1) Why Benjamin Franklin?
a. “America’s favorite founding father”
b. “accessible founding father”
c. “first American”
d. Prose stylist and “first” American autobiography
e. “founder’s chic”
i. Why does B.F. matter, why do the “founding fathers” matter?
ii. Why do so many people think they matter?
iii. How, what we think they mean for America—culture, civics,
politics, faith—affects our lives and actions? (example: religion
and the founding fathers; gun rights; free speech, etc.)
iv. Questioning:
1. What were the values and ideas of the “founding fathers,”
incl. BF?
2. What do they mean to us?
3. How and why should we emulate their ideals?
4. What ideals/values need to be revisited or reinvented?
v. The “founding” texts of America:
1. the minds, ideas, and documents of the “Founders” are
often thought as ideal, perfect, or infallible texts in the
tradition of Scriptural/Biblical authority
2. Q: What would it mean to read (i.e. interpret, analyze,
criticize, even deconstruct) the “Founders,” especially BF
like any other literary text?
3. Benjamin Franklin’s writings:
a. They invite us to a game of literary interpretation
and dissection
b. He calls attention to the construction of literary and
public identities or personae
c. In his Autobiography, for instance, he constantly
calls attention to the “textuality” of his identity,
especially by comparing his body to a text
The Epitaph of Young Benjamin Franklin
The body of
B. Franklin, Printer
(Like the Cover of an Old Book
Its Contents torn Out
And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)
Lies Here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be Lost;
For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More
In a New and More Elegant Edition
Revised and Corrected
By the Author.
d. BF and the playing/construction of personae/roles:
i. Scene from John Adams, part 3 (HBO
Miniseries)
1. calling attention to the difference
between “essential” and
“constructed” identities
2. Is he just playing the American?
ii. Questions for the semester: how does
Franklin construct different identities,
not just through his public appearances,
but especially through his writing (these
range from B. Franklin printer, to
Franklin the statesman, to various
fictional personae, including Silence
Dogood)
iii. Thus: BF invites us to pay attention to
and question the construction of identities
4. The writing and rewriting of Franklin’s life
a. How did Franklin continually write and re-write his
life?
b. How are we re-writing his life?
c. What are the cultural, historical, social, political,
and literary needs or interests or agendas that drive
the re-writing of BF? What drives our investment
in Benjamin Franklin today?
d. If BF influenced American culture so heavily,
which BF do we choose?
e. Walter Isaacson (The Benjamin Franklin Reader, p.
4: “Franklin’s writings likewise flow together to
give a narrative of both his own pilgrim’s progress
and that of the new nation he helped to shape. He
was the greatest inventor of his time, but the most
interesting thing that he invented, and continually
reinvented, was himself. America’s first great
publicist, he was, in his life and his writings,
consciously trying to create a new American
archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his
own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it
for posterity.”
f. But: has BF become not just a cultural icon or
archetype, but also a cultural farce, or even a
“simulacra” (a fake, reproduced image)
i. E.g. BF in POP CULTURE, on the $100bill, etc.)
ii. Has BF also become a mockery of cultural
authenticity?
________________________________________________________________________
FRANKLIN—THE ICON ANALYSIS:
“icon”: 1: a usu. Pictorial representation: IMAGE 2: a conventional religious image
typically painted on a small wooden panel and used in the devotions of Easter Christians
3: an object of uncritical devotion: IDOL 4. EMBLEM, SYMBOL 5. a: a sign (as a word
or graphic symbol) whose form suggests its meaning b: a graphic symbol on a computer
screen that suggests the purpose of an available function.
How did Benjamin Franklin become an icon of American culture?
-
an icon of his own making?
A product of American cultural myth-making
FIVE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:
1. What are the many personae of Benjamin Franklin?
2. How did BF construct or fashion or “write” different identities or personae?
3. How and why do we construct Benjamin Franklin as an “icon” of American
culture?
4. What values or ideals did BF represent?
5. How do we relate to these values and ideals?
OUR JOBS:
1) AS LITERARY CRITICS
a. Understanding and analyzing the textual Franklin
2) AS HISTORIANS
a. Recovering a multi-faceted Franklin
b. Which “face” are we missing or intentionally leaving out
c. What did Franklin mean to his contemporaries?
d. When and how did he become an “American” (rather than a British
subject or a colonist?) What does it mean to “become” American? Did it
mean the same in his time as it does now?
3) AS CULTURAL CRITICS
a. Understanding and critiquing the uses to which BF is put (cultural,
political, economical)
4) AS LEARNERS
a. What can and should we learn from BF?