The Life And Legacy Of Thomas Paine

This essay is meek analysis of the presentation of the legacy brought from the writings of the famous journalist known as Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was a man who could write with wisdom and with reason. He was a very intelligent and influential man back in the 18th-century. He was a man who is known for many quotes. In the biographies Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine by Alfred Owen Aldridge and Thomas Paine by Robin McKown both represented his main writings and his contributions that he brought to influence the American Revolution, and helped pave the way for the Declaration of Independence. The two biographies relay similar – although sometimes a variance. However, the endings of the two biographies portray the man of his accomplishments, and his writings (primarily his writing of Common Sense along with many others) in a somewhat same view of the same light. According to Alfred Owen Aldridge, Thomas Paine was a man who stood out in the literature and history of the eighteenth century as one of the luminaries of both the American and French revolutions. To Robin McKown, Thomas Paine was a man ahead of his time, an advocate of women’s rights, civil liberties and hero of the American Revolution.

Alfred Owen Aldridge was a native of Buffalo, New York, and holds a total of 4 degrees from different universities. He was a professor of English at the University of Maryland, and also taught at many other colleges. He was a very influential writer and his articles had appeared in many publications. Alfred Owen Aldridge was into the history behind The American Enlightenment. Mainly his works were about the people associated during that time period such as Benjamin Franklin, Johnathan Edwards and Thomas Paine. He wrote more about the life of Thomas Paine because of Thomas Paine’s history and legacy. The A. Owen Aldridge Prize was established in his memory. In Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine Mr. Aldridge states that this biography will do much to disperse the mythology that has gathered about the name of Thomas Paine. However, the author Robin McKown was a writer ahead of her time.

Robin McKown was born in Denver, Colorado and attended three different universities. She sold her fist one-act play to a literary magazine while she was still in college, and later won a drama prize at the University of Illinois. She was a prolific writer who published more than 40 works for children and young adults from the late 1950s through the 1970s. Many of these were biographies of famous citizens such as Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt and Thomas Paine, along with many others. Thomas Paine was written because she craved knowledge about the past and wanted to present it in a way that her audience would understand. She lived in New York City for the rest of her life where she observed art, and tied her interest in art into her books. She described Thomas Paine’s life in more detail, as an artist would describe their painting in the fine lines illustrated in the art. For example, the world of Thomas Paine’s childhood was a quaint village of gray brick houses called Thetford. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She worked for several years for a publicist in New York. She also wrote newspaper columns on contemporary authors and their work and scripts for CBS radio. She liked to write about history and the backgrounds of famous people in broader detail.

Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine re-creates Paine’s stormy life as a paradoxical one of alternating acclaim and rejection by a fickle public in three countries. The first to call publicly for American independence and a constitutional convention, Thomas Paine was given no voice in drawing up either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. He campaigned for popular rights in England; and, as his books circulated by the thousands the British government hounded him from the country. Basing this biography on his through research of newly discovered manuscript and printed sources, Alfred Owen Aldridge has been able to give important new insights into the man who was one of the most eloquent defenders of humanity but who died in lonely obscurity, unrecognized and unrewarded.

In Thomas Paine by Robin McKnown, is an absorbing story of Thomas Paine, who at the age of thirty seven left his native England for America and became the inspiration of a revolution by his literary contributions. Paine was a man who promoted human rights like no other human could possibly accomplish at the time, with common sense where a simple farmer could understand. Robin McKown treats all the aspects of Paine’s many-faceted life: his first great pamphlet Common Sense which converted many colonists to the cause of independence; his fight against the British as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene; his writing of the famous political tracts, The American Crisis; his active participation in the social upheavals of Europe. The history and visual of the eighteenth century is brought to life by the works of Robin McKnown.

These two biographies both agreed on how authoritative and determined Thomas Paine was, both in person and in his writings to aid what was happening during his time period. Although Paine was at times short-sighted, at times vain, he made an imposing contribution to the foundation of the United States. He was one of the greatest promoters of Human Rights. He helped the American Revolution to succeed. He was an important influence during the French Revolution as well. He promoted votes for all (men) and fairer representation in parliament and he challenged religious dogma and helped to promote the idea of freedom of conscience.

Only one author argued on the fact that Thomas Paine’s life was glorious but was also tragic in some ways. Robin McKown came to the conclusion that out of all the heroes of the American Revolution, none had been treated more neglectfully than Thomas Paine. Paine apprenticed for his father but dreamed of a naval career, attempting once at age 16 to sign onto a ship called The Terrible, commanded by someone named Captain Death, but Paine’s father introverted. Paine had recently been dismissed as a tax collector, for leaving his post for three months to petition Parliament for better pay for his fellow excise officers. The loss of his job led to the severe and tragic breakup of his second marriage. Paine met Benjamin Franklin, who is believed to have persuaded Paine to immigrate to America, providing Paine with a letter of introduction. Three months later, Paine was on a ship to America, nearly dying from a bout of scurvy.

Both authors throughout their bibliography emphasize how special Paine was throughout his journey of life, but Mrs. McKown wrote about a few negative imputes during Paine’s life in broader detail than Alfred Owen Aldridge. Where Alfred Owen Aldridge wrote strictly the facts of the positive insights of Thomas Paine’s life with slim detail of the negatives. Paine spoke to Thibaudeau about the principles of his work and sent him a letter (6 June 1795) to persuade his colleagues to revive the equalitarian spirit of the Revolution. Since Thomas Paine lived at the time of war which really aided his reasons to write, both authors indicate in the same perspective that because of this time period it helped Paine gain some form of fame even with a few bumps in the road.

Alfred Owen Aldridge, despite a strong thread of vanity in Paine’s personality and an obvious sentiment of self-satisfaction concerning the prestige and influence of his own literary works, Paine probably undertook his political writing for the good it would accomplish, not for personal glory and fame. According to Alfred, Paine even believed that he would have preferred a life of retirement, withdrawn from political turmoil and agitation.

Both authors make the same connection that Paine’s works were a Well-charted tradition in drawing the parallel between natural law and region, but struck out independently in extending the notion of first principles to politics and economics. Paine’s great influence came as a result of his journalistic style- the compelling manner in which he wrote. Paine’s concepts were revolutionary for his time, it is true, but they also rested on an appeal to a sense of permanence, of the absolute nature of things. Paine had made many mistakes in his career-but his principles themselves have endured and triumphed and represent the most effective vindication of his life.

Throughout the 2 bibliography’s both authors agree on more things than they do disagree: they share the common view that Thomas Paine was an influential philosopher and writer who served in America as a soldier; they both agree and ask the question that without the works of Paine would the revolution be the way it turned out to be. Undoubtedly there is some truth in both author’s presentation of the true character of Thomas Paine. Nevertheless, both authors differ in their approaches and their eventual conclusions on how influential and talented Thomas Paine really was. One author describes Thomas Paine’s life with a more descriptive emphasis which provides the reader to visualize while the other author gets straight to the facts and how Paine’s life around his works was marvelously expressed with slim visual detail. However, both authors ultimately end up acknowledging in their own ways that Thomas Paine was an influential hero presented in their biographies.