Benjamin Franklin Epitaph

The body of

Benjamin Franklin, printer,

(Like the cover of an old book,

Its contents worn out,

And stript of its lettering and gilding)

Lies here, food for worms!

yet the work itself shall not be lost,

For it will, as he believed, appear once more

In a new

and more beautiful edition,

Corrected and amended

By its author!

An epitaph is a short statement about death or a dead person, sometimes in verse and usually carved on a tombstone. Franklin's epitaph, written when he was only twenty-two years old, makes a revealing contrast beside this popular Puritan epitaph: "Life is uncertain. Death is sure. Sin the wound and Christ the cure."

The two epitaphs suggest the difference between the Puritan age into which Franklin was born, and the Age of Reason in which he matured.

Franklin's epitaph also shows that poets are not the only writers who use similes. Similes are figures of speech that compare two different things, using connecting words such as like or as. Although Franklin's corpse may not seem like a book, the fact that Franklin was a printer makes the comparison appropriate. Franklin finds other resemblances that convey his view of death wittily to the mind and vividly to the eye.

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