Introduction

James Fenimore Cooper is one of the first to deal with the theme of all American writers, the confrontation of American and European experience. He is the creator of mythical heroes like Natty Bumppo, Leatherstocking. He participates in the articulation of 'the American myth'. However, the approaches to Cooper, although now more serious, remain fragmentary. Different themes, different groups of novels-the Leatherstocking Tales, the sea tales, the 'European' tales-are assessed, but never the whole work. This chapter attempts a close examination of Mohicans, focuses on the other novels in the Leatherstocking series, and considers more fully Cooper's role as social critic. As Cooper recognised in his discussion of the westward march of civilisation, America would suffer an ironic reversal of the usual process of time; the 'weary probation' is exacted 'from the descendant instead of the ancestor'. As in Lawrence's more exultant 'myth of America', the nation becomes younger, sloughing off its old 'civilised' skin.