Mapping Power in the Course of Empire: Landscape in James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie and Ideological Competition in Early American Nationalism

With the rise of cultural studies, James Fenimore Cooper shines out from his shaded corner once more. However, most critics take interest in his early productions only. The Prairie never receives its due attention. This book is commonly seen as a replica of the first two Leatherstocking tales. Few people have noticed the great gap in between. In fact, if Cooper has composed a pastoral idyll in The Pioneers and a sublime heroic epic in The Last of the Mohicans, what he creates in The Prairie is an elegy full of pathos. Approaching from the politics of Western expansion in the Revolutionary period, this paper will examine how Cooper's presentation of the Far West landscape in The Prairie reflects the ideological competition in early American nationalism.