The Prairie noble death and bury him. In the spirit of Daniel Boone, who is said to have thought "a population of ten to the square mile inconveniently crowded," "The Prairie" incorporates the historical phenomenon of the migration of settlers into the territories of the Louisiana Purchase. "The trapper" exemplifies frontiersmen like Daniel Boone in his quest for the wide open spaces of the American west. The Ishmael Bush party is an early wagon train. Novelist and social critic James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) was the first major American writer to deal imaginatively with American life, notably in his five "Leatherstocking Tales". He
The Canterbury Tales Introducing a competition among the tales encourages the reader to compare the tales in all their variety, and allows Chaucer to showcase the breadth of his skill in different genres and literary forms. While the structure of the "Tales" is largely linear, with one story following another, it is also much more than that. In the "General Prologue", Chaucer describes not the tales to be told, but the people who will tell them, making it clear that structure will depend on the characters rather than a general theme or moral. This idea is reinforced when the Miller interrupts to tell