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THOMAS JEFFERSON'S TEXTS: A RHETORIC IN CONTEXT

Annotation

The research subject of this paper is an important part of the written heritage of Thomas Jefferson, who is best known to the world as the Founding Father of the United States of America and its third President. Being a significant contributor to the public political discourse of his time and a vibrant correspondent, Jefferson wrote a plentiful of texts on both social and private matters. On the one hand, Jefferson composed numerous texts of political concern. On the other, he maintained extensive epistolary connections with his friends and family members. Thus, his oeuvre can be divided into public and private writings and analyzed in terms of their stylistic features as well as the contexts that shaped Jefferson's rhetoric. The texts selected here as examples differ in manner, since they were written through several periods of the writer's life and in different genres - notes, memoirs and letters. The range of selections allows us to determine Jefferson's rhetorical characteristics as conditioned by his personal and historical circumstances alongside his literal and social background.

Contents

public writing jefferson autobiography

Introduction

1. Thomas Jefferson's Public Writings

1.1 Politics and Philosophy in Notes on Virginia

1.2 History and Private Life in Autobiography

2. Personal Experience in Private Documents

2.1 Depicting Inner Life in Dialogue Form

2.2 Sharing Experience of Traveling through France and Italy

Conclusion

Work cited

Introduction

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was a Founding Father of the United States of America, the author of its Declaration of Independence and the third President of that country. This paper is dedicated to the features of his written rhetoric and those historical, social and literary contexts that explain some of the characteristics of structures, subject matters and sometimes even choice of words in his texts. The ideas - including some controversial ones - and views of Jefferson are mostly out of discussion in this paper. They have been examined and interpreted numerous times alongside historical details of Jefferson's life, in contrast to the apparent lack of research into his rhetoric itself. American eighteenth-century literature mainly consists of journal articles and non-fictional philosophical or scientific works. Since Jefferson wrote many influential texts in each of the abovementioned categories, he can be considered an illustrative representative of the era's American literature and should be studied from a literary point of view. On top of that, he actively exchanged letters with friends, family and significant members of the society and was very attentive to what he wrote and how he expressed himself in his correspondence. Academic studies of his style and possible sources of certain Jefferson texts focus predominantly on his most famous piece - the Declaration of Independence, written in 1776 (Dana; Hamowy; Lucas). There are general examinations of Jefferson's style on the whole (Onuf; Appleby, Ball), but attempts to compare different types of texts within his oeuvre have scarcely been made.

The reason for us to talk about his peculiar writing style is his wide erudition and broad range of interests extending from natural sciences to history and linguistics. Those heterogeneous fields influenced his own writings, whether he realized it or not. The main ones were ancient Greek and Roman classics, whom Jefferson read since his adolescence and who never lost their relevance to him in terms of both their rhetoric and philosophy (Wright 225). Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) was another important writer for him. Jefferson read and highly esteemed Sterne's books and attempted to imitate Sterne's narratives in his own letters (Burstein, Mowbray 22-24). The third noteworthy aspect is Jefferson`s linguistic ideas, because he had a sophisticated concept of the role language played in society, according to which it embraces all spheres of life, so that word choice could determine both people's behavior and their politics (Thompson; Shepherd). To show how these and other spheres of Jefferson's interests were incorporated and expressed in his texts, it is necessary to compare his writings of different genres with each other and with books he read and considered important.

This paper is divided into two parts. The first one is devoted to Jefferson's works for publication - Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) and Autobiography (1821). Notes on Virginia is a description of Jefferson's home state Virginia concerning its nature, society, history and politics; Autobiography is his memoir that he started writing after his retirement. The rhetoric and topics discussed in both texts are politically determined, although politics is expressed in different ways. In my second part, I analyze several Jefferson letters as examples of his private writings. Among those, there is his so-called “My Head and My Heart” letter to Maria Cosway of 12^th October 1786. It is structured as a dialogue between Jefferson's Head and Heart discussing the role of reason and emotions in the life of a contemporary man. This letter gives an exhaustive insight into Jefferson's moral philosophy which allows understanding his interpretation of ancient and modern thinkers who influenced him. In my last chapter of Part II, I examine some other letters written in one time period and describing Jefferson's journey via France and Northern Italy. These letters are addressed to different people and, even though they are inspired by one event, their material and style differ.

As the main biographical source I use Kevin Hayes' The Road to Monticello. The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, which provides a comprehensive exposition of Jefferson's life along with analysis of his readings in different periods of his lifetime. Other sources are applied concerning the history of the discussed texts (Brown; Carrière; Fabian). The ideas that Jefferson shared in his letters and the rhetoric he used for it were analyzed as well (Oberg, “A New Republican Order”; McDonald; Rebok; Catanzariti; Trees; Burstein, “Jefferson and the Familiar Letters”, “Jefferson's Madison versus Jefferson's Monroe”). Finally, since philosophy is an important part of the context that influences Jefferson's writings, works on his philosophical thoughts are also referred to in this paper (Engels; Ostrander; Richard; Kessler; Jones).

1. Thomas Jefferson's Public Writings

1.1 Politics and Philosophy in Notes on Virginia

Although Thomas Jefferson wrote a considerable amount of texts through his life, Notes on the State on Virginia is always referred to as his single book. It is a comprehensive description of Jefferson's home state Virginia, from its geography and fauna to its laws and history. It was one of the most important American publications of the time, especially in relation to factual information about Virginia's geography and climate (Brown 469). Apart from Jefferson's knowledge about the nature and political and social systems of his native state, the book reveals his philosophical views. There are researches about Jefferson's thoughts on religious freedom (Fabian), his attitude to Native Americans (Nichols) and his political philosophy (Appleby) in Notes. General overviews about rhetoric (Hellenbrand) and philosophical implications (Holowchak, “Philosophical Vignettes”) have also been made. The aim of this chapter is not to retell what has been said before but to elucidate the ideas that drew less attention of the researchers.

Notes were written up to the end in 1781, but Jefferson continued revising it two years after. It is a substantial description of Virginia which was written as a response to the secretary of the French legation in Philadelphia François Barbé de Marbois' request of exposition of this state (Oberg, “Notes on the State of Virginia: Thomas Jefferson's `Mysterious Obligation.'” 161). For Jefferson, it became more than just an answer to that call. He had been collecting data about Virginia's geography, history and social and political structure before he started to work on this book, and it was his chance to order it and present to public.

He sent his Notes to Marbois in December, 1781 but the work was not finished as he continued revising the text for the next two years. In 1784, while serving in Paris as an American minister, he printed several copies to send them to some of his friends without the author's name and with a restraint against publication written on each. He was not yet ready to fully publicize it, but he was negotiating with the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia where he thought it possible for the book to come out. Jefferson's plans were changed suddenly when one of his trusted readers died. Despite the precautions Jefferson took to recover the copy, it fell into the hands of a bookseller who was determined to translate it into French and publish. Jefferson could not prevent him from doing so but supervised the process of translation to avoid occurrence of any alteration of his original thought. Although at the end he did not manage to get a translation that fitted his expectations and was dissatisfied with this result, the situation shows how much attention he paid to expressing his ideas and to delivering them in the proper manner (Carrière). After some more editing, Notes were published in the original, in England, in 1787.

The book consists of twenty-three chapters, or queries, that answer twenty-two points in Marbois' request. Each chapter usually corresponds to one of Marbois' questions, but Jefferson chooses to put them into his own order and in a few cases. He decides to conjoin two points in one query as it happens in the twenty-third part “Histories, memorials and state-papers” (Jefferson 188-214), where Jefferson, at the same time, answers two Marbois' questions about history of the state and about the papers published in the colonial period. There is an opposite example when Jefferson divides one point into several. When Marbois asks to give details about “[c]ounties Cities Townships Villages Rivers Rivulets and how far they are navagible. Cascades Caverns Mountains Productions Trees Plants Fruits and other natural Riches [sic]” (“Marbois' Queries”, par. 4), Jefferson writes about rivers, mountains, cascades, cities and natural riches separately in five queries. On the other hand, he attempts to seemingly stick to Marbois' set of questions and give the answer to each of them even when he has little to say. The most conspicuous example of that is the third query about Virginia's sea-ports, which consists of only one line, “Having no ports but our rivers and creeks, this Query has been answered under the preceding one” (Jefferson 16). Jefferson kept this query in this form in the published version implying that he writes it “in answer to Queries proposed to the Author, by a Foreigner of Distinction” (Jefferson i), as he explains in the advertisement. We can see, however, that he does not answer the exact same questions and places them in his own order. Moreover, due to the editing, the book became almost three times as big as the version sent to Marbois, and the material of each query extends beyond the scope of each Marbois' question (Hayes 236).

The choice to combine topics this way and the order of the queries in the book are not arbitrary. Notes are structured in accordance with Jefferson's philosophical and political views expressed in it. Jefferson used this book as a chance not only to share his comprehensive knowledge about Virginia but also to communicate his opinions on matters of government, laws, religion and culture. Before he could talk about the way people live and govern themselves, Jefferson begins with the exposition of natural characteristics of the place they inhabit. This is a clear influence of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu's treatise The Spirit of Laws (1748). Evidence that Jefferson read and esteemed Montesquieu is provided by his commonplace book where he wrote down quotations he considered important from books and oral reports. In mid-seventies of the eighteenth century, when he began to read Montesquieu, “he devoted more space in his commonplace book to the Spirit of Laws than to any other work” (Appleby 290). Although Jefferson later changed his mind reproaching Montesquieu for errors and controversies, he agreed with his postulates when he was working on Notes (Jones 578). According to Montesquieu, the nature of the place where people live determines their behavior and character. Since the form of the government and laws established in the country depend on the temper of the inhabitants, climate and other natural conditions dictate political and legislative systems (Montesquieu 246). Therefore, Jefferson begins his book by describing the boundaries of the state, its rivers, mountains, natural riches, animals and climate, and only after that he moves to the population.

These “queries,” as Jefferson subtitles his chapters, are provided with sufficient amount of maps and tables with lists of rivers and their length, plants, animals, birds and climate measurements. The “comparative view of quadrupeds of Europe and America” (Jefferson 49) provided in one of these tables is a part of Jefferson's polemics with European naturalist Comte Georges-Louis de Buffon. The whole query about the American animals is basically a response to Buffon's Natural History: General and Particular, which was coming out from 1749 to 1788 and was the most popular work on natural science (Dugatkin par. 3). Buffon claims that American animals are smaller in size and numbers in comparison to the ones in Europe, and domesticated animals had degenerated (Jefferson 45-46). Jefferson aims to prove him wrong and begins his counterargument by opposing to the elephant, the largest living animal according to Buffon, the mammoth whose bones are found in America and that still resides there (40). Jefferson used a legend of Native Americans about “tremendous animals” that still live in the North (41) as evidence that mammoth is real and referred to the climate conditions (43) to prove that it was not an elephant that would be able to survive there. The fact that American animals are not smaller than the European ones is demonstrated in the comparative tables that, incomplete as they are, support Jefferson's point of view.

It is not certain how politicized was Buffon's Natural History but it did confirm the image of America as of a place unusual and inferior to Europe (Dugatkin par. 9). Jefferson attempting to show that the famous naturalist was not right also questioned his methods of requiring information. He argues that Buffon himself never “measured, weighed, or seen those [animals] of America” (Jefferson 55) and believed reports of traveler who were likely to be prejudged or unprofessional. Jefferson, on the contrary, speaks “from [his] own knowledge, but more from the information of others <…> on whose truth and judgment [he] can rely” (Jefferson 62). Challenging Buffon's sources of information, methods and conclusions and proving his country's nature to be equal to the European environments, Jefferson, American naturalist, places himself on a par with Buffon, European scientist. In a broader context, as Andrew Holowchak claims, “Jefferson's critique of Buffon is in effect America's coming-of-age” (152).

The chapters dedicated to rivers and boundaries of Virginia give the reader strict factual information about the geographical coordinates of the state, its boundaries and length of the rivers and their suitability for navigation and commerce. Jefferson makes only two evaluative remarks, “The Wabash is a very beautiful river” (10) and “The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth” (8), but the word “beautiful” indicates the usability of these rivers for commercial purposes, since they have “very little obstruction to the navigation” (Jefferson 10), rather than expresses any of Jefferson's aesthetical views.

This makes the descriptions of the Blue Ridge and Natural Bridge in the fourth and fifth queries more striking. In the fourth query, Jefferson, talking about Virginia's mountains and rivers flowing through them, writes quite poetically that “[t]he passage of the Potomac through the Blue ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature” (17). In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson rarely uses the second-person pronouns, and most of them appear in this description, “You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, <…>. On your left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also” (17). Using “you,” the writer secures the effect of presence for the reader.

While Buffon, whether deliberately or not, describes America as unpleasant and inferior country, Jefferson uses the landscapes as one of the reasons to come there, as “[t]his scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic” (Jefferson 18). In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson makes the landscape truly magnificent. The Blue Ridge is both “placid and delightful” and “wild and tremendous” (17), and “[t]he Natural bridge [is] the most sublime of nature's works” (22). While the view from the top of the bridge to the abyss is almost unbearable and gives “a violent headache” (23), the view from below is “delightful” (23). “It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!” (23), Jefferson writes. The same narrative is found in one of Jefferson's letters, namely in his letter to Maria Cosway written in 1786. She was Jefferson's friend whom he met in Paris, but she had to leave soon. Writing to her after her departure, Jefferson hoped to see her in America, and one of the arguments for the journey was the beautiful American landscapes. He uses the language and rhetoric similar to those in Notes to describe the beauty of his country to Maria Cosway,

The Failing Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the Passage of the Potomac through the Blue Mountains, the Natural bridge. It is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make them, & [sic] thereby ourselves, known to all ages. And our own dear Monticello, where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? Mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious sun when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, & [sic] giving life to all nature? (par. 15)

In his letter, Jefferson refers to the same places, mentioning with practically the same words that it is worth to cross the ocean to see them. He describes the nature with the word “sublime” highlighting the splendor of the landscape. The scene of the Blue Ridge makes the viewer think about wild natural processes and “the most powerful agents of nature” (17). The Natural Bridge is so impressive that it becomes indescribable, and nature in the letter is depicted with such words as “majesty” and “glorious,” so that painting these natural beauties shall make America “known to all ages”. All these features make these fragments part of the same rhetoric. The repetition of these descriptions and the similarities between them show that this is Jefferson's common narrative for that time. Like in his answer to Buffon, Jefferson places himself and, therefore, American natural history, in one row with the European analogs, while his description of the land is America's self-manifestation as a glorious country.

These landscapes do not appear in the book for only aesthetical or advertising reasons. Alan Bewell, comparing romantic natural history to the colonial, argues that colonial natural science was closely related to economics and politics (26). Jefferson's description of Blue Ridge is not an exception. In the beginning, he draws a picture of a place that is, at “the first glance”, “wild and tremendous” with evident marks of “disrupture and avulsion” that makes the reader think about the creation of this earth. Then, Jefferson writes,

But the distant finishing which nature has given to the picture is of a very different character. <…> For the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that way too the road happens actually to lead. (17-18)

This road from chaos to happiness is a key theme if Jefferson's rhetoric and philosophy (Hellenbrand 6). The word “happiness” itself instantly reminds of the Declaration of Independence (1776) where “certain unalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (“Transcript of the Declaration” par. 2) were proclaimed. It also occurs in Jefferson's first Inaugural Address (1801). The path from the tumult of the Revolutionary War to the new form of independent government is present in all the important Jefferson's texts as a symbol of positive results of the changes and it is also true for the Notes on Virginia.

“The road to happiness” leads to another essential criterion of an efficient democratic government, without which a republic cannot exist. For Jefferson, it is the unity of minds of people and members of the administration. It is a base of a well-governed republican state and preservation of people's rights. Before Notes on Virginia, the unity of opinions was proclaimed in the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms” presented to the Congress in summer 1775. Jefferson was a member of the committee appointed to write the declaration and took an active part in composing this document (Hayes 171). The declaration says that its authors “being with one Mind resolved to die Freemen rather than to live Slaves” (“The Declaration as adopted by Congress” par. 13). Here, unity is a way to liberty and obtainment of the natural rights. To preserve these rights, it is necessary to establish a republican government that would maintain civil harmony; “[i]t is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent” (Jefferson, Notes 93). The state cannot do that if it is corrupted, so Jefferson writes in Notes: “[i]t can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united” (172). The government and the governed are interrelated, and if one side becomes careless about their rights and freedom, so does the other. Jefferson continues that the ill-managed people “will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights” (172).

This necessity of unity is repeated in Jefferson's first Inaugural Address which he wrote and read publically in 1801 after being elected the President of the United States. A detailed and sufficient analysis of this document's rhetoric was conducted by Stephen Howard Browne in his book Jefferson's Call for Nationhood (2003), but I need to mention one idea expressed in the Address - the idea of reaching unity. By 1801, although the revolution was over, the long-awaited peace and harmony were not achieved, and the government was torn by partisan debates. In his Inaugural, Jefferson sought to end these disputes and declare the triumph of a union without any party but under the republican rule that would “restore America to her original condition of unity, concord, and civic virtue” (Browne 23-24). Jefferson says that after the past “contest of opinion”, “this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the constitution all will of course arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. <…> Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things” (par. 2). This holds a strong resemblance to the passages from Notes on Virginia analyzed above. The “administration is conducted by consent” because the “voice of the nation” chose, according to the constitution, to unite and restore the lost harmony that needs to “transact together”. Notes on Virginia articulate one of Jefferson's important ideas about the proper democratic government that he adhered during his life, which makes Notes a significant source for understanding the development of his political thoughts.

The notion closely connected to politics was language. Jefferson had very specific linguistic views and watched the development of English language from its Anglo-Saxon roots. His attention to it was not purely scholarly but rather historical and anthropological, because he considered language as a storage for the knowledge of past generations. Jefferson claimed that the Anglo-Saxon language carried in itself the democratic social virtues of Anglo-Saxon England, and that by studying the language people can at the same time assimilate important political ideas (Thompson 199). The notion that language is ideologically imbued and has the ability to transmit the views of its speakers to its learners is expressed in Notes on Virginia as well. Jefferson speaks about immigrants and foreigners who bring their principles of life with them to the New World and, if they are numerous enough in the government, can alter the administrative system modeled on the one they had at home. Then, “[t]hese principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children” (93). The remark about language is short, but it corresponds to the general idea of Jefferson's about language as a medium of political principles.

Language and the choice of words determine political behavior and the attitude towards documents. Writing about the composition of the Virginia constitution in 1776, Jefferson challenges the rightfulness of the way it was created, since the constitution is supposed to be unalterable by ordinary legislature and, therefore, written by a special authority. However, in the case with the constitution of Virginia, the authors do not possess any powers superior to other legislatures. The document, thus, can “pretend to no higher authority than the other ordinances” (Jefferson, Notes 129). Jefferson argues that if they chose the word “constitution” they should have written a document adequate to its name. “[T]hey have called it a constitution, which ex vi terminiBy definition. means 'an act above the power of the ordinary legislature'” (130), Jefferson writes and brings the etymology of this word as a proof concluding that “No inference then of a different meaning can be drawn from the adoption of this title” (130). Thus, language has a power to determine the meaning of a document and the attitude to it.

In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson not only answers a series of queries posed by Marbois and shares his knowledge about the state, but also expresses his thoughts on many different matters he is interested in. The choice of the topics, the argumentations and the structure of the book are politically determined and related to Jefferson's views of philosophy and the effective government. The note-like queries in the book with numbers and tables make it look like a report, while poetic description of natural beauties and reflection about the things are necessary for the rhetorical statement on operation of a good government. Jefferson's political thought traces in all of these queries.

1.2 History and Private Life in Autobiography

At the age of seventy-seven, in 1821, Thomas Jefferson started to write his memoirs that were later titled Autobiography. They covered his life from his birth in 1743 to his arrival from France and beginning of the service as Secretary of State in 1790. Jefferson's memoirs provide a historical overview of creation of the Declaration of Independence, work of Virginian legislature during the American Revolution, American international affairs in this period and the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. Making a lot of effort to reconstruct these historical events and debates around decisions made in this time, Jefferson omits as much personal information as possible. The cause of such attitude might lie in his initial reluctance to write a record of his life. His friend William Short politely suggested that Jefferson should write memoirs following Benjamin Franklin's steps, but until 1821 Jefferson left this request unattended (Hayes 595). When Jefferson finally decided to recollect the memoirs of his life, he preferred to focus on important historical processes.

Jefferson's Autobiography receives less attention in comparison to Notes on Virginia and other writings. Researchers usually use it as biographical data and rarely study it for its own sake. When the text itself is analyzed, it is not discussed alone but together with other American autobiographies of this time, mostly with Franklin's and John Adams' (Hamelman; Banes). This allows pointing out their common features and identifying characteristics of American autobiographies in late eighteenth-early nineteenth centuries. Such generalizations are necessary to understand main tendencies in early American autobiographies but the style and ideas in Jefferson's memoirs should also be studied as well. He excludes private information and does not emphasize his own role in described events making his memoirs a quite impersonal political statement. However, as it can be seen from the previous chapter about Notes on Virginia, Jefferson related many of his interests to politics which is also true for the Autobiography.

He begins his memoirs with an explanation of the nature of this work and reasons for writing it, “At the age of 77, I begin to make some memoranda, and state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself, for my own more ready reference, and for the information of my family” (Jefferson, Autobiography 5). Such a preface was an ordinary part of autobiographies (Banes 230). Benjamin Franklin begins his memoirs by addressing his son and presuming that he would be interested in familiarizing with “the circumstances of [his] life” (Franklin par. 21), John Adams says that he writes his in order to correct some “misinterpretations” of his actions and character but he commits his recollections to his children, not to the public (Adams par. 1). Although these men claim that their memoirs are written for themselves and their families, their autobiographies are public texts (Banes 237) that focus more on their social activities rather than their emotional experiences. Roy Pascal, describing history of the autobiographical genre and analyzing Franklin's memoirs as an example of an early American autobiography, says that it does not make an impression of deliberate concealment of his feelings; they simply were not that significant to write about (37). This equally applies to Jefferson and Adams.

However, if Franklin's and Adams' autobiographies present them as political and social beings and family men, Jefferson reduces his life to dates and facts and does not place himself in the center of his narrative but historical events he took part in. He provides no information about his childhood except for the beginning of his education. Talking about his marriage, he only gives the date (January 1^st, 1772) and the name of his wife (Martha Skelton), with more detail about her ancestry than about herself (Jefferson 7). Her death in 1782 he does not mention at all.

Working on Autobiography, Jefferson did not aim to share any facts related personally to him but to write down the history of the country. Highlighting this relation between the revolutionary history of the United States and his own story, he writes about his appointment as governor of commonwealth of Virginia in 1779, “to write my own history, during the two years of my administration, would be to write the public history of that portion of the revolution within this State” (45). Equaling these histories, Jefferson delegates the task of describing the period to historians and claims that reading historical record means to read about his life at the same time, “For this portion, therefore, of my own life, I refer altogether to his history” (45). The same thing he does earlier in this text talking about sessions of the First Continental Congress in 1774, “The splendid proceedings of that Congress, at their first session, belong to general history, are known to every one, and need not therefore be noted here” (12). Referring to history instead of rendering his personal experience, Jefferson does not create an image of himself as a creator of history, as it might seem, but presents himself as an ordinary contributor to the revolution, who is by no means superior to others.

Careful not to be credited with things he has not done, Jefferson writes, “In giving this account of the laws of which I was myself the mover and draughtsman, I, by no means, mean to claim to myself the merit of obtaining their passage” (37). Confirming his authorship, Jefferson is attentive not to gain other people's fame. It correlates with the idea that he does not tend to show his contribution to be more exceptional and outstanding than others'. When it comes to the description of the key moments of Jefferson's political life in his own opinion, he does not say much either. He considered the Declaration of Independence (1776) to be one of his most important achievements, so he ordered to mark his authorship of it on his gravestone along with his writing of the “Statute of Virginia for religious freedom” (1777) and the establishment of the University of Virginia (Gordon-Reed, Onuf 171). In Autobiography, Jefferson demonstrates its importance to him by inserting the whole text of the first draft of the Declaration with remarks about what was excluded or added by the Congress (Jefferson, Autobiography 20-25). However, the story of creating the Declaration is impersonal. Recollecting that he was asked by the Committee appointed for its preparation to draft the document, Jefferson does not give any detail about the process of writing, simply saying that “[i]t was accordingly done” (19) using passive voice and excluding himself from the sentence. Since his memoirs were written for the general public, Jefferson found there no place for personal sentiments including his thoughts while creating the Declaration. It was not his unwillingness to share these details at all, for he does so in his correspondence - for example, in the letter of May 8^th, 1825 to Henry Lee. Jefferson claims in this letter that writing the Declaration he had no intention to be original and find any new principles; nor were the ideas taken from any particular source. It was, as he puts it, “an expression of the American mind” given “the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonising sentiments of the day” (par. 2). Although Jefferson reveals the details more generously in the letter, the main idea resembles the one expressed in Autobiography. Corroborating his contribution, Jefferson still argues that his authorship of the important political document does not make him special and that taking part in declaring American independence, he found a way to express what everyone thought, not developed a new conception. Thus, Jefferson claims his story to be the history of his country in this period but it is his means of self-presentation as an ordinary participant of the events, not the opposite.

The idea that the government needs to act on behalf of the people and in accordance with their opinion is also present in Autobiography. The members of the administration could protest against the British rules but they needed people to see what they were doing and the reasons of their actions. For that, Jefferson writes, “We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen” (Autobiography 9). Drawing people's attention to current politics, the members of the authorities could express their opinion and obtain the union with them necessary for a good government to operate. In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson writes that unity between people and the government and between members of the government is essential in making decision. In Autobiography, Jefferson says that the colonies cannot improve the situation if they are not acting together. In 1773, when independence from Great Britain was not yet thought of, cohesion of the colonies was already required. Jefferson recollects, “We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with all the other colonies, to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, and to produce a unity of action” (8). This unity did not last long after the end of the Revolutionary War,

During the war of Independence, while the pressure of an external enemy hooped us together, and their enterprises kept us necessarily on the alert, the spirit of the people, excited by danger, was a supplement to the Confederation, and urged them to zealous exertions, whether claimed by that instrument or not; but, when peace and safety were restored, and every man became engaged in useful and profitable occupation, less attention was paid to the calls of Congress. (68)

Being united for the common cause, states had to coordinate their actions and acted according to the “spirit of the people”. Drawing an image of the unification, Jefferson writes, the threat of the enemy “hooped us together” and does not specify whether the “us” were the governors of the states, delegates to Congress or American people in general because for Jefferson, it does not matter in this period. To establish the independent American government after the war, it was necessary to keep that union.

In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson demonstrates his interest in the natural history and science as related to politics. In Autorbiography, this connection is expressed in the language and takes the form of metaphors that he incorporates in the text. The expressions in Autobiography can be divided into physical metaphors (“the author “the pamphlet “Qu'est ce que le Tiers État?” which had electrified that country, as Paine's Common Sense did us” (79), “the effect of the day <...> was like a shock of electricity” (10)), biological (“But the metamorphosis through which our government was then passing from its Chrysalid to its Organic form suspended its action in a great degree” (92)), and biochemical ones (“I found Paris as I had left it, still in high fermentation” (74)). Jefferson occupies himself with science for practical reasons (Oliver 461), and it is logical that he uses his knowledge in practical context. Explaining social situations with scientific terminology, Jefferson makes natural science part of his political rhetoric, thus connecting them.

Language, along with science, deserves attention for practical and political purposes. In the previous chapter of this paper, I discussed Jefferson's perception of language as a medium of ideology. In Autobiography, Jefferson talks of the language of documents that, in his opinion, needs to be changed and simplified, “I thought it would be useful, also, in all new draughts, to reform the style of the later British statutes, and of our own acts of Assembly” (40). Because of some extended phrases that obscure the meaning, the statutes are “perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to common readers, but to the lawyers themselves” (40). Language does not only transmit ideology of its speakers but also needs to be reformed in time according to the needs of the people using it.

Jefferson himself preferred the brevity in speech that he appreciated in ancient Greek and Roman classics. He, as any other member of the ruling class of Virginia, studied classical languages not only for purely scholarly purposes but saw that ancient heritage as an important example of state government, social structure and law system (Wright, 223-224). Reading texts in the original, he also paid attention to the literary aspect and tried to follow the example of Roman historians, such as Tacitus and Sallust, expressing himself in a short and substantial way.

In Autobiography, wishing to emphasize how masterfully debates were conducted, Jefferson writes that they were “truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero” (90-91). Antiquity was a model for Jefferson, and it was not only the language that he wanted to reform. Architecture was another part of American culture Jefferson wanted to shape by the example of the ancient classics. His estate Monticello, the Virginia capitol and Rotunda and the pavilions of the University of Virginia, which were all built by his plans in neo-classical style, show his attempt to make ancient architecture common in the United States (Wright 232). In Autobiography, Jefferson writes that, for him, the Capitol of Richmond is “a favorable opportunity of introducing into the State an example of architecture, in the classic style of antiquity” (41). Thus, Jefferson demonstrates his interest in antiquity as well makes it part of organization of the social order.

Jefferson also uses his memoirs to correct some errors he made. In 1786, in Paris, Jefferson met an American explorer John Ledyard. Jefferson made a suggestion that he should explore the western part of American continent and go through the territory of Russian Empire to Kamchatka and then back to America. Ledyard had to acquire a permission to enter Russian territory, and here Jefferson confesses that he made a mistake, recollecting the same event earlier. He wrote that the Russian Empress gave and then retracted this permission but “on recurring to [his] letters of that date” (60) he found out that she did not grant him any permission at all. This episode shows several things. Firstly, that Autobiography is based on Jefferson's research into his own papers, as he rechecked the facts he thought he knew for sure. Secondly, it was not just a recollection of events but a way to provide true information and correct himself. Finally, Jefferson's mentioning of the letters of this period show his care about his correspondence, which survived until his final days and allowed him to check the materials he wanted to share with the people.

Jefferson's Autobiography is a public text, and as any of his writing aimed to be read by the general public, it is closely connected to politics and does not reveal much about his personal feelings. He excludes his childhood and family matters from the text, focusing on the revolutionary deeds instead. Jefferson makes his personal story part of the history of the country in this period but emphasizes that he was an ordinary participant, whose contribution was not unique. He expresses what can also be found in his other writings, such as Notes on Virginia. He thinks about the necessary union between people and the members of administration, without which a country cannot be governed efficiently. The text is influenced by Jefferson's interest in science, language and antiquity. Autobiography, therefore, is an important text that articulates Jefferson's ideas that he intends not only for himself but also for the society and individual readers.

2. Personal Experience in Private Documents

2.1 Depicting Inner Life in Dialogue Form

Apart from being a prominent political figure, Thomas Jefferson was an active and masterful letter-writer. In the course of his life, he wrote more than 18,000 letters (Catanzariti 2) and maintained an extensive correspondence with his colleagues, friends and family members. Jefferson made a lot of effort to copy, keep and record letters he received and wrote himself. He considered letters as a private way of sharing information and rarely used them to communicate his opinions to the general public (Trees 217). On the contrary, in his letters, Jefferson sought the means to express his personal self and his thoughts on matters outside of political and social spheres and to share his considerations about literature, nurture and education.

Jefferson paid much attention to composing his public texts, and it is logical to assume that it was as quite important to him to articulate significant ideas in letters according to his aesthetical and philosophical views. Letters provided a way of not only transmitting information but also discussing things and showing the part of himself that he did not want to or could not expose publically. Jefferson's letter to Maria Cosway is a remarkable example of it.

In 1786, Jefferson was American minister in Paris where he made a lot of new acquaintances. Among the people he met, there was a young Anglo-Italian artist Maria Cosway, who went to France with her husband. Since their first encounter, Jefferson had been very enthusiastic about spending time with Maria, and this relationship is often considered romantic even though we have no direct evidence that it was anything more than close friendship (Hayes 327). On October 12^th, when the Cosway couple left Paris, Jefferson wrote her a long letter the main part of which is structured as a dialogue between Jefferson's Head and Heart, which represent reason and emotions respectively, and was later called by the researchers “My Head and My Heart”. It was supposed to be the sigh of affection for Maria and, according to some opinions (Hale 79), even a love letter, but to reduce it to ordinary romance is to considerably downplay the meaning of the text.

The opening passage is written as a little narrative about the Cosways' departure and Jefferson's feelings caused by that. The paragraph is not a simple rendition of the rest of the evening after Maria and her husband left, since it has a rather belletristic form. Jefferson attempts to share his sufferings with his addressee and make her compassionate by literary methods. In this quite a short passage, he uses many words to describe his despair and sadness: “the last sad office of handing you into your carriage”, “walked, more dead than alive”, “crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the Bastille”, “seated by my fireside, solitary and sad” (par. 1). Then, the dialogue itself begins.

A similar episode appears in Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey (1768). Sterne was Jefferson's favorite writer (Burstein, “The Inner Jefferson” 43), so the latter repeatedly refers to the former's oeuvre in letters and tries to make his own journey through France and Italy that would resemble the one described in the Sterne novel. More will be said later concerning Jefferson's trip, while now it is enough to show his high evaluation of Sterne's novel in order to motivate the comparison that follows, since the situation in Sentimental Journey is not identical to Jefferson's.

Sterne's protagonist, Yorick, comes to Paris without his identification papers, which poses a threat of his going to jail, so he goes to Versailles to explain his circumstances. Taking a carriage, he talks to himself on the way discussing what he is going to do and say; he reproaches himself for being a fool and a coward. However, when he leaves the carriage and decides how he should act, he does not anymore feel “like a victim to justice, who was to part with life upon the topmost” (Sterne 45). The picture Jefferson draws in his letter reminds of that scene in Sterne because of such details as “victim to justice” synonymous to the “recruits of Bastille” (Jefferson, par. 1), while “part with life” is semantically linked to Jefferson's “more dead than alive” (par. 1). Despite the clear difference between the episodes, one could argue that Jefferson, while trying to write an artistic narrative untypical of him, relies on the author that he likes and knows well.

When the introductory paragraph ends, Jefferson writes: “The following dialogue took place between my Head and Heart.” It seems to be more of self-analysis and discussion on moral philosophy in order to figure out they right way and motivation to make decisions. “Combat of passion and reason” (Hume 282) is a common theme in philosophy, which occurs frequently in the works of numerous thinkers, though they might call it differently. A clash between rational and sensual perception is also mentioned by Sterne and John Locke (Burstein, Mowbray 25), so this idea was not invented by Jefferson himself but taken from other sources he was well familiar with. However, he interprets this conflict in his own way and does not give an exact answer to which of the two rivals is or should be superior to the other in making decisions and evaluating actions. That differentiates him from other thinkers. For Locke, reason prevails, whereas Sterne quite explicitly shows that the rational mind, or Judgment as he calls it, plays an important role in comprehension of the world but it is subordinate to senses (Burstein, Mowbray 26). Unlike other writers, Jefferson does not make a conclusion aborting his dialogue as follows, “I thought this is a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue of the dialogue” (par. 22). He writes two closing paragraphs of the letter without adding anything to the conversation between his Head and Heart. It lacks the authorial voice that could give a straightforward answer to the question of the prevailing power to Jefferson whether it is reason or passions. The question about the winner of the argument is still not answered for certain, and we can only draw conclusions based on some textual clues.