Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
3. Why do the tales and myths in Rip Van Winkle connect with the Dutch
rather than with Native American? How does the Manitou Spirit aect
the story? What role, if any, does the Manitou Spirit play in Rip Van
Winkle’s story? How do Native American legends connect with those of
the Dutch?
4. Why does Rip Van Winkle awaken to a post-Revolutionary America, do
you think?
5. Why does Irving connect Ichabod Crane in “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” with images of consumption and consumerism? To what eect?
How does Ichabod Crane compare with Brom Bones? Why?
4.4 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
(1789–1851)
James Fenimore Cooper, author of
the Leatherstocking novels, beginning
with The Pioneers (1823), and seafaring
tales like The Pathnder (1840), was
himself a pioneer and pathnder for
later writers like Herman Melville and
Mark Twain. Cooper dramatized unique
American experiences, such as the
fast vanishing wilderness, and unique
American characters, such as Natty
Bumpo, who was based in part on the
explorer Daniel Boone (1734–1820).
Inuenced by the historical romances
of Sir Walter Scott, Cooper wrote of
Image 4.2 | James Fenimore Cooper
the uncommon common man, sprung Artist | Unknown
Source | Wikimedia Commons
almost from untouched nature itself
License | Public Domain
but certainly from the fast-changing
American landscape, in a time and place where he seemed an anachronism but
also a touchstone of American ideals.
Cooper was born into a well-to-do family, growing up in Cooperstown, a frontier
village on the southern shore of Ostego Lake developed by his father William
Cooper (1754–1809). William Cooper was a judge and member of Congress who,
after Fenimore Cooper was expelled from Yale for misconduct (perhaps a brawl),
would obtain a position for him in the United States Navy. After William’s death,
Cooper inherited part of his father’s large fortune. He left the Navy in 1808 and
married Susan Augusta de Lancey—daughter of a wealthy Westchester family—
three years later. He turned to writing to recoup nancial losses, likely due to his
own poor management.
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