Susan Fenimore Cooper, Nature Writing, and the Problem of Canonical Elision
"Susan Fenimore Cooper, Nature Writing, and The Problem of Canonical Elision" by Rochelle Johnson
Ph.D., CGU English Department
The research paper is quite possibly the most common assignment in English courses at CGU. For tips on how to approach your research papers, see our brochure on Writing in English Courses. The Paper |
The struggle now being waged in the professoriate over which writers deserve canonical status is not just a struggle over the relative merits of literary geniuses; it is a struggle among contending factions for the right to be represented in the picture America draws of itself. (Tompkins 201)
In 1850, with the help of her well-known father, James Fenimore Cooper, Susan Fenimore Cooper publishedRural Hours, a natural historical account of one year in the Otsego Lake area of New York state. I mention her father 's name in order to situate Susan Fenimore Cooper in literary history, or, more accurately, to position her book in relation to our understandings of literary history. For truthfully, if literary history were faithful to the developments of, and reactions to, literature of the past, Susan Fenimore Cooper 's name would be well-known to all scholars of nineteenth-century American literature. Her book was immensely popular both in America and abroad; it went through six printings by 1854, the publication year of Thoreau 's Walden. Rural Hours was reissued with a new chapter in 1868, reprinted again in 1876, and then abridged by 199 pages and reissued in 1887. When critics praised Rural Hours1 and the volume sold well, Susan Fenimore Cooper achieved literary fame as a writer of natural history. However, while many of her contemporaries knew her name, most scholars in the 1990s know only of her father. Why this oversight in the construction of literary history?2
In 1968, David Jones, a visitor to the Otsego Lake region in New York, reissued the 1887 edition of Cooper 's book. In his introduction he compares Rural
Ph.D., CGU English Department
The research paper is quite possibly the most common assignment in English courses at CGU. For tips on how to approach your research papers, see our brochure on Writing in English Courses. The Paper |
The struggle now being waged in the professoriate over which writers deserve canonical status is not just a struggle over the relative merits of literary geniuses; it is a struggle among contending factions for the right to be represented in the picture America draws of itself. (Tompkins 201)
In 1850, with the help of her well-known father, James Fenimore Cooper, Susan Fenimore Cooper publishedRural Hours, a natural historical account of one year in the Otsego Lake area of New York state. I mention her father 's name in order to situate Susan Fenimore Cooper in literary history, or, more accurately, to position her book in relation to our understandings of literary history. For truthfully, if literary history were faithful to the developments of, and reactions to, literature of the past, Susan Fenimore Cooper 's name would be well-known to all scholars of nineteenth-century American literature. Her book was immensely popular both in America and abroad; it went through six printings by 1854, the publication year of Thoreau 's Walden. Rural Hours was reissued with a new chapter in 1868, reprinted again in 1876, and then abridged by 199 pages and reissued in 1887. When critics praised Rural Hours1 and the volume sold well, Susan Fenimore Cooper achieved literary fame as a writer of natural history. However, while many of her contemporaries knew her name, most scholars in the 1990s know only of her father. Why this oversight in the construction of literary history?2
In 1968, David Jones, a visitor to the Otsego Lake region in New York, reissued the 1887 edition of Cooper 's book. In his introduction he compares Rural
Cited: | Baym, Nina. Woman 's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870. 2nd - -. Rural Hours. New York: Putnam, 1850. Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983. Cunningham, Anna K. "Susan Fenimore Cooper - Child of Genius." New York History 25 (July 1944): 339-350. Davidson, Cathy N., ed - -. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford U.P., 1986. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." in Ralph Waldo Emerson 's Essays and Lectures, ed Huth, Hans. Nature and the American Mind: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957. Jones, David. "Introduction" to Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper. Syracuse: Syracuse U.P., 1968. xi-xxxviii. Maddox, Lucy B. "Susan Fenimore Cooper and the Plain Daughters of America." American Quarterly 40:2 (1988): 131-146. Norwood, Vera. Made From this Earth: American Women and Nature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.