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James Fenimore Cooper (1789 szeptember 15. – 1851 szeptember 14.) a 19. század elején tevékenykedő termékeny és népszerű amerikai regényíró volt, aki számtalan tengeri-történetet és történelmi kalandregényt írt, melyek Bőrharisnya-történetekként váltak ismertté, melynek főszereplője a pionír Natty Bumppo. Híres munkája, a romantikus regény, Az utolsó mohikán-nak köszönhetően sok ember elismerte munkásságát.
Lánya, Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813—1894), íróként és filantrópusként vált ismertté.
Tartalomjegyzék |
[szerkesztés] Korai élete
Cooper Burlingtonban, New Jersey-ben született 1789 szeptember 15-én, William és Elizabeth Cooper tizenkét gyermeke közül a tizenegyedikként. Amikor James egy éves volt, családja az Otsego-tó, New York, határvidékére költözött, ahol where his father established a settlement on his yet unsettled estates which became modern-day Cooperstown, New York. His father was a judge and member of Congress. James was sent to school at Albany and at New Haven, and entered Yale at fourteen, remaining for some time the youngest student on the rolls.
Three years afterwards he joined the United States Navy; but after making a voyage or two in a merchant vessel, to perfect himself in seamanship, and obtaining his lieutenancy, he married Susan Augusta de Lancey and resigned his commission (1811).
[szerkesztés] Írói pályafutása
He settled in Westchester County, New York, the “Neutral Ground” of his earliest American romance, and produced anonymously (1820) his first book, Precaution, a novel of the fashionable school. This was followed (1821) by The Spy, which was very successful at the date of issue; The Pioneers (1823), the first of the Leatherstocking series; and The Pilot (1824), a bold and dashing sea-story. The next was Lionel Lincoln (1825), a feeble and unattractive work; and this was succeeded in 1826 by the famous Last of the Mohicans, a book that is often quoted as its author's masterpiece. Quitting America for Europe he published at Paris The Prairie (1826), the best of his books in nearly all respects, and The Red Rover, (1828), by no means his worst.
At this period the unequal and uncertain talent of Cooper would seem to have been at its best. These excellent novels were, however, succeeded by one very inferior, The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (1829); by The Notions of a Travelling Bachelor (1828); and by The Waterwitch (1830), one of his many sea-stories. In 1830 he entered the lists as a party writer, defending in a series of letters to the National, a Parisian journal, the United States against a string of charges brought against them by the Revue Britannique; and for the rest of his life he continued skirmishing in print, sometimes for the national interest, sometimes for that of the individual, and not infrequently for both at once.
This opportunity of making a political confession of faith appears not only to have fortified him in his own convictions, but to have inspired him with the idea of elucidating them for the public through the medium of his art. His next three novels, The Bravo (1831), The Heidenmauer (1832) and The Headsman: or the Abbaye of Vigneron (1833), were expressions of Cooper's republican convictions. The Bravo depicted Venice as a place where a ruthless oligarchy lurks behind the mask the "serene republic." All were widely read on both sides of the Atlantic,though The Bravo was a critical failure in the United States.[1]
In 1833 Cooper returned to America, and immediately published A Letter to my Countrymen, in which he gave his own version of the controversy he had been engaged in, and passed some sharp censure on his compatriots for their share in it. This attack he followed up with The Monikins (1835) and The American Democrat (1835); with several sets of notes on his travels and experiences in Europe, among which may be remarked his England (1837), in. three volumes, a burst of vanity and illtemper; and with Homeward Bound, and Home as Found (1838), noticeable as containing a highly idealized portrait of himself.
All these books tended to increase the ill-feeling between author and public; the Whig press was virulent and scandalous in its comments, and Cooper plunged into a series of actions for libel. Victorious in all of them, he returned to his old occupation with something of his old vigour and success. A History of the Navy of the United States (1839), supplemented (1846) by a set of Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers, was succeeded by The Pathfinder (1840), a good “Leatherstocking” novel; by Mercedes of Castile (1840); The Deerslayer (1841); by The Two Admirals and by Wing and Wing (1842); by Wyandotte, The History of a Pocket Handkerchief, and Ned Myers (1843); and by Afloat and Ashore, or the Adventures of Miles Wallingford (1844).
From pure fiction, however, he turned again to the combination of art and controversy in which he had achieved distinction, and in the two Littlepage Manuscripts (1845—1846) he wrote with a great deal of vigour. His next novel was The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak (1847), in which he attempted to introduce supernatural machinery; and this was succeeded by Oak Openings and Jack Tier (1848), the latter a curious rifacimento of The Red Rover; by The Sea Lions (1849); and finally by The Ways of the Hour (1850), another novel with a purpose, and his last book.
[szerkesztés] Last years and legacy
Cooper spent the last years of his life in Cooperstown, New York (named for his father). He died of dropsy on the 14th of September 1851 and a statue was later erected in his honor.
Cooper was certainly one of the most popular 19th century American authors. His stories have been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe and into some of those of Asia. Balzac admired him greatly, but with discrimination; Victor Hugo pronounced him greater than the great master of modern romance, and this verdict was echoed by a multitude of inferior readers, who were satisfied with no title for their favourite less than that of “the American Scott.” As a satirist and observer he is simply the “Cooper who's written six volumes to prove he's as good as a Lord” of Lowell's clever portrait; his enormous vanity and his irritability find vent in a sort of dull violence, which is exceedingly tiresome. He was most memorably criticised by Mark Twain whose vicious and amusing "The Literary Offenses of James Fenimore Cooper" is still read widely in academic circles. It is only as a novelist that he deserves consideration. His qualities are not those of the great masters of fiction; but he had an inexhaustible imagination, some faculty for simple combination of incident, a homely tragic force which is very genuine and effective, and up to a certain point a fine narrative power.
His literary training was inadequate; his vocabulary is limited and his style awkward and pretentious; and he had a fondness for moralizing tritely and obviously, which mars his best passages. In point of conception, each of his three-and-thirty novels is either absolutely good or is possessed of a certain amount of merit; but hitches occur in all, so that every one of them is remarkable rather in its episodes than as a whole. Nothing can be more vividly told than the escape of the Yankee man-of-war through the shoals and from the English cruisers in The Pilot, but there are few things flatter in the range of fiction than the other incidents of the novel.
It is therefore with some show of reason that The Last of the Mohicans, which as a chain of brilliantly narrated episodes is certainly the least faulty in this matter of sustained excellence of execution, should be held to be the best of his works. Sablon:1911
[szerkesztés] Cooper munkái
| Date | Title: Subtitle | Műfaj | Téma, helyszín, korszak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1820 | Precaution: A Novel | regény | England, 1813-1814 |
| 1821 | The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground | regény | Westchester County, New York, 1778 |
| 1823 | The Pioneers: or The Sources of the Susquehanna | regény | Leatherstocking, Otsego County, New York, 1793-1794, |
| 1823 | Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart | 2 kisregény | written under the pseudonym: "Jane Morgan" |
| 1823 | The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea | regény | John Paul Jones, Anglia, 1780 |
| 1825 | Lionel Lincoln: or The Leaguer of Boston | regény | Battle of Bunker Hill, Boston, 1775-1781 |
| 1826 | The Last of the Mohicans: A narrative of 1757 | regény | Leatherstocking, French and Indian War, Lake George & Adirondacks, 1757 |
| 1827 | The Prairie | regény | Bőrharisnya, American Midwest, 1805 |
| 1828 | The Red Rover: A Tale | regény | Newport, Rhode Island & Atlantic Ocean, pirates, 1759 |
| 1828 | Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor | non-fiction | America for European readers |
| 1829 | The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish: A Tale | regény | Western Connecticut, Puritans and Indians, 1660-1676 |
| 1830 | The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas | regény | New York, smugglers, 1713 |
| 1830 | Letter to General Lafayette | politika | France vs. US, cost of government |
| 1831 | The Bravo: A Tale | regény | Venice, 18. század |
| 1832 | The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine | regény | German Rhineland, 16th century |
| 1832 | No Steamboats | novella | |
| 1833 | The Headsman: The Abbaye des Vignerons | regény | Genf, Svájc, Alpok, 18. század |
| 1834 | A Letter to His Countrymen | politika | Miért nem hagyta abba Cooper ideiglenesen az írást |
| 1835 | The Monikins | regény | Antarktisz, arisztokrata majmok. 1830-as évek |
| 1836 | The Eclipse | emlékirat | Napfogyatkozás Cooperstown-ban, New York 1806 |
| 1836 | Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland (Sketches of Switzerland) | útibeszámoló | Kirándulás Svájcban, 1828 |
| 1836 | Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine (Sketches of Switzerland, Part Second) | útibeszámoló | Franciaországi utazások, Rhineland és Svájc, 1832 |
| 1836 | A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland | útibeszámoló | |
| 1837 | Gleanings in Europe: France | útibeszámoló | Élet, utazás Franciaországban, 1826-1828 |
| 1837 | Gleanings in Europe: England | útibeszámoló | Travels in England, 1826, 1828, 1833 |
| 1838 | Gleanings in Europe: Italy | útibeszámoló | Living, travelling in Italy, 1828-1830 |
| 1838 | The American Democrat : or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America | non-fiction | US society and government |
| 1838 | The Chronicles of Cooperstown | history | Local history of Cooperstown, New York |
| 1838 | Homeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea | regény | Atlantic Ocean & North African coast, 1835 |
| 1838 | Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound | regény | Eve Effingham, New York City & Otsego County, New York, 1835 |
| 1839 | The History of the Navy of the United States of America | history | US Naval history to date |
| 1839 | Old Ironsides | history | History of the Frigate USS Constitution, 1st pub. 1853 |
| 1840 | Nyomkereső: or the Inland Sea | regény | Leatherstocking, Western New York, 1759 |
| 1840 | Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay | regény | Kolombusz Kristóf a Nyugat-Indiák-on, 1490-es évek |
| 1841 | Vadölő: avagy az első hadi ösvény | regény | Bőrharisnya, Otsego-tó 1740-1745 |
| 1842 | The Two Admirals | regény | England & English Channel, Skót felkelés, 1745 |
| 1842 | The Wing-and-Wing: le Le Feu-Follet (Jack o Lantern) | novel | Itáliai partok, Napoleoni háborúk, 1745 |
| 1843 | Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief, also published as
|
novelette | Social satire, France & New York, 1830s |
| 1843 | Richard Dale | ||
| 1843 | Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale [2] | regény | Butternut Valley of Otsego County, New York, 1763-1776 |
| 1843 | Ned Myers: or Life before the Mast | életrajz | of Cooper's shipmate |
| 1844 | Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale | regény | Ulster County & worldwide, 1795-1805 |
| 1844 | Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore | regény | Ulster County & worldwide, 1795-1805 |
| 1844 | Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c. | ||
| 1845 | Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony | regény | New York City, Westchester County, Albany, Adirondacks, 1758 |
| 1845 | The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts | regény | Westchester County, Adirondacks, 1780s (next generation) |
| 1846 | The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts | regény | Anti-rent wars, Adirondacks, 1845 |
| 1846 | Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers | életrajz | |
| 1847 | novel | New Jersey & Pacific desert island, early 1800s | |
| 1848 | Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs a.k.a. Captain Spike: or The Islets of the Gulf |
novel | Florida Keys, Mexican War, 1846 |
| 1848 | A méhvadász: elbeszélés a nyugati vadonból | regény | Kalamazoo River, Michigan, 1812-es háború |
| 1849 | The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers | regény | Long Island & Antarctica, 1819-1820 |
| 1850 | The Ways of the Hour | regény | "Dukes County, New York," murder/courtroom mystery novel, legal corruption, women's rights, 1846 |
| 1850 | Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats | színdarab | satirization of socialism |
| 1851 | The Lake Gun | novella | Seneca Lake in New York, political satire based on folklore |
| 1851 | New York: or The Towns of Manhattan | history | Befejezetlen, New York City történelme, 1. kiadás 1864 |
Sources for this table include:
- http://www.oneonta.edu/external/cooper/bibliography/works.html
- http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jfcooper.htm
- http://www.jamesfenimorecooper.com/
- http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/cooper.htm
- http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c
[szerkesztés] External links
Sablon:Wikisource author
- Sablon:Gutenberg author
- James Fenimore Cooper Society Website
- Thomas R. Lounsbury: James Fenimore Cooper. 6th Edition. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1886 (American Men of Letters). PDF in the Arno Schmidt Reference Library
- The Cambridge History of American Literature, Fiction I: Brown, Cooper
- Find-A-Grave profile for James Fenimore Cooper


Based on work by