American Lit: 18th Century and Revolution Quiz

Answer: Benjamin Franklin

When Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) retired from the printing business at the age of 42, he planned to devote the remainder of his life to public service and to the study of natural science. That's exactly what he did. Not only were his publications on his observations about electricity instrumental to the scientific world, but he founded a library, supported the development of the University of Pennsylvania, served as a representative of the colonies in England before the Revolution, won French support for the colonies during the Revolution, helped establish the Treaty of Paris to end the Revolution, and served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

However, he is also recognized as an important figure in American literature. His "Poor Richard's Almanack" (sometimes "Almanac") was published annually from 1732 to 1758, and many of the witty remarks he published within it behind the facade of Poor Richard or Richard Saunders live on to this day: for example, "Three may keep a secret if two are dead" and "he who lies down with dogs rises with fleas". He also published various essays and pamphlets, not the least of which are "The Way to Wealth", "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One", and "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America". In these publications he established a narrative style that was both conversational and witty and that had an impact on later writers, and his satire ranks as some of the best among early American writing. "The Autobiography" was written in four sections and remains incomplete, as Franklin died before finishing the story of his life. The first part is addressed to his illegitimate son William Franklin, who was governor of New Jersey at the time of its composition--1771. The second part was finished around 1784, following the interruption of the Revolution, and the third and fourth parts were finished in 1790, the year of Franklin's death. He stopped writing because of his ill health; thus, "The Autobiography" covers Franklin's life only up to 1758, long before Franklin's greatest accomplishments. Nevertheless, the early part of Franklin's life remains just as fascinating as he tells of his falling out with a brother, his loss of a friend because of his sexual advances toward his friend's lover, his loaning money to beer drinkers who had to pay back what they borrowed with interest, his abandonment of his vegetarianism because he decided eating fish was acceptable if the fish ate one another themselves, and his attempts to achieve moral perfection by developing thirteen virtues. He eventually gives up trying to become a more virtuous person because he decided that if he finally erased his pridefulness to become more humble, then he would be proud of his humility.

Answer: Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was one of the primary leaders of the first of a few American Christian revival movements called The Great Awakening, this one occurring in the 1730s and 1740s. The movement was primarily a reaction to Enlightenment thinking and a growing emphasis on scientific explanation of earthly phenomena; it was responsible for many Christian revivals throughout the American colonies, and many individuals believed the Second Coming of Christ was near. As pastor of the church at Northampton, Massachusetts, Edwards attempted to return the church to a position of authority that it possessed during the Puritan settlement of the colony. However, after twenty-something years, his congregation voted to dismiss him as their pastor, for he began accusing people of various sins--some of them children and members of important families--during worship services, and he began denying certain individuals the privilege of participating in communion (the celebration of Christ's Last Supper).

Edwards wrote some significant philosophical and theological pieces. In "A Divine and Supernatural Light", he presents an argument that God cannot be perceived or understood through the physical senses, for only the physical world can be experienced in that manner. God is not of the physical world and must be perceived by inner senses or the soul. The physical sunlight is to the physical eye what a divine and supernatural light is to one's "inner" eye. While many of his ideas can be rather thought-provoking, many of his other writings, particularly his sermons, are often amusing to contemporary readers because his ideas strike them as curious and eccentric. In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", for example, he defends predestination by arguing that God selects whomever he chooses to be with Him in paradise and sends everyone else to Hell. Furthermore, God is nearly presented as a bloodthirsty monster who enjoys destroying human beings: "The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk in your blood."

Answer: J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer

J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer (1735-1813) was born Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecouer in Normandy, France. He traveled from England across the Atlantic to enlist in Canada's militia in 1755, but by 1759, he was living in the colony of New York and working as a traveling surveyor and trader. In 1769, he married, bought land in New York, and settled down to be a farmer. Prior to the Revolution, he attempted to make a trip to England when his ship was boarded by British troops and he was arrested at sea because he was believed to be a spy. Ironically, he had remained loyal to the British government. When he was able to return to American in 1783 as a French consul, he found his farm had been burned, his wife was dead, and his children were separated from one another and housed with strangers.

In 1782, de Crevecouer published a series of essays compiled in a book he entitled "Letters from an American Farmer". The book was tremendously popular because of the great interest in a group of colonies that created a new nation after successfully revolting against a major colonial power like Britain. The book's influence and impact were tremendous, for the book confirmed for most readers a vision of a new land, rich and promising, where hard work prevailed over social rank or class and people were free to profit themselves from their own labor. The book also reflects the effect of The Enlightenment on its author's perspective of the world. At one point, de Crevecouer argues, "Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment". The emphasis on scientific reasoning led de Crevecouer to understand human beings purely as products, or perhaps even victims, of their environments. At one point, he argues that the hunter is a half-savage individual because of his continuous living in the wilderness. Finally, the book also launches an attack on the practice of slavery in America. After attacking the hypocrisy of the white people of Charles-Town for enjoying their unearned wealth, which was unjustly derived from the labor of others, he at length describes coming upon a cage in which a slave has been left to bake in the sun without any water while ants and buzzards eat away at his flesh.

Answer: Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was born in England and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1774 with recommendations from Benjamin Franklin for employment. In 1776, Paine published "Common Sense", the first pamphlet arguing for the colonies' independence from Britain. England charged him with treason, and he responded by publishing a series of pamphlets called "Crisis" (or sometimes called "American Crisis") in which he continued to motivate colonials to fight against English tyranny.

He also joined the Revolutionary Army.

He was given several important positions in the new United States government following the war, but was unable to keep any of them because of his indiscretions and hot temper, so he returned to England in 1787. There, he published "Rights of Man" and was again charged with treason.

This time he fled to France and began to rise as a motivational force in the French Revolution until he criticized the execution of King Louis XVI and was imprisoned. James Monroe traveled to France to bargain for his release, and he eventually returned to the USA and wrote "The Age of Reason", which ruined his reputation among most of America.

His deistic beliefs were shared by individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, who in his "Letter to Ezra Stiles" expressed his own doubt of Christ's divinity; however, the majority of Americans did not tolerate deism, a product of Enlightenment thought. At Paine's death in 1809, his body was buried on his farm. His remains were exhumed in 1819 by an individual who planned to rebury Paine in England; however, no grave marker exists there, and no one currently knows what happened to his corpse.

Answer: Sarah Kemble Knight

Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727) was a daughter of a Boston merchant and married a much older man who was a London agent for an American business and sometimes a sea captain. Her husband was, obviously, frequently away from home for great lengths of time, and Knight assumed full responsibility of managing her home; thus, she began running a boarding house and teaching school, where she most likely taught Benjamin Franklin. She also helped with the preservation of court documents and with the composition of legal papers, activities that helped her become well-acquainted with the law. In October of 1704, while her husband was abroad, she took on the responsibility of traveling to visit the widow of her cousin so that she might help her settle her cousin's estate. Her journey, outlined in the question, was one not undertaken lightly even by males during that time, so her decision was a remarkable one indeed.

Not published until 1825, Knight's narrative was an immediate success because of the tremendous interest in documents of social history from America's past. Her journal provides an interesting contrast to the typical soul-searching journals of the time in that it provides a detailed picture of the America outside of herself. However, despite her keen observations of provincial America and its culture, she does often reveal herself to be rather arrogant and predisposed to criticize the foolishness around her while managing other people's affairs.

Answer: Philip Freneau

Philip Freneau (1752-1832) grew up in Manhattan, New York, in a wealthy family whose home was frequented by well-known writers and artists; this had an impact on his own interest in poetry and his desire to write it. He later attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), where he roomed with James Madison, the future president of the United States. During the Revolution, he served as a blockade runner, but he had also written several patriotic poems in support of the colonies' cause and became known as the "Poet of the American Revolution". For his service, he was rewarded by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson with a position in his department. Eventually, Freneau turned to other subjects for his poetry, many of which were in praise of Thomas Paine, such as "On Mr. Paine's Rights of Man". Like Paine, Freneau began to embrace a non-traditional perspective of religion, which can be seen in poems like "On the Religion of Nature".

In this particular poem, Freneau criticizes organized religions for their corruption and lies and argues that human beings should worship "[t]hat power of nature" which "Inclines the tender mind to take / The path of right". Gradually, Freneau's reputation dwindled among American readers until he ended an impoverished, forgotten old man.

Answer: Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) published the book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" when she was around twenty years old. She had been taken from her home in Africa and brought to America as a slave, but her owners noticed she was exceptionally intelligent and made sure she learned to read and write and was educated in other ways.

She learned Latin and was well-read by anyone's standards. Eventually, her owners gave her her freedom, and Wheatley married a freed man. However, she and her husband still faced discrimination within society and they lived in debt and poverty until her early death in her thirties.

She had hoped to publish a second volume of poetry, but her plans never came to fruition. Many of her poems celebrate Christianity, education, and American independence and freedom; however, they also demonstrate the thoughts of an individual who could not understand a free nation that allowed slavery.

Her poems condemn slavery and support the abolishing of it; however, her Christian beliefs, much in line with earlier Puritanism, led her to feel grateful that God had saved her from eternal damnation, even if that meant she had to become a slave to be brought to America where she learned of Christianity.

Answer: Wieland: or, the Transformation: An American Tale

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)was an early American writer of novels, short stories, poems, essays, histories, and reviews until his early death at the age of 39 due to tuberculosis. Interestingly, Brown was influenced by the political and Gothic writings of William Godwin (who wrote "Caleb Williams") and Mary Wollstonecraft (who wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman") and then had an influence himself on their daughter Mary Shelley, who read Brown's work while composing her very famous "Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus".

The story of "Wieland" not only attacks religious fanaticism, but also establishes many Gothic motifs and relies on many philosophical issues that set the stage for Edgar Allan Poe's fiction. Not only does it rely on horrific murders and seemingly supernatural events (such as human spontaneous combustion and ventriloquism that involves "throwing one's voice"), but it also calls into question the reliability of the physical senses and their ability to guide human beings to an understanding of reality or truth.

Answer: Hannah Webster Foster

Hannah Webster Foster (1758-1840) was born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, and died in Montreal, Canada, where she moved after her husband's death to live with her daughters. Over the course of her life, she wrote two novels, the one mentioned in the question and "The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils", which was published in 1798. Most of her other work consisted of political articles she composed for Boston newspapers. "The Coquette" was so popular that it was printed nine different times; however, Foster's name did not appear on the title page until 1856, sixteen years after her death.

The historical source of "The Coquette", Elizabeth Whitman, as well as her fictionalized counterpart Eliza Wharton, was an admired woman from Connecticut who was engaged to two separate ministers at two separate times, as well as the romantic interest of a libertine who impregnated her before marrying another woman.

The term "coquette" generally refers to a woman who teases and flirts with several men. Thus, the title of the novel as well as the novel itself appeared to be a didactic warning to women, yet the story as it unfolds through Wharton's letters presents woman as a victim of a biased and restrictive male-dominated society.

Answer: Benjamin Franklin

"To a Young Man" is dated June 25, 1745, and is addressed "To my dear friend". Apparently, this young man wrote to Franklin for advice on how to quell his "violent natural inclinations". Franklin initially suggests marriage as "the proper remedy", for "[i]t is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you most likely to find solid Happiness". Furthermore, Franklin believes a married man and woman complete each other as do the separate blades of a pair of scissors; the two are able to accomplish more than a single blade could alone. As Franklin explains, a woman lacks "Force of Body and Strength of Reason" while a man lacks "Softness, Sensibility, and acute Discernment". However, Franklin then argues that if the young man refuses to marry and desires to continue "a Commerce with the Sex", then he should "prefer old Women to young ones", and Franklin lists eight different reasons to support his claim. Among these are: older women are better conversationalists, there is "no Hazard of Children", the man feels less guilty of any sin (such as defloration), there is little difference between an old woman and a young one below the waist (particularly if one places "a Basket" over her head), and the older women are "so grateful!".

A reader can find a collection of Franklin's facetious letters in the 1898 publication "The Curious and Facetious Letters of Benjamin Franklin, Hitherto Unpublished" or the 1971 publication "The Facetious Letters of Benjamin Franklin".