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Leatherstocking Tales. 外院 06 级本科 7 班 王芳 仲跻群 魏旭群 韦超 杜伟秋. Leatherstocking Tales. It is a series of five novels set in the early frontier period of American history.
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Leatherstocking Tales 外院06级本科7班 王芳 仲跻群 魏旭群 韦超 杜伟秋
Leatherstocking Tales • It is a series of five novels set in the early frontier period of American history. • Its historical importance lies in the fact that it is the first romance of the frontier in American literature.
Leatherstocking Tales • First American stories to capture the imagination of readers around the world, and they began the tradition of the American novel • Theme: modern civilization advancing on the wilderness and the contradiction between them
Leatherstocking Tales • Series is about an 18th Century frontiersman – Natty Bumppo – who lives free and “close to nature, while the settlers bring ‘civilization’ that destroys the wilderness” • The novels tell of the clash that occurred “between the frontier wilderness and the encroaching civilization”
Leatherstocking Tales • The Pioneers <开拓者>(1823) • The Last of the Mohicans • <最后的莫希干人> (1826) • The Prairie <草原> (1827) • The Pathfinder <探路者> (1840) • The Deerslayer <杀鹿者> (1841)
Another way of making up the collections • ①The Deerslayer --youth • ②The Last of the Mohicans --middle-age maturity • ③The Pathfinder --in the late 30sandfall in love • ④The Pioneers--old • ⑤The Prairie --dying
Central Character • Natty Bumppo • several names for same character: • Hawk-eye, thePathfinder, the Deerslayer, Leatherstocking. • He is a typical frontier man: honest, simple, innocent, generous and represents brotherhood of man, nature and freedom • Natty Bumppo represents the ideal American, living a virtuous and free life In God’s world.
The Last of the Mohicans • Historical Fiction- set among real historical events • Set during war between France and England in North America • Written in 1826, but set in 1757 • The second novel of Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales” • Seen as the most violent of the “Leatherstocking Tales” • the universal favorite and best known of the series
The Last of the Mohicans • Chronicles the massacre of the colonial garrison at Fort William Henry and a fictional kidnapping of two pioneer sisters. • Cooper builds the story around the historic massacre at Fort William Henry on the shores of Lake George. • Natty Bumppo, now in his thirties and known by his Indian name of Hawkeye, joins forces with Chingachgook and Chingachgook's son Uncas to save the lives of the daughters of the fort's commanding officer.
The Last of the Mohicans • Numerous exciting and complicated canoe and trail chases take place over the lakes and through the mountains and forests of Upper York Colony. Full play is given to the treachery of Montcalm, General Webb and the Mingo warrior, Magua, as Cooper describes in heart-rending passages the disaster of the terrible massacre and its aftermath on the lives of both his fictional and historic characters. • The hero Natty Bumppo was incredibly popular; a rebel heroically opposed to industrial society, he was a hero who never married or changed his ideals
Natty Bumppo Magua Major Duncan Heyward Uncas Chingachgook David Gamut Colonel Munro Cora Munro Alice Munro General Montcalm Tamenund General Webb Characters
Web Sites James Fenimore Cooper www.xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/Cooper The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper www.allreaders.com “James Fenimore Cooper.” 2000. Retrieved on 3/3/2005 from http://www.jamesfenimorecooper.com -This site provides biographical information as well as information about Cooper’s role in American history. “James Fenimore Cooper.” 2003. Retrieved on 3/4/2005 from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jfcooper.htm -This Web site provides information on Cooper’s collection, the Leatherstocking Tales.
Web Sites American: James Fenimore Cooper.” 2002. Retrieved on 3/4/2005 from http://www.uncp.edu/home/Canada/work/allam/17841865/lit/cooper -This site offers information on Cooper’s major literary works. “Bibliomania: James Fenimore Cooper.” Retrieved on 3/6/2005 from http://www.bibliomania.com -Site offers biographical information about Cooper. “From Revolution to Reconstruction: An Outline of American Literature: Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820: James Fenimore Cooper.” 2003. Retrieved on 3/5/2005 from http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/LIT/cooper.htm -Web site contains information about Cooper’s novels and how they portrayed frontier settlement.