The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin wrote his posthumously published memoir-a model of the genre-in several pieces and in different temporal and physical places. Douglas Anderson's study of this work reveals the famed inventor as a literary adept whose approach to autobiographical narrative was as innovative and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Anderson, Douglas (auth)
Format: Electronic Book Chapter
Language:English
Published: Johns Hopkins University Press 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:DOAB: download the publication
DOAB: description of the publication
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

MARC

LEADER 00000naaaa2200000uu 4500
001 doab_20_500_12854_88792
005 20220715
003 oapen
006 m o d
007 cr|mn|---annan
008 20220715s2012 xx |||||o ||| 0|eng d
020 |a book.13866 
020 |a 9781421428413 
040 |a oapen  |c oapen 
024 7 |a 10.1353/book.13866  |c doi 
041 0 |a eng 
042 |a dc 
072 7 |a BGH  |2 bicssc 
100 1 |a Anderson, Douglas  |4 auth 
245 1 0 |a The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin 
260 |b Johns Hopkins University Press  |c 2012 
300 |a 1 electronic resource (232 p.) 
336 |a text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a computer  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a online resource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
506 0 |a Open Access  |2 star  |f Unrestricted online access 
520 |a Benjamin Franklin wrote his posthumously published memoir-a model of the genre-in several pieces and in different temporal and physical places. Douglas Anderson's study of this work reveals the famed inventor as a literary adept whose approach to autobiographical narrative was as innovative and radical as the inventions and political thought for which he is renowned.Franklin never completed his autobiography, choosing instead to immerse his reader in the formal and textual atmosphere of a deliberately "unfinished" life. Taking this decision on Franklin's part as a starting point, Anderson treats the memoir as a subtle and rewarding reading lesson, independent of the famous life that it dramatizes but closely linked to the work of predecessors and successors like John Bunyan and Alexis de Tocqueville, whose books help illuminate Franklin's complex imagination. Anderson shows that Franklin's incomplete story exploits the disorderly and disruptive state of a lived life, as opposed to striving for the meticulous finish of standard memoirs, biographies, and histories. In presenting Franklin's autobiography as an exemplary formal experiment in an era that its author once called the Age of Experiments, The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin veers away from the familiar practices of traditional biographers, viewing history through the lens of literary imagination rather than the other way around. Anderson's carefully considered work makes a persuasive case for revisiting this celebrated book with a keener appreciation for the subtlety and beauty of Franklin's performance. 
540 |a Creative Commons  |f https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/  |2 cc  |4 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 
546 |a English 
650 7 |a Biography: historical, political & military  |2 bicssc 
653 |a Biography: historical, political & military 
856 4 0 |a www.oapen.org  |u https://muse.jhu.edu/book/13866  |7 0  |z DOAB: download the publication 
856 4 0 |a www.oapen.org  |u https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/88792  |7 0  |z DOAB: description of the publication