Paine and literature revolution

Edward Larkin0521841151, 9780521841153, 9780511161438

Thomas Paine has been celebrated for his role in persuading the American colonists to revolt against Britain and declare their independence. At the same time, however, scholars have generally dismissed his writings as propaganda. This book demonstrates that Paine was a skilled and sophisticated writer and thinker who transformed political literature in the late eighteenth century by creating a new literature of politics that bridged political philosophy and the everyday, common-sensical knowledge of ordinary people. The impact of this new political language would be remarkable as it energized a mass public to participate in the arena of politics, an arena from which they had been excluded.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Dedication……Page 7
Contents……Page 9
Acknowledgments……Page 11
Introduction……Page 13
1 Inventing an American Public: The Pennsylvania Magazine and Revolutionary American Political Discourse……Page 34
the rise of the magazine……Page 37
the pennsylvania magazine……Page 44
political fables……Page 52
becoming american……Page 55
2 “Could the Wolf Bleat Like the Lamb?”: Paine’s Critique of the Early American Public Sphere……Page 61
disputing common sense……Page 63
franklin’s diffidence and paine’s direct style……Page 72
losing credit, or the effect of the deane affair……Page 79
making it personal: “the letter to george washington”……Page 88
discovering the limits of the public sphere……Page 94
3 Writing Revolutionary History……Page 98
origins, history, and politics……Page 100
impartiality, historiography, and the lessons of the past……Page 104
the letter to raynal……Page 107
the letter to raynal as letter……Page 110
history or literary criticism……Page 114
rights of man, or the letter to edmund burke?……Page 117
history and/or historiography……Page 123
4 The Science of Revolution: Technological Metaphors and Scientific Methodology in Rights of Man and The Age of Reason……Page 126
becoming a man of science……Page 129
technology, commerce, and the rights of man……Page 132
the age of reason: substituting science for religion……Page 145
the true revelation……Page 152
nature tamed……Page 156
5 “Strong Friends and Violent Enemies”: The Historical Construction of Thomas Paine through the Nineteenth Century……Page 161
the death of a radical……Page 164
inventing a radical’s life……Page 168
english radical reformers and the rehabilitation of paine……Page 175
recovering paine’s reputation in the united states……Page 185
political writing and american literary history……Page 188
Epilogue: Paine and Nineteenth-Century American Literary History……Page 191
whitman and paine’s popular image……Page 194
billy budd and the interpretation of the revolution……Page 196
Works Cited……Page 207
Index……Page 215