By Helen Mondloch

Tang of the Soil – Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack

ADDITIONAL READING

1. Study the following article and say what makes Franklin's contribution to American literature a controversial one.

As a famed statesman serving in France around 1780, Benjamin Franklin once reportedly inspired the following rhetorical question from a bystander in a bustling Parisian crowd: "Who is this old peasant who has such a noble air?"

Many Franklin observers before and since have attested to the startling diversity of his character. In the essay "Franklin's Character", Carl Becker calls him a "true child of the Enlightenment [who]... lived on every social level in turn, was equally at ease with rich and poor, the cultured and the untutored, and spoke with equal facility the language of vagabonds and kings."

As Becker further reveals, Franklin maintained "a tang of the soil" even after a lifetime of magnanimous achievement. A man of humble Boston roots, the young Franklin worked long hours in his Philadelphia printshop, selling household goods and publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette. Beginning in 1732, he also published an annual edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, which became a best-seller – second only to the Bible – throughout the colonies.

In his thirties Franklin initiated a long career of public service, spearheading civic advancements such as paving and lighting Philadelphia streets and establishing America's first fire and police departments and lending library. He served as the city's first postmaster and later as postmaster general. By the time he was fifty, Franklin had also become a renowned scientist and inventor. Referring to his famous kite experiment and invention of the lightning rod, Immanuel Kant exalted him as the "new Prometheus who stole fire from heaven."

His inventions included the practical as well as the whimsical, among them, the Franklin stove, the water-glass harmonica, a rolling pin for copying letters, and bifocal glasses. The leading American scientist of his day, he probed smallpox and the common cold, earthquakes, sunspots, and other topics he expounded in his letters. As a revered statesman in his later years, Franklin campaigned at home and abroad for American independence, serving in the First Continental Congress and signing the Declaration of Independence.

While this lifetime of varied and prodigious accomplishments reflects rare gifts, Franklin never lost what Becker calls his "universal" spirit. That he understood the toils of average citizens, that he sustained the power to amuse and inspire them with his provincial wit, is evidenced best by the enormous popularity of the Almanack.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-05