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analysis of benjamin franklin's autobiography
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analysis of benjamin franklin's autobiography
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The Innovators of American Literature
From their critical assessments on how to improve themselves and to the American public that they influenced by their writings, Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin illustrate American themes in their personal narratives that quintessentially make part of American Literature. Although they lived in different times during the early development of the United States of America and wrote for different purposes, they share common themes. Their influence by their environment, individualism, proposals for a better society, and events that affected their society generate from their writings. By analyzing Jonathan Edwards' "Personal Narrative," "Resolutions," "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and selections from Benjamin Franklin's The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin found in The Heath Anthology of American Literature: Third Edition Volume One edited by Paul Lauter, the fundamental themes in American literature are evident and their individual ideas are distinctive.
These personal narratives reveal the influences of their environment that gave them epiphanies to their closer perfection of themselves. Jonathan Edwards' "Personal Narrative" shows his journey towards a closer relationship to God. His family was followers of the Congregationalist Church, and from early childhood, he followed a Christian life (Lauter 569). In the beginning of his autobiography, "Personal Narrative," he says "I had a variety of concerns and exercise about my soul from my childhood; but had two more remarkable seasons of
awakening, before I met with that change, by which I was brought to those new dispositions, and that new sense of things, that I have had" (Lauter 581). Edwards endures a "rite of passa...
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...e account of his success from moving from the lower class to the upper class influenced many of his fellow American in a needful time.
Franklin and Edwards were innovators to their communities when people needed a model to live their lives. By their constant self-evaluation, self-improvement, publication of their personal narratives, and their acknowledgement of a need to bind society together, they represent American Literature.
Bibliography:
Works Cited
Brumm, Ursula. "Jonathan Edwards and Typology." Early American Literature: A Collection of
Critical Essays. Ed. Michael T. Gilmore. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980.
Lauter, Paul., ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.
Leary, Lewis. Soundings: Some Early American Writers. Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1975.
Starting in his younger years, Edwards struggled with accepting the Calvinist sovereignty of God. Various circumstances throughout Edward’s own personal life led to him later believing in the sovereignty of God. Jonathan Edwards is known greatly as a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s. Fleeing from his grandfather’s original perspective by not continuing his practice of open communion, there was a struggle to maintain that relationship. Edward’s believed that physical objects are only collections of sensible ideas, which gives good reasoning for his strong religious belief system.
In order to understand Edwards use of language however, one must look at his early life and formative influences. His family undoubtedly shaped his religious career because “[H]e was the only son among the eleven children of Rev. Timothy Edwards and Esther Edwards, the daughter of influential puritan clergymen Solomon Stoddard” (Wachal 1). Growing up in a religious family must have influenced his career path. Then “Edwards attended Yale School of theology at 13 years of age” (Paposian 1). This is important because at Yale, Edwards would create his own “unique style of preaching” (“Jonathan Edwards” Dictionary 1). Here “his theology which soon came to be known as Edwardseanism had developed in hi...
Carl Doren, author of “Benjamin Franklin,” suggested that Franklin might’ve “tempered the account of his youth, saw his course as straighter than it was, left out or had forgotten his ranker appetites” (56) to ensure that the general attitude toward the stories of his adolescent self was positive, not negative. One such alteration, Doren says, was the exclusion of “General Magazine” in the autobiography, a magazine Franklin published which failed after six months (120). There are other critics who say that Franklin’s autobiography was written in a manner to tell stories in such a way to always show Franklin in a positive light. Lopez and Herbert, for example, say that Franklin’s description of Samuel Keimer, one of Franklin’s bosses, was inaccurately unflattering and facts about him are left out entirely, facts which would’ve completely changed the general mood surrounding his character
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
Perkins George, Barbara. The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Lauter, Paul. The Heath anthology of American literature. 6th ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub. Co., 2009. Print.
Bradstreet, Anne. “The Flesh and the Spirit.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter, et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Lexington: Heath, 1994. 302-305.
In addition, authors frequently lack originality and simply take the reader on all-too-familiar voyages into politics, morals, or religion. Successful writers are those who risk and go on to write about topics that many times others have been less willing to address. The product of these extraordinary efforts is compositions richly enhanced by human feelings and real problems that we encounter and relate to our everyday lives…thought-provoking discussions about religion, philosophy, or politics. These pioneering authors are not afraid to write about evil, the perverse aspects of man, or even sexuality… Their true voices have risen from behind the words taking shape in the minds of the readers. Few have done this, but in the 19th Century two remarkable Americans produced compositions of unequal quality. Their styles and the way they approach the reader are different from t...
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Jonathan Edwards was known as a “nurturing pastor, frontier missionary, and bold revivalist preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Edwards exemplifies a man who integrated reason (the mind) and personal devotion (the heart) in unwavering dedication to the sovereign God revealed in creation and Scripture.” Jonathan Edwards spent much of his young life trying time to live and serve God through his works and deeds. He finally realized that it was impossible to earn his own salvation through his works and he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. Jonathan Edwards helped propel the First Great Awakening around 1733-1735, by directing some of the very first revivals from his Northampton, Massachusetts church. During some of these revivals Edwards preached sermons about salvation to his Puritan congregation. When these sermons were conducted amazing outbreaks of the Holy Spirit took place and people started recognizing their need for Jesus. This awesome move of God helped communities, households, and individuals to bond together in unity. These events continued to spread throughout the communities and most of the American colonies. Jonathan Edwards successful revivals were not without opposition. Edwards was drawing opposition and criticism from more traditional and strict Puritan leaders who were more concerned with religion. Jonathan Edwards then relocated to Stockbridge,
Jonathan Edwards was a man who could petrify any eighteenth century Puritan. He was born in East Windsor, Connecticut and was raised in a household with strict religious beliefs. In 1727 he began his preaching career as an assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, the pastor at the church at Northampton, Massachusetts. When his grandfather died two years later, Edwards became the pastor of the Church at Northampton and began preaching all over New England. He then emerged as one of the leaders of the Great Awakening with his determination to return to the orthodoxy of the Puritan faith. That is when he adopted his “fire and brimstone” emotional style of sermon. Although people often ran out of the church in hysterics, most stayed in the church captivated by his speeches. He had always purposely chose to address his congregation with a sermon, using all of the elements of an oratory. In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards displays all elements of an oratory by appealing to emotions, including expressive and rhythmic language, addressing the needs and concerns of his audience, and inspiring others to take action.
Lauter, Paul. The Heath Anthology of American Literature Fifth Edition Volume B Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865 2006
When a writer starts his work, most often than not, they think of ways they can catch their reader’s attention, but more importantly, how to awake emotions within them. They want to stand out from the rest and to do so, they must swim against the social trend that marks a specific society. That will make them significant; the way they write, how they make a reader feel, the specific way they write, and the devotion they have for their work. Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgard Allan Poe influenced significantly the American literary canon with their styles, themes, and forms, making them three important writers in America.
Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 1994.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York: