of characters who stand before the reader as if alive - these are Cooper’s advantages as a novelist. He also wrote sea novels "Pilot, or Maritime History" (), "Red Corsair" ().

After Europe

Upon his return from Europe, Cooper wrote a political allegory "Monicins"(), five volumes travel notes(-), several novels from American life (“Satanstowe”; and others), the pamphlet “The American Democrat” (The American Democrat, 1838). In addition, he also wrote “History of the United States Navy.” The desire for complete impartiality revealed in this work did not satisfy either his compatriots or the British; the controversy it caused poisoned the last years of Cooper's life. Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851 from cirrhosis of the liver.

James Fenimore Cooper in Russia

The adventure novels of James Fenimore Cooper were very popular in the USSR, their author was quickly recognized by his second, rare name Fenimore en. For example, in the film “The Mystery of Fenimore”, the third episode of the children's television mini-series “Three Merry Shifts” of 1977 based on the stories of Yu. Yakovlev, it tells about a mysterious stranger named Fenimore, who in the pioneer camp comes to the boys’ ward at night and tells amazing stories about Indians and aliens.

Bibliography

• :
  • composes a traditional novel of morals “Precaution” (Precaution) for his daughters.

• :
  • historical novel The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground, based on local legends. 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 advocated for the national identity of American literature.

• :
  • the fourth part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo “Pioneers, or at the origins of the Susquehanna”
  • short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
  • the novel “The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea”, the first of Cooper’s many works about adventures at sea.

• :
  • novel “Lionel Lincoln, or The Siege of Boston” (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).

• :
  • the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo, Cooper’s most popular novel, the name of which has become a household name, is “The Last of the Mohicans”.

• :
  • the fifth part of the pentalogy is the novel “The Steppes”, otherwise “The Prairie”.
  • maritime novel “The Red Corsair” (The Red Rover).

• • Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor

• :
  • the novel “The Valley of Wish-ton-Wish” (The wept of Wish-ton-Wish), dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of the American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.

• :
  • the fantastic story of the brigantine of the same name “The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas”.
  • Letter to General Lafayette politics

• :
  • the first part of a trilogy from the history of European feudalism “Bravo, or in Venice” (The bravo) is a novel from the distant past of Venice.

• :
  • the second part of the trilogy “Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines” (The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine) is a historical novel from the time of the early Reformation in Germany.
  • short stories (No Steamboats)

• :
  • the third part of the trilogy “The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons” - a legend of the 18th century. about the hereditary executioners of the Swiss canton of Bern.

• :
  • (A Letter to His Countrymen)

• :
  • criticism of American reality in the political allegory “The Monikins”, written in the tradition of educational allegorism and satire of J. Swift.

• :
  • memoirs (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

• :
  • Gleanings in Europe: France travel
  • Gleanings in Europe: England travel

• :
  • pamphlet “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
  • Homeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
  • Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound

• :
  • “The History of the Navy of the United States of America”, testifying to an excellent mastery of the material and love for navigation.
  • Old Ironsides

• :
  • “The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario” or “The Pathfinder, or The inland sea” - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo
  • a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus “Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay”.

• :
  • “The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath” or “The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath” is the first part of the pentalogy.

• :
  • novel “The two admirals”, telling an episode from the history of the British fleet leading the war with France in 1745
  • a novel about French privateering, “Will-o’-the-wisp” (Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet).

• :
  • the novel “Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale” about the American Revolution in the remote corners 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)

• :
  • novel “Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale”
  • and its continuation “Miles Wallingford” (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the main character has autobiographical features.
  • Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c.

• :
  • two parts of the “trilogy in defense of land rent”: “Satanstoe” (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony) and “The Land Surveyor” (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).

• :
  • the third part of the trilogy is the novel “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 20s).
  • Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography

• :
  • The pessimism of the late Cooper is expressed in the utopia “The Crater; or, Vulcan’s Peak: A Tale of the Pacific,” which is an allegorical history of the United States.

• :
  • the novel “Oak Grove” or “Clearings in the oak groves, or the Bee Hunter” (The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter) - from the history of the Anglo-American war.
  • novel “Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs”

• :
  • Cooper's latest sea novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, is about a shipwreck that befalls seal hunters in the ice of Antarctica.

• :
  • Cooper's latest book, The Ways of the Hour, is a social novel about American legal proceedings.
  • play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), satirization of socialism

• :
  • short story (The Lake Gun)
  • (New York: or The Towns of Manhattan) - an unfinished work on the history of New York City.

Memory

• In philately

Write a review of the article "Cooper, James Fenimore"

Notes

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
• Lowell, "American Literature" (vol. I);
• Richardson, "Amer. Literature" (vol. II);
• Griswold, The Prose Writers of America;
• Knortz, "Geschichte der nordamerikanischen Literatur" (vol. I);
• Lounsbury, Life of J. F. Cooper (Boston, 1883);
• Warner, “American Men of Letters: J.-F. Cooper."
• (ZhZL)

Links

Excerpt characterizing Cooper, James Fenimore

In addition to the general feeling of alienation from all people, Natasha at this time experienced a special feeling of alienation from her family. All her own: father, mother, Sonya, were so close to her, familiar, so everyday that all their words and feelings seemed to her an insult to the world in which she had lived lately, and she was not only indifferent, but looked at them with hostility . She heard Dunyasha’s words about Pyotr Ilyich, about misfortune, but did not understand them.
“What kind of misfortune do they have there, what kind of misfortune can there be? Everything they have is old, familiar and calm,” Natasha mentally said to herself.
When she entered the hall, the father was quickly leaving the countess's room. His face was wrinkled and wet with tears. He apparently ran out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were crushing him. Seeing Natasha, he desperately waved his hands and burst into painful, convulsive sobs that distorted his round, soft face.
- Pe... Petya... Come, come, she... she... is calling... - And he, sobbing like a child, quickly mincing with weakened legs, walked up to the chair and fell almost on it, covering his face with his hands.
Suddenly how electricity ran through Natasha's entire being. Something hit her terribly painfully in the heart. She felt terrible pain; It seemed to her that something was being torn away from her and that she was dying. But following the pain, she felt an instant release from the ban on life that lay on her. Seeing her father and hearing her mother’s terrible, rude cry from behind the door, she instantly forgot herself and her grief. She ran up to her father, but he, helplessly waving his hand, pointed to her mother’s door. Princess Marya, pale, with a trembling lower jaw, came out of the door and took Natasha by the hand, saying something to her. Natasha didn’t see or hear her. She entered the door with quick steps, stopped for a moment, as if in a struggle with herself, and ran up to her mother.
The Countess lay on an armchair, stretching out strangely awkwardly, and banging her head against the wall. Sonya and the girls held her hands.
“Natasha, Natasha!..” shouted the countess. - It’s not true, it’s not true... He’s lying... Natasha! – she screamed, pushing those around her away. - Go away, everyone, it’s not true! Killed!.. ha ha ha ha!.. not true!
Natasha knelt on the chair, bent over her mother, hugged her, lifted her with unexpected strength, turned her face towards her and pressed herself against her.
- Mama!.. darling!.. I’m here, my friend. “Mama,” she whispered to her, without stopping for a second.
She did not let her mother go, gently struggled with her, demanded a pillow, water, unbuttoned and tore her mother’s dress.
“My friend, my dear... mamma, darling,” she whispered incessantly, kissing her head, hands, face and feeling how uncontrollably her tears flowed in streams, tickling her nose and cheeks.
The Countess squeezed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes and fell silent for a moment. Suddenly she stood up with unusual speed, looked around senselessly and, seeing Natasha, began squeezing her head with all her might. Then she turned her face, wrinkled in pain, towards her and peered at it for a long time.
“Natasha, you love me,” she said in a quiet, trusting whisper. - Natasha, won’t you deceive me? Will you tell me the whole truth?
Natasha looked at her with tear-filled eyes, and in her face there was only a plea for forgiveness and love.
“My friend, mamma,” she repeated, straining all the strength of her love in order to somehow relieve her of the excess grief that was oppressing her.
And again, in a powerless struggle with reality, the mother, refusing to believe that she could live when her beloved boy, blooming with life, was killed, fled from reality in a world of madness.
Natasha did not remember how that day, that night, the next day, the next night went. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Natasha’s love, persistent, patient, not as an explanation, not as a consolation, but as a call to life, every second seemed to embrace the countess from all sides. On the third night, the Countess fell silent for a few minutes, and Natasha closed her eyes, resting her head on the arm of the chair. The bed creaked. Natasha opened her eyes. The Countess sat on the bed and spoke quietly.
– I’m so glad you came. Are you tired, do you want some tea? – Natasha approached her. “You have become prettier and more mature,” the countess continued, taking her daughter by the hand.
- Mama, what are you saying!..
- Natasha, he’s gone, no more! “And, hugging her daughter, the countess began to cry for the first time.

Princess Marya postponed her departure. Sonya and the Count tried to replace Natasha, but they could not. They saw that she alone could keep her mother from insane despair. For three weeks Natasha lived hopelessly with her mother, slept on an armchair in her room, gave her water, fed her and talked to her incessantly - she talked because her gentle, caressing voice alone calmed the countess.
The mother's mental wound could not be healed. Petya's death took away half of her life. A month after the news of Petya’s death, which found her a fresh and cheerful fifty-year-old woman, she left her room half-dead and not taking part in life - an old woman. But the same wound that half killed the countess, this new wound brought Natasha to life.
A mental wound that comes from a rupture of the spiritual body, just like a physical wound, no matter how strange it may seem, after a deep wound has healed and seems to have come together at its edges, a mental wound, like a physical one, heals only from the inside with the bulging force of life.
Natasha’s wound healed in the same way. She thought her life was over. But suddenly love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life - love - was still alive in her. Love woke up and life woke up.
The last days of Prince Andrei connected Natasha with Princess Marya. The new misfortune brought them even closer together. Princess Marya postponed her departure and for the last three weeks, like a sick child, she looked after Natasha. The last weeks Natasha spent in her mother’s room had strained her physical strength.
One day, Princess Marya, in the middle of the day, noticing that Natasha was trembling with a feverish chill, took her to her place and laid her on her bed. Natasha lay down, but when Princess Marya, lowering the curtains, wanted to go out, Natasha called her over.
– I don’t want to sleep. Marie, sit with me.
– You’re tired, try to sleep.
- No no. Why did you take me away? She will ask.
- She's much better. “She spoke so well today,” said Princess Marya.
Natasha lay in bed and in the semi-darkness of the room looked at the face of Princess Marya.
“Does she look like him? – thought Natasha. – Yes, similar and not similar. But she is special, alien, completely new, unknown. And she loves me. What's on her mind? All is good. But how? What does she think? How does she look at me? Yes, she is beautiful."
“Masha,” she said, timidly pulling her hand towards her. - Masha, don’t think that I’m bad. No? Masha, my dear. I love you so much. We will be completely, completely friends.
And Natasha, hugging and kissing the hands and face of Princess Marya. Princess Marya was ashamed and rejoiced at this expression of Natasha’s feelings.
From that day on, that passionate and tender friendship that only happens between women was established between Princess Marya and Natasha. They kissed constantly, spoke tender words to each other and spent most of their time together. If one went out, then the other was restless and hurried to join her. The two of them felt greater agreement among themselves than apart, each with itself. A feeling stronger than friendship was established between them: it was an exceptional feeling of the possibility of life only in the presence of each other.
Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes, already lying in bed, they began to talk and talked until the morning. They talked mostly about the distant past. Princess Marya talked about her childhood, about her mother, about her father, about her dreams; and Natasha, who had previously turned away with calm incomprehension from this life, devotion, humility, from the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now, feeling herself bound by love with Princess Marya, fell in love with Princess Marya’s past and understood a side of life that was previously incomprehensible to her. She did not think of applying humility and self-sacrifice to her life, because she was accustomed to looking for other joys, but she understood and fell in love with this previously incomprehensible virtue in another. For Princess Marya, listening to stories about Natasha’s childhood and early youth, a previously incomprehensible side of life, faith in life, in the pleasures of life, also opened up.
They still never spoke about him in the same way, so as not to violate with words, as it seemed to them, the height of feeling that was in them, and this silence about him made them forget him little by little, not believing it.
Natasha lost weight, turned pale and became so physically weak that everyone constantly talked about her health, and she was pleased with it. But sometimes she was suddenly overcome not only by the fear of death, but by the fear of illness, weakness, loss of beauty, and involuntarily she sometimes carefully examined her bare arm, surprised at its thinness, or looked in the mirror in the morning at her elongated, pitiful, as it seemed to her , face. It seemed to her that this was how it should be, and at the same time she became scared and sad.
Once she quickly went upstairs and was out of breath. Immediately, involuntarily, she came up with something to do downstairs and from there she ran upstairs again, testing her strength and observing herself.

The famous novelist and satirist Fenimore Cooper stood at the origins of American literature: the author became the pioneer of a new genre. The writer’s work, his quotes and aphorisms do not lose their relevance. The attention of critics and the public was focused both on Cooper's works and on his biography.

Childhood and youth

James Fenimore Cooper was born on September 15, 1789 in Burlington (USA). Born into the family of Judge William Cooper and the daughter of a Quaker, Elizabeth Fenimore. During the Revolutionary years, my father acquired an extensive tract of land near New York, including Otsego Lake. For several years, the judge established life in the village, which in the future became the city of Cooperstown. The father built a house on the lake and decided to move there with his wife and 11 children.

The boy's mother categorically refused to move, so William ordered the servants to lift her up along with the chair on which she was sitting and carry her into the carriage. The youngest Cooper was one year and two months old at the time of the move.

James was educated at a local school and was also taught by a graduate of the University of Ireland as a child. And another teacher, who graduated from Cambridge, prepared the boy to enter Yale. At the age of 13 he became a student at Yale University, but studied there for only 3 years. On the fourth, he tried to blow up the students' bedroom door and train the donkey to sit in the professor's chair.

The young man did not receive a full higher education because he was expelled for systematic violation of discipline. This is how Cooper’s training ended in 1806, and the punishment became typical for that time - the young man was sent to the navy as a sailor. The years spent in the service became not only useful for James, but also happy. Cooper rose to the rank of officer and became an expert on the navy. Since James was involved in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario, his famous novel “The Pathfinder” contains descriptions of this area.

Literature

James Cooper became a writer by accident. One day, while reading a novel aloud to his wife, he noticed that it was not difficult to write better. Susan took her husband at his word, and the couple entered into an argument. To avoid seeming like a braggart, James wrote his first novel, Precaution, within a few weeks. The author's name was hidden because the American government was not known for its loyalty to the British government. But critics in England also rejected the work because the events did not correspond to the actual history of the country.

Critics liked the romanticism in subsequent works much more. Cooper's second work was the famous "Spy". The hero of the novel, participating in the American War of Independence, chooses the most difficult path serving the fatherland: becomes a scout, posing as a spy for the enemy army. Risking his life, a patriot fulfills his duty to the end, without thinking about awards and glory.

The novel was a huge success: both in America and in Europe. The beginning of a new genre in US literature had been laid. Inspired by success, the writer decided to move from amateurs to the category of professionals. James continued to write, and texts followed that described in detail and fascinatingly the nature of America and its history.

In the novels “Pioneers”, “The Last of the Mohicans”, “Prairie”, “Pathfinder” and “St. John’s Wort” the writer managed to create an epic about the fate of the Americans and those people who previously lived on this land. Even English critics recognized the success of a series of works created over 20 years, calling Cooper American.

These 5 works are interconnected by the image of the main character Natty Bumppo, who appears in each book at different periods of his life, full of dangers and adventures. The works are united by a theme: each shows the clash of the natural existence of man in the conditions of nature and the life of bourgeois society. The latter destroys harmony not only in relations between people, but also between man and nature.

James's artistic skill was demonstrated in the depiction of nature; the national landscape of America is reflected in living and majestic images.

The theme of sea voyages brought well-deserved success to James. In these works, the author talked about the discovery of America, war and pirates. The writer's heroes perform feats, search for treasures and save noble maidens. The authenticity of the stories, the skill and authenticity in the depiction of the characters who appear in the works as if alive - this captivates and captivates the reader.

At the beginning of 1840, Cooper's novels gained popularity in Russia. The first translations into Russian were made by children's writer A. O. Ishimova. The novel “The Discoverer of Trace” aroused the greatest interest. He spoke out about this work, declaring that it is a Shakespearean drama in the form of a novel. Cooper's adventure novels were recognized thanks to the rare middle name of the author - Fenimore.

Cooper's artistic discovery was the depiction of Indians, despite the fact that some predecessors had already touched on this topic. The author described the tragedy of the Indian people: white colonialists robbed, soldered, corrupted and exterminated them. The indigenous people of America were persecuted with inhuman cruelty, and all sorts of vices were attributed to them. But James destroyed this myth by showing that Indians were often morally superior to whites.

Stories dedicated to the true friendship between the “redskins” and the “palefaces” are among best works writer.

Fenimore was considered the founder of a new genre in the world of literature - the Western novel. Several generations of American writers called Cooper a teacher and inspiration.

Some of the writer’s works have been filmed, including the films “St. John’s Wort”, “The Last of the Mohicans” and “Pathfinder”.

Personal life

In December 1809, Fenimore Cooper's father was murdered in Albany. The judge's sons became rich overnight, and James's share was $50 thousand, which by today's standards is approximately $1 million. Having received an inheritance, the young man retired and married a Frenchwoman, Susan Augusta Delancey. Its influence explains the relatively mild reviews of the English and the English government found in Cooper's early novels.

The personal life of Susan and James can confidently be called happy in the understanding of that time: children were born one after another, the house was full of servants, and the wife gave her husband complete freedom to engage in politics and business.

The couple had 7 children, one of them became the grandfather of the popular American writer Paul Fenimore Cooper.

Death

In the last years of his life, James, being the head of the family clan after the death of his older brothers, worked as a historical writer. He authored works on the history of New York and the US Navy.

James Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851, of cirrhosis of the liver, just one day shy of age 62.

Cooper's books continue to teach his contemporaries about honor, courage and loyalty today.

Bibliography

• 1820 – “Precaution”
• 1821 – “The Spy, or the Tale of Neutral Territory”
• 1823 – “Pilot, or Maritime History”
• 1825 – “Lionel Lincoln, or the Siege of Boston”
• 1826 – “The Last of the Mohicans”
• 1827 – “Steppes”, otherwise “Prairie”
• 1827 – “The Red Corsair”
• 1829 – “Valley of Wish-ton-Wish”
• 1830 – “The Sea Sorceress”
• 1831 – “Bravo, or in Venice”
• 1832 – “Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines”
• 1833 – “The Executioner, or the Abbey of Winegrowers”
• 1835 – “Monicins”
• 1840 – “The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario” or “The Discoverer of Trace”
• 1840 – “Mercedes from Castile, or Journey to Cathay”
• 1841 – “St. John’s Wort, or the First Warpath” or “The Deer Hunter”
• 1842 – “Two Admirals”
• 1842 – “Will-o’-the-wisp”
• 1843 – “Wyandotte, or House on the Hill”

If the indisputable merit of Irving and Hawthorne, as well as E. Poe, was the creation of the American short story, then the founder American novel James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) is rightfully considered. Along with W. Irving, Fenimore Cooper- a classic of romantic nativism: it was he who introduced into US literature such a purely national and multifaceted phenomenon as the frontier, although this does not exhaust the America Cooper opened to the reader.

Cooper was the first in the United States to begin writing novels in the modern understanding of the genre; he developed the ideological and aesthetic parameters of the American novel theoretically (in the prefaces to works) and practically (in his work). He laid the foundations for a whole series of genre varieties of the novel, previously completely unknown to domestic and, in some cases, world fiction.

Cooper - creator of the American historical novel: with his "Spy" (1821) the development of heroic national history. He is the founder of the American maritime novel ("The Pilot", 1823) and its specifically national variety - the whaling novel ("Sea Lions", 1849), later brilliantly developed by G. Melville. Cooper developed the principles of American adventure and moral novels (Miles Walingford, 1844), a social novel (At Home, 1838), a satirical novel (The Monikins, 1835), a utopian novel (Colony on the Crater, 1848) and the so-called “Euro-American” novel (“Concepts of Americans”, 1828), the conflict of which is based on the relationship between the cultures of the Old and New Worlds; it then became central in the work of G. James.

Finally, Cooper is the pioneer of such an inexhaustible field of Russian fiction as the frontier novel (or “border novel”) - a genre variety that includes, first of all, his pentalogy about Leather Stocking. It should be noted, however, that Cooper’s pentalogy is a kind of synthetic narrative, for it also absorbs the features of historical, social, moral and adventure novels and an epic novel, which is fully consistent with the actual significance of the frontier in the national history and life of the 19th century.

James Cooper was born into a prominent family politician, congressman and large landowner Judge William Cooper, a glorious descendant of quiet English Quakers and stern Swedes. (Fenimore - maiden name the writer's mother, whom he added to his own in 1826, thus marking a new stage in his literary career). A year after his birth, the family moved from New Jersey to New York State to the uninhabited shores of Lake Otsego, where Judge Cooper founded the village of Cooperstown. Here, on the border between civilization and wild, undeveloped lands, the future novelist spent his childhood and early adolescence.

He was educated at home, studying with an English teacher hired for him, and at the age of thirteen he entered Yale, from where, despite brilliant academic success, he was expelled two years later for “provocative behavior and a tendency to make dangerous jokes.” Young Cooper could, for example, bring a donkey into the classroom and seat it in the professor's chair. Let us note that these pranks fully corresponded to the morals prevailing on the frontier and the very spirit of frontier folklore, but, of course, went against the ideas accepted in the academic environment. The measure of influence chosen by the strict father turned out to be pedagogically promising: he immediately sent his fifteen-year-old scoundrel son as a sailor on a merchant ship.

After two years of service, James Cooper entered the navy as a midshipman and spent another three years sailing the seas and oceans. He resigned in 1811, immediately after his marriage, at the request of his young wife, Susan Augusta, née de Lancie, from a good New York family. Soon after, his father died from a stroke suffered during a political debate, leaving his son a decent inheritance, and Cooper lived the quiet life of a country gentleman squire.

He became a writer, as family legend says, completely by accident - unexpectedly for his family and for himself. Cooper's daughter Susan recalled: “My mother was unwell; she was lying on the couch, and he was reading aloud to her a recent English novel. Apparently, the thing was worthless, because after the very first chapters he threw it away and exclaimed: “Yes, I would write to you myself.” a better book than this!" Mother laughed - this idea seemed so absurd to her. He, who hated even writing letters, would suddenly sit down to a book! Father insisted that he could, and indeed, he immediately sketched the first pages of a story that still there was no title; the action, by the way, took place in England."

Cooper's first work, an imitative novel of morals, Precaution, was published in 1820. Immediately after this, the writer, in his words, “tried to create a work that would be purely American, and the theme of which would be love for the motherland.” This is how the historical novel “The Spy” (1821) appeared, which brought the author widespread fame in the USA and Europe, marking the beginning of the development of the American novel and, along with V. Irving’s “Book of Sketches,” distinctive national literature in general.

How was the American novel created, what was the “secret” of Cooper’s success, what were the features of the author’s storytelling technique? Cooper based his work on the main principle of the English social novel, which came into particular fashion in the first decades of the 19th century (Jane Austen, Mary Edgeworth): stormy action, free art of creating characters, subordination of the plot to the affirmation of a social idea. The originality of Cooper's works created on this basis lay, first of all, in the theme, which he found already in his first not imitative, but “purely American novel.”

This theme is America, which was completely unknown to Europeans at that time and always attractive to the patriotically minded domestic reader. Already in “The Spy,” one of the two main directions in which Cooper further developed this topic was outlined: national history (mainly the War of Independence) and the nature of the United States (primarily, the frontier and the sea, familiar to him from his youth; 11 is dedicated to navigation from 33 Cooper novels). As for the drama of the plot and the vividness of the characters, national history and reality provided no less rich and more recent material for this than the life of the Old World.

Absolutely innovative and unlike the style of English novelists was the style of Cooper's nativist narrative: the plot, the figurative system, landscapes, the very method of presentation, interacting, created a unique quality of emotional Cooper's prose. For Cooper, writing was a way of expressing what he thought about America. At the beginning of it creative path, driven by patriotic pride for his young fatherland and optimistic about the future, he sought to correct certain shortcomings of national life. The “touchstone” of democratic beliefs for Cooper, as well as for Irving, was a long stay in Europe: a New York writer at the zenith of world fame, he was appointed American consul in Lyon. Fenimore Cooper, who took advantage of this appointment to improve his health and introduce his daughters to Italian and French culture, stayed abroad longer than expected.

After a seven-year absence, he, who had left John Quincy Adams's USA, returned in 1833, like Irving, to Andrew Jackson's America. Shocked by the dramatic changes in the life of his country, he, unlike Irving, became an implacable critic of Jacksonian vulgarization of broad frontier democracy. The works written by Fenimore Cooper in the 1830s earned him fame as the first “anti-American,” which accompanied him until the end of his life and caused many years of persecution by the American press. “I am at odds with my country,” Cooper said.

The writer died in Cooperstown, in full bloom of his creative powers, although his unpopularity as an “anti-American” overshadowed the brilliant glory of the singer of his native land.

Read also other articles in the section "Literature of the 19th century. Romanticism. Realism":

The artistic discovery of America and other discoveries

Romantic nativism and romantic humanism

• Specifics of American romanticism. Romantic nativism
• Romantic humanism. Transcendentalism. Travel prose

National history and history of the soul of the people

History and modernity of America in dialogues of cultures

• James Fenimore Cooper. Biography and creativity

en.wikipedia.org

Biography

Soon after Fenimore's birth, his father, a fairly wealthy landowner, moved to New York state and founded the village of Cooperstown there, which turned into a town. Having received his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but without completing the course, he entered the naval service (1806-1811); was appointed to participate in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario.

We owe this circumstance to the magnificent descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel “The Pathfinder.” In 1811, he married a Frenchwoman, Delana, who came from a family that sympathized with England during the War of Independence; its influence explains those relatively mild reviews of the English and the English government that are found in Cooper's early novels. Chance made him a writer. Once reading a novel aloud to his wife, Cooper noticed that it was not difficult to write better. His wife took him at his word: in order not to seem like a braggart, he wrote his first novel, “Precaution” (1820), in a few weeks.

Novels

Assuming that, in view of the already begun competition between English and American authors, English criticism would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name and transferred the action of his novel to England. The latter circumstance could only harm the book, which revealed the author’s poor familiarity with English life and caused very unfavorable reviews from English critics. Cooper’s second novel, already from American life, was the famous “The Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground” (1821), which had enormous success not only in America, but also in Europe.

Then Cooper wrote a whole series of novels from American life ("Pioneers", 1823; "The Last of the Mohicans", 1826; "The Barrens", otherwise "Prairie", 1827; "The Discoverer of Trace", otherwise "Pathfinder", 1840; "The Hunter for deer”, otherwise “St. John’s Wort, or the First Warpath”, 1841), in which he depicted the struggle of European aliens with the American Indians. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natty (Nathanael) Bumppo, who appears under various names (St. John's Wort, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leather Stocking, Long Carbine), energetic and handsome, and soon became a favorite of the European public. Cooper idealizes not only this representative of European civilization, but also some of the Indians (Chingachgook, Uncas).

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. In 1826 Cooper went to Europe, where he spent seven years. The fruit of this journey was several novels (Bravo, The Headsman, Mercedes of Castile), set in Europe.

The mastery of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the vividness of the descriptions of nature, which emanate the primeval freshness of the virgin forests of America, the relief in the depiction of characters who stand before the reader as if alive - these are Cooper’s advantages as a novelist. He also wrote maritime novels “The Pilot” (1823) and “The Red Corsair” (1828).

After Europe

Upon returning from Europe, Cooper wrote the political allegory “Monikins” (1835), five volumes of travel notes (1836-1838), several novels from American life (“Satanstowe”; 1845 and others), the pamphlet “The American Democrat” (The American Democrat, 1838). In addition, he also wrote “History of the United States Navy”, 1839. The desire for complete impartiality revealed in this work did not satisfy either his compatriots or the British; the controversy it caused poisoned the last years of Cooper's life. Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851 from cirrhosis of the liver.

Cooper in Russia

In the early 1840s, Cooper's novels were very popular in Russia. In particular, “The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario”, “The Pathfinder”, Russian translation 1841, published in “Domestic Notes”, was read in great demand, about which V. G. Belinsky said that this was a Shakespearean drama in the form novel (Works. vol. XII, p. 306).

Bibliography

1820 composes a traditional novel of morals, Precaution, for his daughters.
- 1821 historical novel The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground, based on local legends. 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 advocated for the national identity of American literature.
- 1823:
The first novel is published, later the fourth part of the pentalogy about Leatherstocking - “The Pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna”.
short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
the novel "The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea", the first of Cooper's many works about adventures at sea.
- 1825:
novel "Lionel Lincoln, or The Siege of Boston" (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).
- 1826 - the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo, Cooper’s most popular novel, the name of which has become a household name - “The Last of the Mohicans”.
- 1827 - the fifth part of the pentalogy novel “The Steppes”, otherwise “The Prairie”.
- 1828:
maritime novel “The Red Corsair” (The Red Rover).
Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
- 1829 - novel “The Valley of Wish-ton-Wish”, dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of the American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.
- 1830:
the fantastic story of the brigantine of the same name “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 “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 18th 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”, written in the tradition of educational allegorism and satire of J. Swift.
- 1836:
memoirs (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: or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America.”
Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel
The Chronicles of Cooperstown
Homeward 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 an excellent mastery of the material and love for navigation.
Old Ironsides
- 1840:
“The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea” - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo
a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus, Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay.
- 1841 - “The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath” - the first part of the pentalogy.
- 1842:
the novel “The Two Admirals”, telling an episode from the history of the British fleet waging war with France in 1745
a novel about French privateering, “Will-and-Wisp” (Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet).
- 1843 - novel “Wyandotte, or The House on the Hill” (Wyandotte: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale) about the American Revolution in the remote corners 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:
novel “Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale”
and its sequel “Miles Wallingford” (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the main character 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”: “Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony” and “The Land Surveyor” (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).
- 1846 - the third part of the trilogy - the novel “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” (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 “Clearings in the Oak Groves, or the Bee-Hunter” (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 last sea 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 legal proceedings.
play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), satirization of socialism
- 1851:
short story (The Lake Gun)
(New York: or The Towns of Manhattan) - an unfinished work on the history of New York City.

Biography

The future writer was born into the family of a large landowner, whose character was reminiscent of Marmaduke Temple from the novel “The Pioneers.” His childhood was spent in the village of Cooperstown, named after his father and located on the shore of a lake in New York state. His origin left its mark on the formation of Cooper’s socio-political views: all his life he remained a supporter of large land ownership, the way of life of “country gentlemen”, and in democratic land reforms often saw only the rampant bourgeois acquisitiveness and demagoguery. (This was reflected, for example, in the novels of the “Ground Rent Trilogy.”) At the same time, the writer’s work and his assessment of the socio-political development of the United States is based on a consistently democratic position. This was facilitated teenage years Cooper, who passed in the atmosphere of post-revolutionary upsurge in the USA, and later - his stay in France during revolutionary events 1830

After several years of study - first at Cooperstown School, then at Albany and at Yale College - years of wandering begin for seventeen-year-old Cooper. He becomes a sailor, first in the merchant and then in the military fleet, makes long journeys, crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and becomes closely acquainted with the Great Lakes region, where the action of his novels unfolds. During these years, Cooper accumulates a variety of life experiences, material for literary creativity.

After his father's death in 1810, Cooper married and settled with his family in the small town of Scarsdale. There, in 1820, he wrote his first novel, “Precaution.” Cooper later recalled that the book was written “as a bet”; he half-jokingly, half-seriously undertook to write a novel no worse than those works by English authors that his wife was fond of. His next novel, The Spy (1821), was based on material from the Revolutionary War.

“Spy” brought the writer unexpectedly quick and loud fame. With his novel, Cooper filled the vacuum in national literature and determined the guidelines for its future development. Encouraged by his success, Cooper decides to devote himself entirely to literary work. Over the next five years, he wrote five more novels, including three books in the future Leatherstocking pentalogy (The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie), as well as Cooper's first sea novel, The Pilot.

In 1826 Cooper went to Europe. He lives for a long time in France, Italy, and travels to other countries. New impressions again and again force him to turn to the history of both the New and Old Worlds. In Europe, Cooper wrote sea novels “The Red Corsair”, “The Sea Sorceress”, as well as a trilogy about the European Middle Ages (“Bravo”, “Heidenmauer”, “Executioner”).

In 1833 Cooper returned to his homeland. During the seven years that he was away, much had changed in America. The heroic time of the American Revolution was receding further into the past, and the principles of the Declaration of Independence were being forgotten. The United States entered a period of industrial revolution, which destroyed the remnants of patriarchy in life and in human relations. Cooper calls the “great moral eclipse” the disease that has struck American society. According to him, the country began to be ruled by the “Great Immoral Postulate, known as Money Interest.” Back in Europe, in a moment of bitter insight, Cooper once said: “I have parted ways with my country.” Returning “home”, he discovered that the gap between them was even wider than he thought.

Cooper makes an attempt to “reason” and “correct” his fellow citizens. He still believes in the advantages of the American socio-political organization, considering negative phenomena as something external, superficial, a perversion of initially reasonable and healthy foundations. To rise up to fight these “distortions” is the call that sounds from the pages of his “Letters to Compatriots.”

But this call did not achieve its goal. On the contrary, a torrent of open hatred and secret slander fell upon Cooper. Because the writer dared to criticize social vices, bourgeois America accused the first national novelist of lack of patriotism, quarrelsomeness, arrogance, and at the same time of a lack of literary gift. Cooper retires to Cooperstown and there before last day continues his life, working either on novels or on journalistic works, preaching his views.

During this last period of his creative work, Cooper wrote the novels “Pathfinder” and “St. John’s Wort”, which were included in the pentalogy, and the satirical-allegorical novel “The Monikins” (1835), which exposed the vices of the socio-political system of England and the USA, depicted in the book under the titles High Jumping and Low Jumping , social novels“Home” (1837) and “At Home” (1838), a trilogy about ground rent (“Devil’s Finger”, 1845; “The Land Surveyor”, 1845; “Redskins”, 1846), the social-utopian novel “The Crater” (1847) and etc. In general, Cooper’s works of this time are unequal in ideological and artistic terms; along with insightful criticism of the bourgeois system, they contain elements of a conservative utopia associated with false ideas about the “landed aristocracy.” But despite all this, Cooper invariably remains in consistently critical anti-bourgeois positions.

Cooper's literary heritage is very extensive. It includes 33 novels, several volumes of journalism and travel notes, pamphlets, and historical research. Cooper laid the foundations for the development of the American novel, creating various examples of it: historical, maritime, social and everyday novels, satirical-fantasy novels, and a utopian novel. The writer is the first to American literature strove for an epic reflection of the world, which was reflected, in particular, in the combination of a number of his books into cycles: pentalogy, trilogy, dilogy.

In his work, Cooper remained faithful to three main themes: the War of Independence, the sea and life on the frontier. Already in this very choice, the romantic basis of the writer’s creative method is revealed: Cooper contrasts the heroism of the soldiers of the American Revolution, the freedom of the sea, virgin forests and endless prairies of the West with an American society overwhelmed by a feverish thirst for profit. This gap between the romantic ideal and reality underlies the ideological and artistic concept of each of Cooper's books.

Cooper makes extensive use of a variety of artistic media from the arsenal of romantic aesthetics: lyrically colored pictures of nature, creating an atmosphere of mystery, hyperbolization, a sharp division of characters into “good” and “bad,” etc. At the same time, Cooper’s work has features of continuity with the educational novel of the 18th century. The writer retains trust in reason and logic, a commitment to epic storytelling and precise details of landscape, everyday life, appearance, etc., and adheres to many of the structural and compositional principles of the educational novel. Cooper's works continue to affirm the principles of realism, going from the 18th century to end of the 19th century c., even if future generations did not always realize this connection.

Cooper was often called “the American Walter Scott,” and was sometimes accused of imitating the great Scot. These reproaches are unfair. Cooper's work is imbued with a deeply national spirit; his creations are based on national issues. In the prefaces to his novels, Cooper more than once emphasized the need for the development and promotion of national American literature.

It is impossible not to note Cooper’s skill in constructing the plot of the work, creating vivid dramatic scenes, images that have become the personification of the national character and at the same time “eternal companions of humanity.” Such are Harvey Birch from The Spy, Natty Bumppo, Chingachgook, Uncas from the books about Leatherstocking.

Perhaps the best pages of the writer are those that depict the untouched, grandiose and amazing nature of the New World. Cooper is an outstanding master of literary landscape. He is especially attracted by colorful landscapes, either captivating the eye with their soft beauty (the Shimmering Lake in “St. John’s Wort”), or majestic and harsh, inspiring anxiety and awe. "

In his “sea” novels, Cooper equally vividly depicts the changeable, menacing and enchanting elements of the ocean.

Carefully written battle scenes occupy an important place in almost every Cooper novel. They often culminate in a duel between powerful opponents: Chingachgook and Magua, Hard Heart and Matori.

The writer's artistic language is distinguished by emotionality, the range of shades of which is different - from solemn pathos to touching sentimentality.

In Russia, they became acquainted with Cooper’s work in 1825, when the novel “The Spy” was published in Moscow. Cooper's books quickly gained the love and popularity of Russian readers. They were highly valued by M. Yu. Lermontov, V. G. Belinsky, V. K. Kuchelbecker and other prominent progressive cultural figures. Filled with the poetry of heroism and struggle, Cooper’s books continue to teach honor, courage, and loyalty.

The novel "Spy" opened before the American writers of the XIX V. rich possibilities for using national history material. It remains not only Cooper's best book in the genre of historical novel, but also the highest achievement of US literature in this field.

At the center of the novel is a dramatic episode from the history of the struggle of American colonists against English rule. In the preface to the 1849 edition, Cooper directly names the theme of the book - patriotism. The Spy takes place in 1780. Main character- goods peddler Harvey Birch is a secret intelligence officer for the American army, carrying out particularly important and dangerous command assignments. It operates in "no man's land" between two warring armies. The situation is puzzlingly complicated by the fact that in order to disguise his true identity, Birch deliberately poses as a spy. English king. Death threatens him from both sides, and there is nowhere to wait for help. Birch isn't even looking for her. Moreover, in a moment from threatening? Before his execution at the hands of American patriots, who take him for a spy of their enemies, he swallows a note from General Washington, certifying his faithful service to his homeland. If he had shown it, the danger would have passed, but with it the opportunity to complete the task.

The very choice of the traveling merchant Birch as the hero of the novel speaks of Cooper's democracy and his deep understanding of the driving forces of the American Revolution. Not wise generals or brilliant officers, but people from the people are ready to make any sacrifice for the triumph of the cause of independence and freedom. They are the true heroes of these harsh and bright pages of American history. Harvey Birch sacrificed everything for the good of his homeland: his honest name, his family hearth, his home, without demanding any reward for it. The key scene in the novel is the scene of the last meeting between General Washington and his secret agent Birch. In payment for his “services,” the general offers Birch one hundred doubloons, but he refuses to take them. He asks: does the general really think that he risked his life and disgraced his name for the sake of money? Here the intelligence officer is morally superior to the commander. Washington reminds that Birch will have to be known as an enemy of his homeland until his grave: he will not be allowed to take off the mask that hides his true face for many years, and most likely never. But Burch has been ready for it from the day he took on his job. Instead of a bag of gold, he, like the greatest treasure, takes away a paper written in Washington’s hand, replacing the one that was lost. The further fate of the “spy” is loneliness, wandering, need.

And Washington's note would be found thirty-three years later on the body of an old man killed in battle during the war of 1812-1815. between England and the USA. Seventy-year-old Harvey Birch was struck by a bullet in his last battle for American independence. Cooper ends the novel with a heartfelt epitaph: “He died as he lived, a devoted son of his homeland and a martyr for its freedom.”

Although Cooper does not develop this motif in any detail, Birch's fate objectively reflects the tragic discrepancy between the high ideals of the American Revolution and the actual practice caused by its bourgeois character. Birch's lot looks especially unfair against the backdrop of the easy career of frivolous officers, the calculating cowardice of the townspeople and the greed of robbers - "skinners" who posed as fighters for independence, but in fact robbed on "neutral territory". Later, Cooper's theme of the bitter fate of the true heroes of the War of Independence would be picked up and deeply revealed by the “second generation” romantic G. Melville in the book “Israel Potter.”

Cooper's highest achievement is the pentalogy about Leatherstocking. It includes five novels, written in the following order: “The Pioneers” (1823), “The Last of the Mohicans” (1826), “The Prairie” (1827), “The Pathfinder” (1840), “Deerslayer” (1841). They are united by the image of the hunter Nathaniel Bumppo, who also has numerous nicknames: Deerslayer, Tracker, Hawkeye, Leatherstocking and Long Carbine. In the pentalogy, Bumpo's entire life passes before the readers - from his youth ("St. John's wort") to the day of his death ("Prairie"). But the order in which the books were written does not coincide with the stages of the main character’s life. Cooper began the story of Bumpo when the hunter had already entered old age, continued the epic with the novel from Natty's mature age, then portrayed him in old age, a year before his death. And only after a noticeable break the writer again turned to the adventures of Leatherstocking and returned to the days of his youth.

If we consider the parts of the pentalogy not in the order in which they were written, but according to the chronology of the events described (and this is how they are usually read), then the sequence of time and place of action is as follows: “St. John’s wort” - 1740, north eastern USA, upper Susquehanna River; "The Last of the Mohicans" - 1757, Hudson River area; “Pathfinder” - the very end of the 50s, one of the Great Lakes - Ontario; "Pioneers" - 1793, development and settlement of western forests; "The Prairie" - 1805, the prairie region west of the Mississippi. Thus, the path of the protagonist of the pentalogy is from a narrow strip of land on the Atlantic coast, where the first colonists landed, to the Great Lakes and further to the endless western prairies. This path took both in life and in Cooper’s pentalogy about sixty years.

Taken together, nine novels are a fictional history of the American frontier, a history of the movement American nation from east to west. The fate of Natty Bumppo embodied the history of the conquest of the continent and at the same time the history of the strengthening of bourgeois civilization in the country, the history of the moral losses that the nation suffered while expanding its territory.

All five novels have approximately the same plot structure. The hunter Natty Bumppo, an inhabitant of the extreme frontier, on the first pages of each book meets one of the settlers, a wave of which is moving to the west (officers, adventurers, traders, etc.). He performs miracles of courage and heroism, speaking on the side of the “positive” heroes, fighting injustice, helping the weak and offended. At the end of each of the novels, Bumpo leaves his usual places and goes further to the west, and in the next book, history repeats itself again.

The plot of “St. John's Wort” is based on the fate of the hero, who is in his early twenties and who for the first time sets out on the “warpath” with the Huron Indians. In this deadly struggle, Natty’s friendship with the young Mohican Indian Chingachgook arises and strengthens, a friendship that they both will carry throughout their lives. The situation in the novel is complicated by the fact that St. John's wort's white allies - "Floating" Tom Hutter and Harry March - are cruel and unfair towards the Indians and themselves provoke violence and bloodshed. Dramatic adventures - ambushes, battles, captivity, escape - unfold against the backdrop of picturesque nature - the mirror surface of the Shimmering Lake and its wooded shores.

The Last of the Mohicans is Cooper's most famous novel. The plot is based on the history of the capture of Colonel Munro's daughters Cora and Alice by the cruel and treacherous leader of Magua - the Sly Fox - and the attempts of a small detachment led by Natty Bumppo - Hawkeye to free the captives. Together with Natty and Chingachgook, a young Indian warrior, Chingachgook's son Uncas, takes part in breathtaking pursuits and battles. He - although Cooper does not develop this line in detail - is in love with one of the captives, Cora, and dies in the last battle, trying in vain to save her. The novel ends with a deeply touching scene of the funeral of Uncas, the last of the Mohicans, and Cora. Hawkeye and Chingachgook set off on further journeys.

The Pathfinder depicts scenes from the Anglo-French War of 1750-1760. In this war, both the British and the French brought Indian tribes to their side by bribery or deception. Bumpo, with his well-aimed carbine, and Chingachgook take part in the battles on Lake Ontario and once again help their comrades win. However, Natty, and along with him the author, sharply condemn the war unleashed by the colonialists, leading to the senseless death of both whites and Indians. A significant place in the novel is occupied by the love story of Bumpo and Mabel Dunham. Appreciating the scout’s courage and nobility, the girl, however, gives preference to Jasper, who is closer to her in age and character. Bumpo generously refuses the marriage (although Mabel was ready to keep her promise to her dead father and marry the Pathfinder) and goes further to the West.

"Pioneers" is the most problematic novel in the pentalogy. Leather Stocking is already nearly seventy here, but his eye has not lost its vigilance, and his hand has not lost its firmness. However, his lonely old age is sad. old friend Chingachgook - The Great Serpent is still nearby, but the wise leader and mighty warrior has turned into a decrepit, drunken old man - Indian John. Natty and Chingachgook are strangers in the colonists’ village, where the laws and orders of a “civilized” society are gradually being established. At the center of the novel is the conflict between the natural laws of nature and the human heart and far-fetched and unjust social orders. At the end of the book, Chingachgook dies, and Bumpo, having again arranged the happiness of the young couple - Oliver Effingham and Elizabeth Temple, refuses the benefits of a prosperous old age and again hides in the forest thicket.

Natty Bumppo is eighty-five at Prairie. He is not a hunter, but a trapper, a trapper. At the very beginning of the book, Cooper explains that Leatherstocking was driven from his beloved forests by the sound of an ax and he is forced to seek refuge on a barren plain that stretches to the Rocky Mountains. Natty now helps his new young friends not with a well-aimed shot, but with a huge life experience, the ability to escape from natural disaster and carry on a conversation with the formidable Indian leader. Danger threatens Bumpo and his friends both from the Sioux Indians and from the Bush family of white settlers. All the many twists and turns of the adventurous plot end happily - with a double wedding. Having parted with his friends, Natty spends the last year of his life among the Indians of the Pawnee tribe, whose young leader, Hard Heart, partially replaces the deceased Mohican Uncas. The ending of the novel is a solemn and heartfelt scene last hours Leatherstocking and his death.

The image of Natty Bumppo is Cooper’s highest achievement. It is a deeply national character, generated by the specific conditions of American history, and at the same time, one of the “eternal companions of humanity,” captivating with its example one generation after another of readers in different countries. Gave a vivid description of this literary hero V. G. Belinsky: “A man with a deep nature and a powerful spirit, who voluntarily abandoned the comforts and lures of civilized life for the wide expanse of majestic nature, for an elevated conversation with God in the solemn silence of his great creation... a man who matured in the open sky, in an eternal struggle with dangers... a man with iron muscles and steel muscles in a lean body, with a dove’s heart in a lion’s chest.”

In accordance with Rousseauian ideas, Cooper explains the high moral qualities your favorite character's life in communion with nature and the absence of the corrupting influence of civilization. In “The Deerslayer,” he calls Bumpo “a wonderful example of what natural kindness and the absence of bad examples and temptations can make a young man.” In “The Pathfinder,” the writer compares his hero with “Adam before the Fall,” calls him “a man of excellent spiritual qualities,” “a sage from a distant outskirts,” notes his “incorruptible, unerring sense of justice,” emphasizes that “his loyalty was unbreakable, like a rock." Natty is absolutely selfless and incapable of committing a dishonest act.

Leather Stocking cannot imagine life outside of nature, without a sense of his unity with the surrounding forests, sky, and water. “The true temple is the forest,” he says. The forest equalizes people, destroying, even if only temporarily, the artificial barriers erected between them by civilization. The great school of nature, Natti believes, is much more useful and more important than the far-fetched book learning of the townspeople. Awkward and confused on the streets of the white colonists' settlements, Bumpo is transformed when he finds himself in his element.

Life on the extreme edge of the frontier also attracts Natti with its freedom and independence. He understands freedom simply: this is the right to roam freely through his native forests. The regulation of human life by law seems to Bumpo to be unfair and sinful. In The Pioneers, Nutty declares to Judge Temple, who is trying to prove the need for a set of laws and rules of civilization: “I roamed these mountains when you were a baby in your mother’s arms. And I know that I have the right to walk this earth for the rest of my life.”

The complexity and drama of Natty Bumppo’s fate lies in the fact that he had a historically conditioned dual role. Fleeing from the sound of the ax, heralding the onset of a new way of life, retreating further and further to the west, Leather Stocking unwittingly paves the way for that very cold and hostile civilization that is destroying his world. There is a bitter and tragic irony in the fact that the courageous and selfless pioneer becomes the guide of the shopkeeper, lumberjack, sheriff, etc.

The key scene of the entire pentalogy in this regard is the scene of the trial of Leatherstocking in the novel “Pioneers”. Once upon a time, Natty Bumppo, an old resident of these places, met Marmaduke Temple here, fed him, gave him shelter, and gave him his bear skin to make his bed. Years have passed, and now the aged hunter and his friend Indian John are two sad remnants of the past in the “civilized” village of Templeton. Bumpo's enemies, Hiram Doolittle and Sheriff Richard Jones, imagined that the old man was secretly mining silver on land belonging to the "owner" of the village, Marmaduke Temple. Using the newly introduced "law" regarding the timing of the hunt, they try to break into Bumpo's hut. Protecting someone else's secret entrusted to him, Leather Stocking repels the brazen invasion. Bumpo is put on trial for “resisting authorities.” Judge Temple, a humane man by nature and sincerely grateful for saving his daughter Elizabeth from death in the claws of a panther, is nevertheless forced, following the laws of a “civilized society,” to sentence Bumpo to imprisonment, a large fine and sitting in the stocks in the pillory. The laws of civilization and the norms of humanity turn out to be incompatible.

The episode that opens the novel “Prairie” is also very indicative. Natty meets a caravan of Bush settlers who cannot find water, food for livestock, or shelter for the night. Bumpo leads them to a place where a stream gurgles in the shadow of tall poplars. Axes are immediately used, trees fall to the ground, “as if a hurricane had swept through here.” The next morning, the detachment moves on, and Natty looks with bitterness at the devastation caused, at the unnecessary, abandoned logs, which just yesterday were proud, handsome poplars.

Thus, the pentalogy artistically captures the tragedy of American pioneering, which was the result of the discord between the noble goals of the pioneers and territorial expansion under capitalism.

Incarnation free life and closeness to nature serves in the pentalogy of the life of the Indians. When drawing her, Cooper did not strive for a realistic image. His goal was to paint, as he said, a “beautiful ideal” opposed to the acquisitiveness and cruelty of the bourgeois world. The life and customs of the Indians are painted in bright colors, they emphasize unusual, exotic features, the speech of the Indians is replete with flowery metaphors and comparisons.

One of the most important cross-cutting themes of the entire pentalogy is the tragic fate of the American Indians, dying under the ruthless pressure of the civilization of white invaders. The “march” of the American nation to the West was accompanied by the inhumane extermination of the “redskins”, who were, in fact, declared outlaws. In Deerslayer, Cooper portrays two frontiersmen, Harry March and Tom Hutter. The first of them proudly declares that “killing a savage is a feat,” and claims that the redskins differ from animals only in cunning. The second, having learned that only women and children remained in the Indian camp, persuades March to attack the defenseless camp in order to get scalps there, for which the colonial administration pays bonuses. Neither Hutter nor his partner are embarrassed by the inhumanity of the plan: they consider killing Indians to be no less a worthy way to make money than hunting.

With great respect and sympathy, the writer paints the images of Chingachgook, Uncas, and Hard Heart. They are distinguished by courage, military valor, honesty and faithfulness to one's word, contempt for torture and even death itself. True, the writer divides Indian tribes into “good” (Delaware, Pawnee) and “bad” (Hurons, Sioux, etc.). This is due to the participation of these tribes either on the side of the British or on the side of the French in the long-term Anglo-French military clashes in the 18th century. It is significant that even the leaders of hostile Indian tribes, the main enemies of Leatherstocking and his friends - Splintered Oak ("St. John's Wort"), Magua ("The Last of the Mohicans"), Striking Arrow ("Pathfinder"), Matori ("Prairie") - are depicted Cooper with more than just black paint. Along with ferocity and cunning, these heroes are endowed with extraordinary intelligence, courage, and energy. For example, even in Magua, not only the “evil and ferocious features”, “the fantastic look of the basilisk” are emphasized, but also his strength, courage, and oratorical talent. The defeat and death of these characters has its own dark, tragic grandeur.

Many scenes in the novels “The Last of the Mohicans” and “The Pioneers” directly condemn the expansion of white conquerors. In the first of them, Leather Stocking says: “You see before you a great leader, a wise Mohican. Once upon a time, his ancestors could chase a deer over a great distance. What will his descendants get?” The author gives the final answer to this question in “Pioneers,” where the impoverished and dispossessed Chingachgook and Leather Stocking find themselves powerless and homeless. But the burden of years is not to blame. It was the whites who brought old age with them, Chingachgook believes. Rum is their tomahawk.

By destroying the Indian world, capitalist expansion also destroys the natural world. In the 18th century It seemed to the settlers that before them was an endless expanse of forests, an inexhaustible supply of natural resources from which they could draw without looking back. The frontiersmen treat nature with thoughtless barbarity, cutting down and burning forests, extortionately depleting the soil, destroying animals and birds. One of the central episodes of “Pioneers” is the scene of the extermination of flocks of pigeons. This disgusting orgy of murder is opposed only by Leather Stocking with his principle “use, but do not destroy.” But his reproach “it is a great sin to kill in vain more than you can eat” cannot stop what even Judge Temple is forced in the end to call “wanton destruction” and “carnage.”

The writer plays a great role as a pioneer of the most important themes in US literature. The motif of “leaving” bourgeois civilization, embodied in the fate of Natty Bumppo, will become key in American romanticism, repeated in the story of G. Thoreau’s life on Walden Lake, in the desire of G. Melville’s heroes to escape into the vastness of the ocean, in the flight of fantasy of E. Poe. It will be picked up by subsequent writers literary trends and eras. Huckleberry Finn will dream about escaping to “Indian territory” in M. Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”; to Alaska - not for gold, for real life- the courageous heroes of D. London will go; a hut on the edge of a forest somewhere far to the west will be seen by the “catcher in the rye” - Holden Caulfield, the hero of the novel by D. D. Salinger. The Indian theme will be developed in “The Song of Hiawatha” by G. W. Longfellow. The friendship of Natty and Chingachgook will become a prototype of unions of people of different skin colors based on equality and mutual respect in Melville (Ishmael and Queequeg in Moby Dick), in Twain (Huck Finn and Negro Jim), in many progressive writers of the 20th century, environmental issues, issues of protection nature from unreasonable human intervention, first outlined by Cooper, were also widely picked up by US literature of the 20th century.

© V.N. Bogoslovsky (Chapters 23, 24, 30), V.G. Prozorov (Chapters 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29), A.F. Golovenchenko (Chapter 27), (1991)