The Last of the Mohicans as a Mixture of Genres Essays -- English Lite

mob Fenimore Coopers The Last of the Mohicans as a Mixture of GenresJames Fenimore Coopers The last of the Mohicans is often seen as a simple adventure composition within the historical frame of the French and Indian war. Only if we discerp the novel in a closer way, we will realize that it goes beyond this label and that its sources are many and varied, giving the work the richness of the genres on which Coopers novel is based. These are quixoticism, westerly, (being its author one of the forerunners of these genres in the U.S.A.), captivity narratives and epic. In works belonging to Romanticism, nature is given a great grievous role. In fact, the action takes place in the open air, except for the chapters of the besieging of Fort William Henry, so it is the setting which predominates along the work. The close connection among the characters of romantic novels and nature is exemplified in the characters of Chingachgook, Uncas and Hawkeye, which apart from knowing the place w here they move and being completely adapted to it, they consider nature as a divine entity. In his introduction of this novel in the Oxford Classics edition, John Mcwilliams agrees with this avouchment of the concluding that for Cooper it was more than the place where they move it was the very take of life, the shaper of moral values and of human behavior, for good and for ill. In a similar way, the same happens in other important romantic American novels such as Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter and Herman Melvilles Moby Dick. In the former, Hester and his daughter off-white live in close connection with nature as a source of moral freedom, and in the latter, the Nantucketeers consider themselves as part of the sea.The foundation of nationalism, a... ...In conclusion, The Last of the Mohicans does not belong totally to a crabbed genre since it displays some key aspects of epic, it is one of the most important forerunners of western and inherits some aspects of character s of captivity narratives, facts which help to create an special example of romantic literature close to Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, works which seem to be adventure stories besides in fact they are richer than that due to both their quality and the classification of their sources.WORKS CITEDCohen, Hennig and Levernier, James eds. and comps. The Indians and their Captives. Wesport, Connetcticut Greenwood Press Inc, 1977. 299 pp.Cooper, James Fenimore. The last of the Mohicans. 3rd ed. Oxford Oxfords sphere Classics., 1998. 433 pp.Lpez Estrada, Francisco. Poema del Cid. 12th ed. Fuenlabrada, Madrid Odres Nuevos, 1986. 164 pp.www.britannica.com