SOURCE: Sommer, Doris. “Plagiarized Authenticity: Sarmiento's Cooper and Others.” In Do the Americas Have a Common Literature?, edited by Gustavo Pérez Firmat, pp. 130-55. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Sommer analyzes the influence of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans on Sarmiento's Facundo, focusing especially on how Sarmiento incorporates Cooper's new way of writing about the Americas.

Poor Cora! Why must James Fenimore Cooper kill her off in The Last of the Mohicans (1826)? After lingering so long on her heroism, generosity, resourcefulness, and sheer ethical strength (not to speak of the physical attractions that fix Cooper on Cora) her death seems entirely undeserved. And poor us. Why make Cora so admirable only to deny us the continuing fantasy of possessing, or of being, her? This is especially distressing in a romance, or sentimental novel, which should typically unite hero and heroine after...