Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the representation of American culture / edited by Barbara B. Oberg and Harry S. Stout.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Oberg, Barbara.

Stout, Harry S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758.

Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790.

American prose literature--18th century--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790--Criticism and interpretation.

Franklin, Benjamin.

Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758--Criticism and interpretation.

Edwards, Jonathan.

Language and culture--United States--History--18th century.

Language and culture.

National characteristics, American, in literature.

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

United States--Intellectual life--18th century.

United States.

Intellectual life.

Physical Description:

viii, 230 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1993.

Summary:

No colonial figures so completely anticipated the shape of American culture - at once material and spiritual, piously secular and pragmatically sacred - as did Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin. Commonly labeled "Puritan" and "Yankee" respectively, Edwards and Franklin evoke seemingly opposite ideals. Puritan values, embraced by Edwards and sustained in American "evangelicalism, " focus on God, communal faith, and self-denial. Yankee attributes, espoused by Franklin and sustained in American liberal republicanism, coalesce around the trinity of hard work, independent virtue, and utilitarian self-happiness. For two and a half centuries these alternative emphases and orientations have coexisted in uneasy tension both individually and in American society at large. In contrast to traditional comparative studies, which portray Edwards and Franklin as mutually exclusive ideal types, this interdisciplinary collection of essays allows polemical contrasts to disappear and Edwards and Franklin emerge as contrapuntal themes in a larger unity. From these essays, written by distinguished historians and literary critics such as Ruth Bloch, Edwin S. Gaustad, Daniel Walker Howe, J. A. Leo Lemay, and David Levin, emerges a portrait of two men who shared a common concern with mind, character, and virtue that shaped a legacy that would define much of American character for generations to come.

Contents:

Mind

2. Religious Affections and Religious Affectations: Antinomianism and Hypocrisy in the Writings of Edwards and Franklin / William Breitenbach 13

3. Enlightenment and Awakening in Edwards and Franklin / A. Owen Aldridge 27

4. The Nature of True

and Useful

Virtue: From Edwards to Franklin / Edwin S. Gaustad 42

5. "A Wall Between Them Up to Heaven": Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin / Elizabeth E. Dunn 58

6. Franklin, Edwards, and the Problem of Human Nature / Daniel Walker Howe 75

Culture

7. The Two Cultures in Eighteenth-Century America / Bruce Kuklick 101

8. The Laughter of One: Sweetness and Light in Franklin and Edwards / Leonard I. Sweet 114

9. Women, Love, and Virtue in the Thought of Edwards and Franklin / Ruth H. Bloch 134

10. The Selling of the Self: From Franklin to Barnum / Michael Zuckerman 152

Language

11. Reason, Rhythm, and Style / David Levin 171

12. Rhetorical Strategies in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County / J. A. Leo Lemay 186

13. Humanizing the Monster: Integral Self Versus Bodied Soul in the Personal Writings of Franklin and Edwards / R. C. De Prospo 204.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

019507775X

OCLC:

26721665