Notes on history and literature in nineteenth-century United States: the case of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy (1821)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22456/1983-201X.31041Keywords:
United States history, Historical novel, James Fenimore Cooper, American literature, American War of IndependenceAbstract
The present article aims to make a few considerations on the issues that concern the relationship between history and literature in the first half of the nineteenth century, specifically in the United States, through the novel The spy (1821) by New York novelist James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) and critical texts by the author from the same period. We look to elucidate a few questions regarding how the roles of historian and of the writers of novels were thought in that particular context and how these differences reflect in the process of Cooper’s formation as a writer of a determined model of historical novel.
Downloads
References
ARAC, Jonathan. The emergence of American literary narrative. 1820-1860. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005.
COOPER, James Fenimore. The pioneers, or the sources of the Susquehanna. A descriptive tale. With an afterword by Robert E. Spiller. New York: Signet Classic, 1964.
______. Early critical essays. Facsmile Reproductions of The Literary and Scientific Repository, and Critical Review with an introduction and headnotes by James F. Beard. Gainsville, Florida: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1955.
DAVIDSON, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel (Expanded Edition). New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
DEKKER, George. James Fenimore Cooper: the American Scott. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967.
FRANKLIN, Wayne. James Fenimore Cooper: the early years. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
______. Introduction. In: COOPER, James Fenimore. The spy, a tale of the neutral ground. Introduction and notes by Wayne Franklin. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
GARDINER, W. H. The Spy. North American Review. Boston, vol. 15, p. 250-283, july 1822.
LUKÁCS, Georg. The historical novel. Prefaced by Frederic Jameson. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
NEAL, John. American writers, a series of papers contributed to Blackwood’s magazine (1824-1825), edited with nothes and bibliography by Fred Lewis Pattee. Durham: Duke University Press, 1937.
PICKERING, James. The oral tradition of the Neutral Ground. The Westchester Historian. Elmsford, v. 43, n. 1, p. 3-10, winter de 1967.
RAYLTON, Stephen. Fenimore Cooper: a study of his life and imagination. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.
RINGE, Donald. The American Revolution in American Romance. American Literature, Durham, v. 49, n. 3, p. 352-365, 1997.
SIMMS, William Gilmore. Views and reviews in American Literature, History and Fiction. By the author of The Yemasse, Life of Marion, History of South Carolina, Richard Hurdis, etc. First series. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845.
