The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Franklin PDF Download

Author: Carla Mulford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139828126
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Comprehensive and accessible, this Companion addresses several well-known themes in the study of Franklin and his writings, while also showing Franklin in conversation with his British and European counterparts in science, philosophy, and social theory. Specially commissioned chapters, written by scholars well-known in their respective fields, examine Franklin's writings and his life with a new sophistication, placing Franklin in his cultural milieu while revealing the complexities of his intellectual, literary, social, and political views. Individual chapters take up several traditional topics, such as Franklin and the American dream, Franklin and capitalism, and Franklin's views of American national character. Other chapters delve into Franklin's library and his philosophical views on morality, religion, science, and the Enlightenment and explore his continuing influence in American culture. This Companion will be essential reading for students and scholars of American literature, history and culture.

Author: Kevin J. Hayes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521797276
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This collection of specially-commissioned essays by experts in the field explores key dimensions of Edgar Allan Poe's work and life. Contributions provide a series of alternative perspectives on one of the most enigmatic and controversial American writers. The essays, specially tailored to the needs of undergraduates, examine all of Poe's major writings, his poetry, short stories and criticism, and place his work in a variety of literary, cultural and political contexts. They situate his imaginative writings in relation to different modes of writing: humor, Gothicism, anti-slavery tracts, science fiction, the detective story, and sentimental fiction. Three chapters examine specific works: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 'The Fall of the House of Usher', 'The Raven', and 'Ulalume'. The volume features a detailed chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading, and will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

Author: David Waldstreicher
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444342134
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
This companion provides a comprehensive survey of the life, work and legacy of Benjamin Franklin - the oldest, most distinctive, and multifaceted of the founders. Includes contributions from across a range of academic disciplines Combines traditional and cutting-edge scholarship, from accomplished and emerging experts in the field Pays special attention to the American Revolution, the Enlightenment, journalism, colonial American society, and themes of race, class, and gender Places Franklin in the context of recent work in political theory, American Studies, American literature, material culture studies, popular culture, and international relations

Author: Esther Schor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139826735
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Known from her day to ours as 'the Author of Frankenstein', Mary Shelley indeed created one of the central myths of modernity. But she went on to survive all manner of upheaval - personal, political, and professional - and to produce an oeuvre of bracing intelligence and wide cultural sweep. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley helps readers to assess for themselves her remarkable body of work. In clear, accessible essays, a distinguished group of scholars place Shelley's works in several historical and aesthetic contexts: literary history, the legacies of her parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and of course the life and afterlife, in cinema, robotics and hypertext, of Frankenstein. Other topics covered include Mary Shelley as a biographer and cultural critic, as the first editor of Percy Shelley's works, and as travel writer. This invaluable volume is complemented by a chronology, a guide to further reading and a select filmography.

Author: Kevin J. H. Dettmar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521886945
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
A lively set of new essays on Dylan's work as a writer and composer and on his place in American culture.

Author: Frank Shuffelton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139828002
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This Companion forms an accessible introduction to the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence. Essays explore Jefferson's political thought, his policies towards Native Americans, his attitude to race and slavery, as well as his interests in science, architecture, religion and education. Contributors include leading literary scholars and historians; the essays offer up to date overviews of his many interests, his friendships and his legacy. Together, they reveal his importance in the cultural and political life of early America. At the same time these original essays speak to abiding modern concerns about American culture and Jefferson's place in it. This Companion will be essential reading for students and scholars of Jefferson, and is designed for use by students of American literature and American history.

Author: Shirley Samuels
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107493447
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Abraham Lincoln's stature as an American cultural figure grows from his political legacy. In today's milieu, the speeches he delivered as the sixteenth president of the United States have become synonymous with American progress, values and exceptionalism. But what makes Lincoln's language so effective? Highlighting matters of style, affect, nationalism and history in nineteenth-century America, this collection examines the rhetorical power of Lincoln's prose – from the earliest legal decisions, stump speeches, anecdotes and letters, to the Gettysburg Address and the lingering power of the Second Inaugural Address. Through careful analysis of his correspondence with Civil War generals and his early poetry, the contributors, all literary and cultural critics, give readers a unique look into Lincoln's private life. Such a collection enables teachers, students, and readers of American history to assess the impact of this extraordinary writer – and rare politician – on the world's stage.

Author: Douglas Anderson
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421406136
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
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.

Author: Kevin J. H. Dettmar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139828436
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
A towering figure in American culture and a global twentieth-century icon, Bob Dylan has been at the centre of American life for over forty years. The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan brings fresh insights into the imposing range of Dylan's creative output. The first Part approaches Dylan's output thematically, tracing the evolution of Dylan's writing and his engagement with American popular music, religion, politics, fame, and his work as a songwriter and performer. Essays in Part II analyse his landmark albums to examine the consummate artistry of Dylan's most accomplished studio releases. As a writer Dylan has courageously chronicled and interpreted many of the cultural upheavals in America since World War II. This book will be invaluable both as a guide for students of Dylan and twentieth-century culture, and for his fans, providing a set of new perspectives on a much-loved writer and composer.

Author: Paul E. Kerry
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson
ISBN: 1611470293
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This volume attempts to throw fresh light on two areas of Benjamin Franklin’s intellectual world, namely: his self-fashioning and his political thought. It is an odd thing that for all of Franklin’s voluminous writings—a fantastically well-documented correspondence over many years, scientific treatises that made his name amongst the brightest minds of Europe, newspaper articles, satires, and of course his signature on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution—and yet scholars debate how to get at his political thought, indeed, if he had any political philosophy at all. It could be argued, that he is perhaps the American Founder most closely associated with the Enlightenment. Similarly, for a man who left so much evidence about his life as a printer, bookseller, postmaster, inventor, diplomat, politician, scientist, among other professions, one who wrote an autobiography that has become a piece of American national literature and, indeed, a contribution to world culture, the question of who Ben Franklin continues to engage scholars and those who read about his life. His identity seems so stable that we associate it with certain virtues that apply to the way we live our lives, time management, for example. The image of the stable figure of Franklin is applied to create a sense of trust in everything from financial institutions to plumbers. His constant drive to improve and fashion himself reveal, however, a man whose identity was not static and fixed, but was focused on growth, on bettering his understanding of himself and the world he lived in and attempted to influence and improve.