Approaches to Teaching the Novels of James Fenimore Cooper
Approaches to Teaching the Novels of James Fenimore Cooper

Author: Stephen Carl Arch

Publisher: Modern Language Association

Published: 2022-09-21

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1603294929

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A cosmopolitan author who spent nearly a decade in Europe and was versed in the works of his British and French contemporaries, James Fenimore Cooper was also deeply concerned with the America of his day and its history. His works embrace themes that have dominated American literature since: the frontier; the oppression of Native Americans by Europeans; questions of race, gender, and class; and rugged individualism, as represented by figures like the pirate, the spy, the hunter, and the settler. His most memorable character, Natty Bumppo, has entered into American popular culture. The essays in this volume offer students bridges to Cooper's novels, which grapple with complex moral issues that are still crucial today. Engaging with film adaptations, cross-culturalism, animal studies, media history, environmentalism, and Indigenous American poetics, the essays offer new ways to bring these novels to life in the classroom.

James Fenimore Cooper versus the Cult of Domesticity
James Fenimore Cooper versus the Cult of Domesticity

Author: Signe O. Wegener

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2005-04-05

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 0786421282

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Between 1820 and 1860 a set of established cultural values deemed the "Cult of Domesticity" sought to shape the private and public lives of individuals in a rapidly changing American society. Promoting the ideals of conformity in religious, domestic and personal development, the cult was particularly concerned with maintaining a status quo of piety, purity, obedience and domesticity in 19th century female behavior. While a number a female writers responded through literature to the social standards they were urged to emulate, the prominent male writer James Fenimore Cooper reacted as well, addressing the predominant cultural climate through texts that establish women as an integral part of the plot line. This book provides a comprehensive discussion of James Fenimore Cooper's view of family dynamics and explores his attempts to simultaneously present and critique the forces shaping the social development of the nation. The study places 10 relevant Cooper novels within the context of popular literary works by 19th century writers Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Susan Warner and Maria Cummins to demonstrate how Cooper approaches issues of Victorian domesticity and how his representations compare to those crafted by the contemporary women writers. Opening chapters discuss why Cooper chose the women's fiction genre as his vehicle and present an overview of the "Cult of Domesticity" in fiction and nonfiction, delineating the origins and effects of 19th century domestic life. Remaining chapters address the role of the mother, the father and the central daughter figure in domestic fiction.

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson
Approaches to Teaching the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

Author: Caroline McCracken-Flesher

Publisher: Modern Language Association

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1603291857

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Although Robert Louis Stevenson was a late Victorian, his work--especially Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--still circulates energetically and internationally among popular and academic audiences and among young and old. Admired by Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jorge Luis Borges, Stevenson's fiction crosses the boundaries of genre and challenges narrow definitions of the modern and the postmodern. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," provides an introduction to the writer's life, a survey of the criticism of his work, and a variety of resources for the instructor. In part 2, "Approaches," thirty essays address such topics as Stevenson's dialogue with James about literature; his verse for children; his Scottish heritage; his wanderlust; his work as gothic fiction, as science fiction, as detective fiction; his critique of imperialism in the South Seas; his usefulness in the creative writing classroom; and how Stevenson encourages expansive thinking across texts, times, places, and lives.

Approaches to Teaching Scott's Waverley Novels
Approaches to Teaching Scott's Waverley Novels

Author: Evan Gottlieb

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13:

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Scott's Waverley novels, as his fiction is collectively known, are increasingly popular in the classroom, where they fit into courses that explore topics from Victorianism and nationalism to the rise of the publishing industry and the cult of the author. As the editors of this volume recognize, however, Scott's fictions present unusual challenges to instructors. Students need guidance, for instance, in navigating Scott's use of vernacular Scots and antique styles, sorting through his historical and geographical references, and distinguishing his multiple authorial personas. The essays in this volume are designed to help teachers negotiate these and other intriguing features of the Waverley novels. Part 1, "Materials," guides instructors in selecting appropriate editions of the Waverley novels for classroom use. It also categorizes and lists background and critical studies of Scott's novels and recommends additional readings for students, as well as multimedia instructional resources. The essays in part 2 examine the novels' relation to Scottish history, Scott's use of language, and concepts of Romantic authorship; consider gender, legal, queer, and multicultural approaches; recommend strategies for teaching Scott alongside other authors such as Jane Austen; and offer detailed ideas for introducing individual novels to students�from imagining Ivanhoe in the context of nineteenth-century medievalism to reconsidering how the ethical issues raised in Old Mortality reflect on religion and violence in our own day.

Approaches to Teaching Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Approaches to Teaching Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Author: Jackson R. Bryer

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13:

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The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

James Fenimore Cooper the Novelist
James Fenimore Cooper the Novelist

Author: George Dekker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-23

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1351580019

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Originally published in 1967. In this critical survey of the fiction of James Fenimore Cooper, George Dekker devotes a good deal of attention to Cooper’s politics. He also explores the assimilation and development of the historical novel as first perfected by Sir Walter Scott. Cooper’s major formal innovations in the field of historical fiction were, like Scott’s, something more than mere experiments: they were made because American social and political developments differed radically from those of Scott’s Europe and so demanded a different formal expression.

James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper

Author: Signe O. Wegener

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2023-06-02

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1476649847

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Although often overlooked today, James Fenimore Cooper's novels represent the very beginnings of American literature. Singlehandedly, the gentleman farmer from upstate New York created the American historical, spy, sea, frontier, science fiction, and courtroom novels. His books became both national and international bestsellers, were quickly translated into other languages, and impacted the development of the American publishing industry. This literary companion is a useful resource covering the major themes, characters, settings and more found in Cooper's works. It includes an overview of his fiction; a brief biography; a chronological list of his major publications; and topics for discussion, research, and study.

Hospitality and the Transatlantic Imagination, 1815–1835
Hospitality and the Transatlantic Imagination, 1815–1835

Author: Cynthia Schoolar Williams

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-05-13

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1137340053

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Hospitality and the Transatlantic Imagination, 1815-1835 argues that a select group of late-Romantic English and American writers disrupted national tropes by reclaiming their countries' shared historical identification with hospitality. In doing so, they reimagined the spaces of encounter: the city, the coast of England, and the Atlantic itself.