Essay on "Mark Twain's Acidic Commentary on James Cooper"

Essay 1 pages (462 words) Sources: 0 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mark Twain's acidic commentary on James Cooper's writing style and skills. The paper studies his essay carefully to explain why Twain found Cooper's work less than brilliant and in total violation of literary rules that Twain himself observed.

MARK TWAIN: FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENSES (1895)

In the year 1895, Mark Twain wrote the acerbic essay on James Fenimore Cooper's books criticizing him rather ruthlessly for his numerous literary offenses. From the very beginning of the essay, it was clear that Twain seriously disliked the romantic tradition in writing. He was not particularly against Cooper; he was against the Romantic Movement for taking liberties with literary rules. Twain's chagrin was grounded simply in Cooper's inability to follow the rules as he asserted that in his work Deerslayer, the writer had "committed 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115." Twain's biting remarks did not end there. He examined almost 15 of the most commonly used literary devices or skills and charged Cooper with violating all of these. He also criticized others who had anything positive to say about Cooper's work. At one point, he mentions Brander Matthews who had said that Cooper's books "reveal an extraordinary fullness of invention." Twain took great offence to this positive comment and made a biting mockery of it: "Bless your heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse; and I don't… READ MORE

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