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James Fenimore Cooper
Last of the Mohicans
Website Evaluators
Denise May Levenick – Mayfield Senior School, California
Becky Mills – substitute teacher, Oregon
Website Reviewer and Compiler
Gail Lindenberg – Nogales High School, California
Site Ratings
1 = Poor 2 = Fair 3 = Good 4 = Excellent
PAL, Perspectives in American Literature
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/cooper.html
This exemplary site proposes and
fulfills its goal to present an online resource for topics in American Literature. Students and educators who discover the site in searching for a particular author will find a resource that spans the range of
American Literature from early 17th century to the present. Written by Paul P. Reuben, Ph.D., Professor of English at California State University Stanislaus, PAL includes extensive resources for each author.
The straightforward academic design of the site is easy to view, navigate and load quickly.
Reuben's Cooper page includes a bibliography of Cooper's works as well as an extensive bibliography of criticism
and further reading for The Last of the Mohicans, a discussion of Cooper's position in American Literature and literary themes of his work as well as the MLA citation style to use in referring to his site.
Numerous academic reviews and internet awards attest to the quality and usefulness of this site. This is one to bookmark for Cooper and other American Literary directions. A nifty chart based on
Natty Bumppo of The Leatherstocking Tales
shows a quick synopsis of each of the five books, and Bumppo's age at the time of each novel. A link sends you to a site containing more biographical information about Cooper and time lines of his life and writings. Good for any middle or high school student writing a report on a famous American author, this website offers opinions which encourage thinking.
Overall Rating: 4
Romancing the Indian
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/main.html
This attractive academic site features a discussion that focuses on two widely divergent attitudes towards Indians in the works of Cooper and
Twain. Site creator Adriana Rissetto presents an introduction to her argument and links to specific discussions on works by Cooper and Twain. The pages are illustrated by period artwork illustrating points of
these discussions. This site appears to be part of a larger project initiated at Virginia University exploring specific subjects in Henry Nash Smith's work, Virgin Land. The lack of specific author and
academic references is a weak spot for an otherwise helpful site. Students and educators working with early American literature may find the Rissetto argument useful for consideration. In addition to Cooper and
Twain, Rissetto includes a brief discussion of Indians in the work of Lydia Maria Childs, Washington Irving, artist George Catlin, Francis Parkman and naturalist John Audubon. Looking at the way Indians are
portrayed during the nineteenth century provides plenty to discuss and write about.
Overall Rating: 3
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jparsons/twain/cooper1.html
This page is a reprint of Mark Twain's essay on Fenimore Cooper's work, The Deerslayer. Twain argues that Cooper is not as great a novelist as the critics seem to think, and to prove his point, Twain lists
Cooper's literary offenses. Twain's writing stands on its own, but this site is difficult to accredit. Evidently, the page is posted by Jed Parsons at the University of California, Berkeley, but since
Parson's Home Page is written in Latin, his credentials and the source for his Twain text are difficult to discern. The essay is critical of Cooper and attacks Cooper's writing in a comical, sarcastic, edgy style.
To benefit fully from the site's offerings, students and teachers would do well to have read some works of both authors. It might seem like overkill to some students, but most will enjoy Twain's complete irreverence for
Cooper's work. The site would work best with students who already have some experience with literature of the nineteenth century and/or about Native Americans. The essay could be primary source material for
studying Mark Twain's style and voice.
Overall Rating: 2
Bibliomania: The Last of the Mohicans
http://www.bibliomania.com/Fiction/Fenimore/Mohicans/index.html
Bibliomania provides online texts for many literary works, unfortunately,
sources for the editions used are unavailable so it is difficult to discern the authority of the e-text. Students and educators might do better to look for an identified version before working extensively with e-texts
available though this site. This said, the page offers a chapter-by-chapter link to Cooper's popular work, The Last of the Mohicans. The e-text is especially useful in searching for words or phrases,
but again, without textual authority, the usefulness of the site is limited. This site is handy for cutting and pasting excerpts for papers, testing, or comparisons with other works of the same author or different
authors. The main site, Bibliomania, has 60 classic novels in html, as well as some nonfiction books, some Shakespeare plays, and some literary reference material at the ready. It also has search
capabilities for all the literature loaded into the site and for its reference material as well. This site will likely become more useful as it expands its base of material to some lesser known (and sometimes
better) books. This site is appropriate for grades 7-12.
Overall Rating: 2 |
