Poetonomastic mastery: James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Pioneers

Abstract

James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Pioneers, published in 1823, is the first of his Leatherstocking series. The plot takes place in the frontier village of Templeton in New York state in 1793. In this “descriptive tale”, Cooper depicts in detail the different social layers that could be found in a new settlement during the closing years of the eighteenth century: the founder and “king” of the village with his family and friends, the other, less cultivated settlers and domestic servants, one Afro-American slave and, last but not least, marginalized people like Natty Bumppo, the Leather-stocking, and the Mohican Chingachgook alias John Mohegan or Indian John. It is the aim of this paper to show that Cooper not only succeeded in bestowing fitting names to his characters, but also in showing how people use their names, either friendly and respectfully or jokingly and mockingly, not shying away from disfiguring them.