Abstract

Focusing on Otsego Lake, named as the Glimmerglass, this paper attempts to offer a further insight into the mode of perceiving and imagining the lake scenery. To get a full picture, the case studies include both fictional and non-fictional works, concerning three generations’ male and female perspectives from James Fenimore Cooper, his father and his eldest daughter. The specific study adopts a method of being “descriptive and phonomenological” (Hodder, 2001, p. 23). By citing and juxtaposing relative writings, it tries to relive the multiple views of the Glimmerglass and examine particularly the person’s immediate responses to the lake, which might demonstrate the decisive transformation of his or her consciousness. The study finds that although multiple views of a lake are involved in perceiving and imagining its scenery, which combine to make a full picture and bring in rich experiences, the close-up views preferred in The Deerslayer can denote more immediate responses to the lakesape, and accordingly with more engagement and even immersion in the environment an encounter of a lake might become an insider, who, with a “sympathy for mystic states” (Hodder, 2001, p. 21) might regain a sense of homecoming or dwelling.

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