Post Six - Tate

Où sont les Français?

In Jefferson’s Commonplace Book, Jefferson includes a multitude of English, Roman, Scottish, and Greek poets. To my surprise though, Jefferson only includes one French poet, Jean Racine. In Wilson’s “Register of Authors,” he notes that French was the first foreign language that Jefferson learned and that he deemed it “ ‘ an indispensable part of education’ “d (179). It is even more surprising that Jefferson recommends Racine for the “education of women” while mentioning Molière and Corneille, but not including them in his book (179). To explain this, I think that Jefferson leaves out authors and poets he actually enjoys to show the spectrum of his collection and intellectual capacities.

One of the biggest indicators that Jefferson’s Commonplace Book doesn’t represent his ideologies and values is the discrepancies between some of his choices versus his actions. For instance, when we look at Lucius Annaeus Seneca, author of “Syllabus of an estimate of the merit of the doctrines of Jesus, compared with others,” criticizes the heathen moralists, those who believe that God has power over the natural world.Wilson goes on to explain that Seneca, despite his focus on using antithesis and Stoicisms, is regarded well by Jefferson for his “practical morality” (180). It is definitely convenient that Jefferson believes that he will not face any consequences, at least from God, for having slaves and maintaining racism. As a Christian, one would think that he would have sort of reservation about his actions, but instead he finds justifications for his abhorrent behavior. Further than that, he adores Seneca and poets like Euripides for their morals, and says to follow them, but his biography suggests no such thing. Altogether, Jefferson’s contradictions solidify the notion that the works he selected for his book aren’t an accurate depiction of his character, but rather an effort to demonstrate his acumen.

Works Cited

Jefferson, T. (1989). Jefferson's literary commonplace book. (D. Wilson , Ed.). Princeton , NJ: Princeton University Press.