Jefferson, Thomas. (1743 - 1826).
L i f e
- versatile personality: a diplomat, statesman, architect, environmental planner, scientist, politician, and theorist of education
- received university education:
(a) < Dr William Small
(b) < the Scottish Common Sense school
- shed the orthodox heritage, embraced Deism, and believed in moral sense as man’s highest faculty equally present to all
- as an architect designed the estate Monticello, took part in the plan for the nation’s Congress, and designed the University of Virginia
- governor of Virginia >> member of Congress >> member of G. Washington’s Cabinet > Vice-President under J. Adams > President for 2 terms
W o r k
A Summary View of the Rights of British America:
- defended colonial rights
“The Declaration of Independence as Adopted by Congress”:
- ‘an expression of the American mind’ = the common sense
- states the self-evident truths coming from nature/God: all men created equal with unalienable Rights for Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness
- founds the principal equality in the most fundamental aspects of life
- defends religious freedom, and abolition of slavery (his half-a-life-long relationship with the slave woman Sally Hemings)
Notes on Virginia:
- his major work of natural science
- defends America against the widely held Eurupean view of America being an unhealthy place causing degeneration of its species
Quote
"What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong".
Jefferson's Axiom.
Basics
(Picture: Wikimedia Commons).
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Author
Thomas Jefferson. (1743 - 1826). American. -
Work
Politician. US President. Author of "The Declaration of Independence" (1776). -
Genres
Political writing. Scientific writing.
Literature
Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. London: Penguin, 1991.
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1994.
McQuade, Donald, gen.ed. The Harper American Literature. New York: Harper & Collins, 1996.
Ruland, Richard, Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.
Vančura, Zdeněk, ed. Slovník spisovatelů: Spojené státy americké. Praha: Odeon, 1979.