JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851)

James Fenimore Cooper was the first American novelist to reflect the history of his country as a succession of changes brought about by European bourgeois civilization; to show the harm that civilization caused the Indians; to show how the white men settling in the new territory destroyed along with the forests, man, bird and beast.
Cooper, influenced by the social ideas of the age of Enlightenment, wanted to see his people live by humane and democratic principles. But he found that the capitalist ways of life which had been introduced were actually more chaotic, lawless and treacherous than life in the wilderness. Cooper saw only tragedy in the progress of civilization and this gave him no peace. In his opinion everything that was best in nature had been lost, and society had gained nothing. The conflict between nature and civilization, and the immense social changes resulting because of it, are perhaps Fenimore Cooper's main concern in his novels.

LIFE OF FENIMORE COOPER
Fenimore Cooper was born in New Jersey, but while still an infant he was brought to the State of New York where his father, Judge William Cooper, had bought a large tract of land at the foot of Otsego Lake. Though a Federalist in politics, Judge Cooper had bourgeois-democratic views in practical life. He joined with local settlers in community enterprises building roads, bridges and canals, and encouraged the development of industries. This place now called Gooperstown, was 60 miles to the east of Albany, and at its best was no more than a frontier town; beyond it was the unsettled and wooded wilderness.
Cooper's mother was devoted to her home and children. The children grew up with a strong feeling for family loyalty and attachment to their birthplace. James and his brothers were taught at the village school and at home but most of their education they got from out-door life. By the time James was ten years old, he was already skilled in horseback riding, fishing, swimming, shooting with bow and arrow, and ice-skating. Never a great reader, young Cooper was not much under the influence of books. He drew his ideas from the life immediately about him, and from the opinions expressed by the judges, governors and bishops who visited his father.
At the age of thirteen his parents sent him to Yale College in Albany. But he showed no interest in book-learning, and in 1806 his lather sent him to sea. He served on a merchant ship the Sterling, bound for England and Spain. After a year at sea as an ordinary sailor, he was commissioned a midshipman1 in the United States Navy. He was sent by the Navy to help build a brig of 16 guns on Lake Ontario, and for a short time he had command of the gun-boats on Lake Champlain, and served on a ship, the Wasp. By the age of twenty he had moved about so much and had seen so much of the sea, of the frontier, the great inland-lakes, and the New York and New England forests, that it was only natural he should use them as settings for his books.
Cooper left the sea in 1811 when he married Susan Augusta De-Lancey, a young girl from a well-known family. Her grandfather had been the leader of the Loyalists in New York during the Revolution. Yet, neither Cooper's marriage, nor his own place of priority in the unequal society in which he was brought up, played a significant part in the formation of his way of thinking: the decisive influence on his world outlook came from the soul-stirring ideas of the French Revolution. This revealed itself in all his works.
After the death of his father Cooper became a country gentleman in Cooperstown, devoting himself to his family of seven children and to social interests. Cooper began writing at the age of thirty. The periodical press had started a campaign for a national literature. America had become politically independent of Britain, but culturally it was still in bondage to British and European culture. There was a particular need for a talented writer to record (for future generations) the heroic past of the country, and to express the nation's mind in writing. Cooper did it. He was moved to write a historical novel.
In 1821 he published "The Spy", a novel about the American Revolution. Its immediate success prompted him to write another book, "The Pioneers", and later "The Last of the Mohicans". He wrote six novels over a period of five years and these firmly established his reputation as a writer of merit, and they were translated into other languages. Among his admirers in Europe was the great German poet Goethe. At home, in New York City, Cooper was made honorary member of the Philosophical Society. And in 1826, when he decided to go to Europe for a tour, dinners were given in his honour before his departure, and he was highly praised in the press: he was called "the envoy of American literature in Europe" and "the hope of the Nation".
For seven years Cooper travelled in various European countries together with his large family. He worked without interruption all the time. He wrote seven novels and an immense quantity of articles, essays and letters. While in France Cooper met Republicans of many nations. He arrived in Paris during the July Revolution and stayed there until 1833. He knew Beranger1 well, and also the French sculptor David d'Angers, who made a famous bust of him. His greatest friend was Lafayette, whose conversations with him had a profound and lasting effect on Cooper's political and social views.
When Cooper returned to the United States, he did not recognize his country. He had loved America and idealized the future of the young democratic Republic. (He had presented America to Europe as a living embodiment of his beliefs. He did not believe in privilege or hereditary rank or title, and as for the principle of equal political rights, he would have fought to the death to defend it. But Cooper shared the ideas of the old landed families that trade was low and dishonest. Like Franklin and Jefferson he preferred a social order, founded on agriculture. But while he had been in Europe the American States had expanded towards the west. Thousands of people had left their old homes and rushed to plunder the Indians of their lands; and in the east a new order was rising that had shorter roads to wealth than agriculture: the rise of industrialism, the development of banking. The restless activity of businessmen left no time for humanitarian ideas. The political leaders of capitalism rushed to seize office in the government and their slogan was that "principles must not stand in the way of success". Cooper was indigrant; he expressed his criticism in such articles as:" A Letter to His Countrymen", "Home-ward Bound", "Home as Found" and "The American Democrat".
These important publicist works were misunderstood on both continents, and in Britain too. In America Cooper's protest against the common desire to "get rich" was reckoned as treason to his native land: he was considered a defender of the aristocracy. In Europe and Great Britain in particular, his social criticism was taken as an insult to aristocratic traditions. In the "American Democrat" Cooper laid down the principle that "...a government founded on the representation of property however direct or indirect, is radically vicious. [...] It is the proper business of government to resist the corruptions of money, and not to depend on them" (on property).
This bold criticism on the nature of a bourgeois state was the opening shot in his war with the ruling classes of the United Slates. When an economic controversy began between the United States and France, Cooper sided with Lafayette who was an active member of the French Government. The American press launched a vicious campaign to slander Cooper and discredit him in the eyes of the public. Cooper fought back bringing legal action against editors of newspapers for their attacks on him. That he was legally in the right and that he won almost ail the cases did not make him more lovable to the bourgeois world. However the hitter controversy continued for many years and the strain was too great for him. James Fenimore Cooper died at Cooperstown on September 14, 1851, the day before his sixty-second birthday.