Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine - Historical Introduction by Ernst Redekop and Maurice Geracht

Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine is an account of James Fenimore Cooper's travels in Europe at the time of the 1832 revolt in Paris, when he hoped General Lafayette would be declared President of France and when all of Europe was the stage for the morality play of French politics.
Published in 1836 after General Lafayette's death, the book is, in part, an apologia for Lafayette, Cooper's ideal political man. Thus it is essential reading for understanding the development of Cooper's political ideas and his ideas about the nature of American culture.
In The Rhine, Cooper deepens his skill at picturesque description of landscape and extends the range of the picturesque to include cityscapes. The complex relations between visual objectives and ideas reverberates throughout the book, whether Cooper is commenting on the public gardens of Heidelburg, a private Alpine landscape, or, especially, the garden at Lafayette's home.
With American landscapes and politics always in the background for comparison, Cooper surveys the order of life in Europe and asks for a more liberal and humane political order in Europe and a more human and cultivated social order in America.

About the author

James Fenimore Cooper, geb. 1789 in Burlington/New Jersey, verfaßte politische Schriften, Reisebücher, sozialkritische Romane, Satiren und Seeromane, mit denen er Wegbereiter für Herman Melville und Joseph Conrad war. Der Autor verstarb 1851 in Cooperstown/New York.

Product details

• Authors: James Fenimore Cooper
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.1986
• EAN: 9780873959285
• ISBN: 978-0-87395-928-5
• No. of pages: 326
• Weight: 510 g
• Illustrations: 20 plates.
• Series: The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper; Writings of James Fenimore Coo; Writings of James Fenimore Coo; The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Travel > Travelogues, traveller's tales