Benjamin Franklin's HumorUniversity Press of Kentucky, 01/12/2005 - 200 páginas Although he called himself merely a "printer" in his will, Benjamin Franklin could have also called himself a diplomat, a doctor, an electrician, a frontier general, an inventor, a journalist, a legislator, a librarian, a magistrate, a postmaster, a promoter, a publisher—and a humorist. John Adams wrote of Franklin, "He had wit at will. He had humor that when he pleased was pleasant and delightful... [and] talents for irony, allegory, and fable, that he could adapt with great skill, to the promotion of moral and political truth." In Benjamin Franklin's Humor, author Paul M. Zall shows how one of America's founding fathers used humor to further both personal and national interests. Early in his career, Franklin impersonated the feisty widow Silence Dogood in a series of comically moralistic essays that helped his brother James outpace competitors in Boston's incipient newspaper market. In the mid-eighteenth century, he displayed his talent for comic impersonation in numerous editions of Poor Richard's Almanac, a series of pocket-sized tomes filled with proverbs and witticisms that were later compiled in Franklin's The Way to Wealth (1758), one of America's all-time bestselling books. Benjamin Franklin was sure to be remembered for his early work as an author, printer, and inventor, but his accomplishments as a statesman later in life firmly secured his lofty stature in American history. Zall shows how Franklin employed humor to achieve desired ends during even the most difficult diplomatic situations: while helping draft the Declaration of Independence, while securing France's support for the American Revolution, while brokering the treaty with England to end the War for Independence, and while mediating disputes at the Constitutional Convention. He supervised and facilitated the birth of a nation with customary wit and aplomb. Zall traces the development of an acute sense of humor throughout the life of a great American. Franklin valued humor not as an end in itself but as a means to gain a competitive edge, disseminate information, or promote a program. Early in life, he wrote about timely topics in an effort to reach a mass reading class, leaving an amusing record of early American culture. Later, Franklin directed his talents toward serving his country. Regardless of its origin, the best of Benjamin Franklin's humor transcends its initial purpose and continues to evoke undying laughter at shared human experiences. |
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... printer.” In an age when printers were also writers, he wrote humorous pieces for his brother's newspaper in Boston, later for his own Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard's Almanac, for newspapers in London and Paris, and for ...
... printer in a Philadelphia already overloaded with almanacs, Franklin needed an almanac to stay in business. He impersonated the faux astrologer Poor Richard Saunders, whose mad antics laughed competitors off the field to make Franklin's ...
... printer, now a member of Parliament. “You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People. Look upon your Hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! You and I were long Friends; You are now my Enemy, and I am, Yours ...
... printers' jargon. Among Franklin's possible models was the serious epitaph for Boston printer John Foster that hoped for resurrection of “a fair Edition & of matchless worth, / Free from Errata.” 7 But Franklin's epithet develops a ...
... Printer had, where David says I am fearfully and wonderfully made, omitted the Letter e in the last Word, so that it was, I am fearfully and wonderfully mad; which occasion'd an ignorant Preacher, who took that Text, to harangue his ...
Índice
Philadelphias Poor Richard | |
Philadelphia Comic Relief | |
Making Friends Overseas | |
Losing London | |
Seducing Paris | |
Comic Release | |
Revising Past and Future | |
Notes | |
Index | |