ENGL 2270 Lecture : Ben Franklin Autobiography Notes
Document Summary
Franklin"s autobiography (part one: text= letter (1771) to illegitimate son, william, later he disowned this son because he remained loyal to the. King and not to the american revolution movement: covers period from birth to age 24, he taught himself how to read and write, puritan origins; apprenticeship; silence dogood ; n. e. Courant: ben franklin as fugitive (indentured servant); arrival in. Philadelphia: puffy rolls ; rags-to-riches: newspaper work; printing contracts. Key themes: benefits of industry, frugality, temperance, importance of self-improvement, life-long learning, intelligence, business shrewdness, verbal power: speaking, writing, proneness to errata, errata: making mistakes, not quite sins, just mistakes, erratum: singular form of errata. Bunyan"s pilgrim"s progress (1678); mather"s bonifacius (1710: personal visit to cotton mather, 1724, adaptation of puritan work ethic; work for community, frugality= puritan rejection of materialism, luxury, moral accounting= conscience, tallying errata . 246: passage about ben franklin arriving in philadelphia, pg. 259: tries to get with his best friend"s lady, pg.
