Cooper in Germany 



By Preston A. Barba, Ph.D., Instructor in German, in Indiana University. 



i: INTRODUCTION 



HoAvever highly we may regard the works of the earlier epochs 

 of American literature, the fact nevertheless remains that prior to 

 the third decade of the nineteenth century not one of its writers 

 was recognized in Europe as having produced a work typically 

 American. Charles Brockclen Bro^,vn, Washington Irving, and 

 James K. Paulding had not been altogether unmindful of the liter- 

 ary asset which the new world offered to the writers of fiction. 

 Brown had not hesitated to introduce the American Indian in his 

 Gothic romance 'Edgar Huntley' (1799) ; Irving had written inter- 

 esting accounts of his travels in western America in 'Astoria' 

 (1836) and the 'Adventures of Captain Bonneville' (1837) ; Pauld- 

 ing, far more national than Irving and Brown, had given excellent 

 portrayals of life among the early settlers of New York and Ken- 

 tucky in 'The Dutchman's Fireside' (1831) and 'Westward Ho!' 

 (1832). Not one of these writers, however, was in any way repre- 

 sentative of that great Americanizing spirit which moved always 

 westward and in the course of half a century established a republic 

 extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Certainly the 

 opening up of western America must be looked upon as one of 

 the greatest achievements of the nineteenth century. On its fron- 

 tier, ever receding before the impatient forward surge of the young 

 nation, were enacted the deeds for its future epics. The first to 

 seize upon and exploit this immeasurable wealth of literary mate- 

 rial with adectuacy was James Penimore Cooper. 



Although he had had little literary schooling. Cooper was in 

 some respects admirably fitted for his work. He was distinctly 

 an American product, remarkably free from old-world culture, 

 and extremely national in his views. His entrance upon a literary 

 career was quite accidental and when his first novel 'Precaution' 

 appeared he was already thirty-one years of age. His second 

 work, 'The Spy,', enjoyed an unprecedented success at home and 

 was translated into the various languages of Europe. Cooper was 

 soon recognized as the first representative American writer. To 



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