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Last Mohican, First Novelist

07 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Films and Music, Heroes, Literary History, Military History, Narrative Methods

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Baron Dieskau, British, Carillon, Daguerre, Deerfield, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, Fort Duquesne, Fort Edward, Fort Niagara, Fort St. Frederic, Fort William Henry, French, French and Indian War, General Webb, James Fenimore Cooper, Lake Champlain, Lake George, Lake Ontario, Lt. Col. Munro, Mark Twain, Marquis de Montcalm, Matthew Brady, N.C. Wyeth, Native Americans, Oswego, St. Frederic, The Last of the Mohicans, Ticonderoga

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

This is our 104th posting, making exactly 2 years of maintaining our blog, Doubtfulsea.com. When we began it, we had visited lots of other blogs, but we had no clear idea of what we wanted for ourselves. Our name came from our first novel, Across the Doubtful Sea, available from Amazon and Kindle, but we planned, from the beginning, to cover much more than the subject matter of our novel (among other things, French and English exploration of the Pacific in the 18th century, as well as Polynesian settlement). In consequence, during our two years, we have had postings on a variety of subjects, mostly about adventure/fantasy, often with an historical element, often with a focus upon the work of one of our favorite fantasy authors, JRR Tolkien.

Now, in this last of our second year, we want to look at a person often viewed as the first important American novelist of the early 19th century, James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), and his most famous book, The Last of the Mohicans (1826).James-Fenimore-Cooper

(A footnote: Cooper lived long enough that, the year before his death, he was the subject of an early photograph, using the Daguerre process, by Matthew Brady, 1822-1896, who, in a decade, would become the most famous photographer in the US because of his work documenting the American Civil War, 1861-1865.)

daguerreotypejfc

mathewbrady

DaguerreProcess4

Cooper had a long and very successful career as a novelist, beginning with a social novel, Precaution (1820), but his greatest fame came from his long series based upon US historical subjects and perhaps the most famous of all, that set in the world of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and the book we want to focus upon,

French_and_indian_war_map_svg

The Last of the Mohicans.

lastofmofirsted

The subtitle, A Narrative of 1757, immediately suggests a specific event of the war, the siege and fall of the British Fort William Henry in August, 1757.

The fort had been built at the head of Lake George as a counterbalance to two French forts, Ticonderoga (called by the French, “Carillon”) and St. Frederic, on Lake Champlain, the lake to the north.

French_and_indian_war_map_svg

All of these forts—and more—were part of the competition between the British and French to control the northeastern part of North America. This struggle had begun in the later 17th century and had long been a proxy war in which colonial settlers and Native Americans had struggled across many miles of wilderness, raiding each other throughout the years. Here is one of the most famous raids, that of Deerfield in 1704.

deerfield1deerfield2deerfield3

In the early 1750s, the French had increased the potential tension by building a new series of forts in what is now western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, soon to be countered by British forts.

French_British_Forts_1753_1758

In 1755, as the war heated up, the English planned a three-pronged attack against Ft. Duquesne, Ft. Niagara, and Ft. St. Frederic (called “Crown Point” by the English).

French_and_indian_war_map_svg

duquesne

ftniagaraftstfrederic

The advance against Ft. Duquesne was defeated, that against Niagara never took off, and that on St. Frederic was blocked by a French attack on the English (actually New England colonial) army at the head of Lake George.

1-battle-of-lake-george-1755-granger

This then became the site of Ft. William Henry.

Fort-William-Henry-Museum

Because the European population of New France was so small in contrast to that of the English colonies—about 70,000 versus more than a million—and because the royal government in Paris had little money to spend (or chose to spend) on the colony, the first two French military commanders, the Baron Dieskau (1701-1767) and the Marquis de Montcalm (1712-1759)

montcalm

chose an aggressive strategy, aiming to keep the British as far from the center of New France as possible. Although his men were eventually driven off and he was wounded and captured, Dieskau did halt the expedition against Ft. St. Frederic. The next year, 1756, Montcalm destroyed the English forts at Oswego, on the south shore of Lake Ontario, which could have served as staging areas for attacks east and west.

Lake_Ontario_map

Then, in 1757, he mounted the attack on Ft. William Henry which forms the background story for Cooper’s novel.

To do so, he stripped central New France of its regular troops and militia

Historex Card 862 French Infantry 1750 - 1760

and augmented them with Native Americans, for whom he felt no sympathy.

montcalmnatams

Against such a force, the English commander, Lt. Col. Munro, had a much smaller number of British regulars

brituniformsfiw

and colonial troops, based in the fort itself and in a nearby camp.

Plan_of_Fort_William_Henry_on_Lake_George

In the 18th century, besieging a town or a fort was a very formal endeavor. Forts and towns were constructed to resist attack, often having multiple walls, ditches, and outer forts, the walls being covered in earth to resist the destructive power of an enemy’s artillery.

fortress-cross-section

Before an attack, the attacker was required to send a messenger in, demanding surrender. In some cases, seeing overwhelming forces and having no promise of relief, a garrison surrendered.

surrender of detroit

To attack meant beginning with a series of trenches just outside the artillery range of the defenders, then, through zigzagging,06 Vauban's Siege Technique.pngto approach closer and closer until:

  1. the attacker’s artillery had knocked a big enough hole in the enemy’s walls that they were rapidly becoming defenseless

siege_image6

  1. there was the immediate danger of an assault

redoubt10

In the case of Ft. William Henry, there was only a dry ditch, then exposed timber walls.

Fort-William-Henry-Museum

The French summoned Munro to surrender, he refused, and the French began the siege.

frenchsiegeline

When the French guns had badly damaged the fort and there was no chance of help from General Webb, at Ft. Edward, to the south, Munro surrendered.

surrender of Ft. William Henry

Trouble then began when Montcalm’s Native Americans felt cheated of the plunder which they had expected and, when the paroled column of soldiers began to move southward, it was attacked by them. Montcalm and some of his officers intervened, but they were unable to do more than slow the plundering and killing before some 200 fell. (There has been a great deal of argument as to numbers—it appears, for example, that others had been carried away, either to be ransomed later, adopted into tribes, or ritually murdered, as was the custom among some Native American groups. For the best modern account, see Ian Steele, Betrayals, OUP, 1990.)

01french_lg

Cooper’s novel, an adventure/romance, uses the fort and siege as its center. Main characters move towards the fort, are in it at the time of the surrender, and are involved in the disaster after it. As might seem inevitable by now, our favorite edition is that illustrated by N. C. Wyeth in 1919.

51504

And here is a selection of the illustrations.

0_8f6d0_9b893fc5_orig0_8f6d2_797c6459_orig0_8f6d4_4ef48676_orig

the-last-of-the-mohicans-9781442481305.in02the-last-of-the-mohicans-9781442481305.in03titlepage

There have been numerous films made of the book, the earliest (at least US one) being a silent, dating from 1912. For us, the most colorful was the one which appeared in 1992, with Daniel Day Lewis as “Nathaniel Poe” (a slight change from the books’ Natty Bumpo). This version made many changes to the original story, including a love interest between Poe and one of Munro’s daughters, Cora, but, for us, it also had four rather spectacular scenes: the ambush of a company of redcoats in the forest by Native Americans,

ambushinforest

the French siege of Ft. William Henry,

frenchsiegeline

the British surrender,

surrender of Ft. William Henry

and the final “massacre”.

ambush2

And so we begin our third year of blogging with our next posting. We have, as always, lots of ideas for those postings, which we hope you will enjoy.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

MTCIDC

CD

PS

In 1895, Mark Twain published a comic critique of Cooper’s writing ticks. Entitled, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses”, it can be read at http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html.

Dr. Smeagol and Mr. Gollum?

31 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Uncategorized

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Deagol, Gollum, John Barrymore, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Stanley Unwin, Smeagol, Stinker and Slinker, Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Eye of Sauron, The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut, The Lord of the Rings, The Mirror of Galadriel, Tolkien

Dear readers, welcome, as ever.

In this posting, we are following a hint given us by JRRT. In a letter to Sir Stanley Unwin, 21 Sept, 1947, he says, “Hyde (or Jekyll) has had to have his way, and I have been obliged to devote myself mainly to philology…” (Letters, 124)

“Hyde (or Jekyll)” refers to the main character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

rlsJekyll_and_Hyde_Title

This is often turned into The Strange Case… by editors, but, in fact, as can be seen from the title of the first edition, given above, there is no definite article. It seems clear to us that it has been omitted because Stevenson is imitating the shorthand methods of newspapers: the title is meant to sound like a headline, the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes’ observant eye would catch and he would then read to Watson.

The original story, if you’re not familiar with it, is about a doctor who leads two lives, one of service, the other of sensuality, and who wishes that he could separate them so that he could enjoy each without the influence of the other. He invents a drug, which, when consumed, turns the socially-responsible Dr. Jekyll (said “JEE-kull”, but often mispronounced)

John_Barrymore_as_Dr_Jekyll

into the loathsome Mr. Hyde.

hydejbarrymoor

The doctor runs into horrible difficulty when it gradually becomes clear that the Id-like Mr. Hyde is actually the dominant personality and the good Dr. Jekyll begins to turn into the fiendish Mr. Hyde even without the drug.

In JRRT’s case, it’s hardly sensuality—instead, it’s his academic life versus his creative one and the fact that he offers both as a possibility suggests that the difference between the two is hardly the glaring one we see in the Stevenson story.

The idea of the split personality in one person, however, leads us—well, if you’re a Tolkien fan, you know already, don’t you?

Gollum_Render

“Slinker and Stinker” Sam calls him, but it’s clear that, somewhere inside him, there are two much more distinctive personalities, just like Jekyll and Hyde.

269_gollum

The Dr. Jekyll is what must be almost a ghost of Smeagol, from his pre-Ring (and pre-murder of Deagol) days—ghost because near-constant exposure to the Ring has left him with only:

“…a little corner of his mind that was still his own…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

But what is the Mr. Hyde?

Instead of a potion to break them apart, it has been the Ring which has caused the split and, in the process, as in the case of Dr. Jekyll, it has been the dark personality which has come to dominate. Unlike Mr. Hyde, however, there seems to be no pleasure to be had from being it:

“But the thing was eating up his mind, of course; and the torment had become almost unendurable.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

JRRT isn’t any clearer about what was “eating up his mind”, but we imagine that, because Sauron has put so much of himself into the ring, just as Dr. Jekyll/Smeagol has that little corner of his own mind, Mr. Hyde/Gollum has a little corner of Sauron’s, which is a really terrible thought. One has only to remember Frodo’s reaction to Sauron when he looks into Galadriel’s mirror to understand:

“In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mirror. So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze. The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

10b8f0b7ef05881c193c76dc38bac020the-eye-of-sauron_3133429b

Viewed this way, Mr. Hyde/Gollum is nothing more than a little Sauron.

There is another, more physical connection between Smeagol/Gollum and Jekyll/Hyde. Look at the narrator’s description of Hyde:

“Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish; he gave the impression of deformity without any namable malformation; he had a displeasing smile; he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering, and somewhat broken voice…”

(Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, “The Search for Mr. Hyde”)

Compare that with:

“Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature…” who often talks in hisses and whispers, like:

“Bless us and splash us, my precioussss!”

(The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”)

riddles

Is there a physical similarity here? Certainly there is the echo of split personalities, evil, and, maybe, someone caught between what he wants and what he does…

tolkientolkien-mortar-board-7-amazing-real-life-tolkien-facts-that-made-middle-earth-jpeg-77543

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

ps

Our pictures of Jekyll and Hyde come from a famous 1920 film, in which John Barrymore transforms himself into Hyde on camera. Follow this link to the Internet Archive to see a full, free showing (80+ minutes) of that film.

pps

It just occurred to us to mention another story with a shrunken figure of the self– Mark Twain’s conscience in his “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut” (1876).

 

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